Interesting. So 04-06 red is more rare than Navy blue or Citrus... TIL.

 

AfterEffect gave me the okay to hijack this thread.

He reached out to me a few weeks ago about the count of Royal Navy Blue Insights for the US market. I gave him the count and eventually mentioned that I have the full* count for the US cars. Because I scraped all of the data manually instead of using a script like he did, I decided to take a break from it once I was 99.9% done. I was basically reverse-engineering the majority of the VINs, then inputting them on a website to gather the color. Programming and I don't get along well, so I did this the hard way for three and a half years.

*There was one car that would not show up for me on Honda's database while searching for the color. Occasionally, this would happen, and I would try again. This usually works after a day or seven, but this particular car gave me zero results with the three possible VINs; however, one VIN did show up on Carfax.

AfterEffect reached out to me today about it, and I looked again. Today, two of the possible VINs appeared on Carfax. I initially told him I wouldn't sleep soundly publishing the data until it was confirmed what the correct color was for that particular car, but turns out the VIN I had was wrong.

JHMZE13551T001181 shows reports from 2001 through 2024, most of which are from Bellingham, Washington. In 2024, it is reported that it is still around in Washington.

I had thought JHMZE13731T001181 was the correct car since it was the only one that appeared at the time of reverse engineering. It shows 12 reports from 2010 through 2012, all from Sims Honda in Burlington, Washington. Originally, I had a friend who had his friend look it up, and I only saw bits of the report. We were out, so this was low priority for me at the time. Today, I was able to see the full report to investigate thoroughly.

It was determined that JHMZE13551T001181 is the correct car in this instance. Why there are two cars on Carfax for this serial number is beyond me. The bigger headscratcher is that the mileage does not add up at all.

The screenshot below is from the report of JHMZE13731T001181, which is the incorrect car:

and the correct car, JHMZE13551T001181:

With all of that said, this is the data I have come up with. AfterEffect and I will eventually compare notes to see why we have different numbers.

 

Why there are two cars on Carfax for this serial number is beyond me.

Both numbers appear legit on here:

https://www.hondapartsconnection.com/honda-vin-decoder

Fake VINs result in an error.

Somebody needs to find the #1181 cars!

 

I see what could be a couple of inconsistencies, but it looks like our data is 99.9% in agreement. That's great verification!

I just finished building a dashboard page to display all the info, a VIN lookup page, and I am finalizing an entry form. I need to import my '00 VIN list to the database and do some final bug fixing before providing the link, but here is a sample:

 

Is 1181 missing from the 2000 or 2002 MY cars? I'm not sure if it's possible for a body to change MY once it's made, but what else could it be?

 

What is the first serial number for US CVTs in 2001? The electrical troubleshooting manual refers to "late 2001". Is 1181 the last MT and first CVT (someone forgot to bump the serial number after changing the drivetrain type in the VIN?)

(Or more generically, are the CVT and MT serial numbers intermingled or are they in groups impling a factory changeover from one to the other?)

 

Both numbers appear legit on here:

https://www.hondapartsconnection.com/honda-vin-decoder

Fake VINs result in an error.

Somebody needs to find the #1181 cars!

I think if you get the check digit correct, it'll still go through.

The example below is VIN JHMZE14751T001181, which does not exist in the real world.

Is 1181 missing from the 2000 or 2002 MY cars? I'm not sure if it's possible for a body to change MY once it's made, but what else could it be?

Both exist and gave me no problems initially in the project.

The changes you mention occur within the VIN when the serial is reset to 000001.

What is the first serial number for US CVTs in 2001? The electrical troubleshooting manual refers to "late 2001". Is 1181 the last MT and first CVT (someone forgot to bump the serial number after changing the drivetrain type in the VIN?)

(Or more generically, are the CVT and MT serial numbers intermingled or are they in groups impling a factory changeover from one to the other?)

The entire 2001MY list goes like this:

Literally the first one (1T000001) is CVT.

The rest are manuals until:

1T001924
1T001926 straight through 1T001993
1T001995 straight through 1T002149
1T002151 straight through 1T003426.

The gaps in the serial do not have any VIN attached to them. There are also gaps in the manuals, but that's irrelevant in this conversation.

So when the manual refers to "late 2001," it is very likely they are literally referring to the late 2001 cars.

 

The first CVT VIN I see in 2001 is JHMZE14731T001924. Interestingly there are a few gaps in the data around that same area. Where my data differs from Julians is I show no valid VINs for 1-3, meaning the first valid VIN is JHMZE13791T000004.

Ask a Honda technician to run JHMZE14751T000001 in one of their systems (I think this one in particular was under an internal parts catalog) and it will show up. There was no history of it being sold, though. I had a friend who was willing to help me on this project to find certain cars to determine whether they existed or not.

My data also shows 1T000002 and 1T000003 as blank.

I am using Hondas data as the authority, and using Carfax for supplemental data, where I think he is considering a VIN valid if Honda shows it not to exist but Carfax has an entry for it. We will eventually need to determine which is the best approach.

I consider Honda the authority as the manufacturer, whereas Carfax data can be incorrect. Maybe this is the wrong approach, but two VINs in the same year with the same sequential VIN should be impossible.

When I originally reverse-engineered VINs, I would run the three possible VINs through then-NHTSA's Check Digit Calculator, then run them on Carfax to see which VIN generated reports. When I found Honda's MyGarage, I went straight there instead of going to Carfax. When MyGarage gave me errors, I would resort to Carfax and circle back later on Honda's website, which usually worked until Carfax showed incorrect data for 1T001181. If MyGarage still showed me errors, I would ask my friend to see what they could see on their side. Part of that was why I would take long breaks from the project.

TLDR: The data for some of the cars you don't have are still from Honda, just not on the public side.

 

When I originally reverse-engineered VINs, I would run the three possible VINs through then-NHTSA's Check Digit Calculator, then run them on Carfax to see which VIN generated reports.

That sounds absolutely exhausting to do manually, I am so sorry...

 

Neat stuff. It's interesting to see the accelerating decline in sales from 2000 to 2004 before stabilizing at 10% of peak annual sales in '04. Must have been pretty disappointing after all the development effort. The low-cost interior color swap did nothing to stop the decline in 2004.

but if there are any suggestions for the portal, please don't hesitate to ask.

Besides the number of totaled Insights, it would be interesting to see the # of insights by state last registered in.

 

Besides the number of totaled Insights, it would be interesting to see the # of insights by state last registered in.

Before AfterEffect told me he had similar goals on a website, my idea was to make an annual FOIA request to all 50 states' DMVs, asking how many 2000-2006 Insights are registered, and then compile the results in a table.

Now that he is further ahead on a website than I am, or at least I assume he is, maybe he can take the idea for his website. Or maybe we'll join forces. For me, this whole project was never meant to be this extensive, and honestly, it will take a lot of time and effort on my end for a passion project to come to fruition. Now that I know someone else is equally crazy, I'm feeling a little lazy. I only have an outline of how I would like a website to be.

 

Instead, you decided to do it literally weeks after I finished all of it.

In my defense, I didn't know someone was working on it until I had it ~80% complete.

Besides the number of totaled Insights, it would be interesting to see the # of insights by state last registered in.

This isn't information that we can get without a lot more work, as Julian mentioned above. We could also do mass Carfax reports via an API but I'm not paying for that out of my own pocket...

Now that he is further ahead on a website than I am, or at least I assume he is, maybe he can take the idea for his website.

I'm just about done with the MVP. The data is all imported and the code is done, I'm just testing before release. I'll send you a link so you can check it out.

 

We could also do mass Carfax reports via an API but I'm not paying for that out of my own pocket...

Definitely not. There are some free websites that VIN check and provide some info. I wonder if they show where the car is last registered without paying. Then you could just write a script or even an AutoIT program to pull enter VINs, pull data, and write to excel or something.

Then again, I don't know how feasible that is, just enough to probably sound stupid to someone who does know when it comes to macros and task automation.

 

I had a friend make a script that gathered colors, which briefly worked. I will give him credit, as it worked for a lot of the 2000MY cars, but it ran on information I already had, which were the reverse-engineered VINs.

This makes a lot of sense. Honda changed their naming conventions a few times, which forced me to write a pretty complex script to account for all variations. I found the script to grab data directly from Honda was a lot more reliable than getting data from Google. Their API doesn't have a full index, and they have very thorough anti-bot measures for their web search...

Definitely not. There are some free websites that VIN check and provide some info.

Great idea, but I haven't seen any sites that provide enough info for that to be worthwhile. I'd love to be proven wrong though.

 

I'm spending a bit more time fleshing out the website before release. I have added a few new features such as photo upload, VIN check digit verification (for people like @Balto who can't remember their actual VIN and blame my code), a limit of 999,999 miles on the odometer, and a few other backend changes. I will be adding a "verified" flag to monitor for spam and troll posts, and an admin panel as well. This is growing a little larger than I had hoped...

 

I know this is WAY out of scope, but a feature request: a Stack Overflow-like section for Insight questions. Yeah, totally different thing. But seeing the word "posts", I thought of this, something I wish for every time I am searching a huge thread for some arcane tidbit of information.

Oh, and this is AWESOME by the way! And a tip of the hat to @julianachos for all the manual verification!!!!!

 

Finally ready for full release! Check out the registry here:

https://www.tinkergear.com/insight/dashboard.html

To update your car in the registry, search your VIN on the dashboard or go here:

https://tinkergear.com/insight/register_entry.html

Please let me know if anything breaks or if you have any suggestions.

EDIT: Canadian market VINs are now supported, courtesy of @julianachos

 

Super awesome, great to finally see this data all in one place.

mods, I nominate this post for a sticky.

Please let me know if anything breaks or if you have any suggestions.

Add an option for "I don't know mileage". This will help us document junkyard cars without random "123456" or "999999" mileage entries.

I feel like the registry update page should auto-populate with any given VIN's existing entry data.

I'd love to see all the public VIN info available publicly. Or should we just scrape your website? .

Would be neat to see the "Registry by Color" and related circle graphs update dynamically based on model year selection.

Can we add a "license plate" entry on the registry update page...
...and then eventually a "search by license plate" feature? Would go well with Pete's "I saw an Insight at..." post.

I didn't want to require users to create an account or share their personal information just to be able to update their VIN.

For LiBCM, I've managed to prevent bot submissions by asking the question "what is this site's owner's insightcentral.net handle?" And then hyperlink it to your profile.

...

Thoughts on the data:
-I (incorrectly) thought that silver and red production numbers were approximately equal, whereas this dataset shows a 3:1 ratio between silver:red.
-I'm amazed that nearly 1 in 4 cars didn't have AC.
-Do we really only expect that QTY6010 G1 Insights are still roadworthy? How is this estimate calculated? If this number is close, then there are ~QTY50000 non-Insights on the road for every lonely G1 Honda Insight. Sad 52 Hz whale tone!
-WOW, production is only QTY3 on MY2003 Canadian Insights!
-Am I reading the data correctly that ALL Canadian Insights were MT... and had air conditioning? That's what the bar crash suggests. Seems wrong.
-My daily driver JHMZE13581T001563 is marked "without A/C", but I believe it has the factory installed A/C. How do I tell if my MY2001 AC is factory or dealer installed?

...

How 'useful' would blanket CarFax data actually be for every VIN?
Would this cost a few thousand dollars?

 

Should the registry update automatically? Mine doesn't update with the submitted info.
JHMZE1377YT005342

Edit: Never mind! I see that it will be reviewed first! 🙃

 

Should the registry update automatically? Mine doesn't update with the submitted info.
JHMZE1377YT005342

Just approved the pending entries. All of them run through a review process, since there is a significant risk of bots or trolls poisoning the data or uploading questionable material with how I have it configured. I didn't want to require users to create an account or share their personal information just to be able to update their VIN.

 

thanks for compiling all this info, Mike. very helpful! i'm the recently joined member who is the original owner of the '06 Silverstone Metallic CVT w/56K miles on it w/serial #678. when we spoke on the phone you mentioned Honda may have had some "gaps" in their vin #s if i understood you correctly. do you have any insight( sorry, LOL) as to why honda had these gaps? Britney mentioned you might be getting a canadian aquamarine car. if so, what do you know of its history & maintenance & is it a nice, running car?

 

you mentioned Honda may have had some "gaps" in their vin #s if i understood you correctly. do you have any insight( sorry, LOL) as to why honda had these gaps?

Most of the gaps were early vehicles in 2000, likely test/crash cars. There are some other small gaps, which seem to be cars that were produced, but were not sold for one reason or another. Julian may know more about this than I do.

 

My takeaway from the website was that 2001 was the year of the thunderdome for the Honda Insight.

Baseless speculation: unidentified eccentric oil tycoon billionaire and prolific hybrid car hater buys majority of available US stock in 2001 to host the world's first private hybrid car destruction derby.

 

I've never seen a Canadian CVT Insight. Manuals are more popular in Canada than in the States so it would make sense Honda didn't offer the CVT there.

 

when we spoke on the phone you mentioned Honda may have had some "gaps" in their vin #s if i understood you correctly. do you have any insight( sorry, LOL) as to why honda had these gaps?

Most of the gaps were early vehicles in 2000, likely test/crash cars. There are some other small gaps, which seem to be cars that were produced, but were not sold for one reason or another. Julian may know more about this than I do.

I'm not speaking for Honda on this one, but I will say this about what I have learned outside of Honda. Don't ask me the details on this one - I know it sounds very "trust me bro." I will, however, explain some things below related to this project, since it was done with mostly public information.

My assumption for the 2000MY gaps (especially the huge ones from YT000001 through YT000043) is that they were either test cars meant to stay close to American Honda, were then immediately scrapped and/or were once pre-production press cars. For all we know, there might be a VIN for that car, but there is no way to find out unless you had internal access in 1999 when everything was in the moment. There really is no rhyme or reason behind this bit, as it probably wasn't intended to be questioned.*

The smaller gaps that AfterEffect mentions might be cars that were pulled off the production line for either testing or QC purposes and were never sold, or for special occasions. I once saw a vehicle at a Toronto auto show, and a year later, I personally helped dismantle that very same car in the States because it was a vehicle marked as a pre-production model. With that said, it was requested by the manufacturer to be scrapped and never sold to the public. I remember the VIN not being anything special, such as a low serial number, which I've seen multiple pre-production cars in similar positions before.

The VINs of the cars that did appear through reverse engineering and some method of verification or digital bread crumb have been scrapped during the production years were likely pre-production press cars if I had to guess. These are the cars that did appear in the YT000001 through YT000043 gap.**

*Here is some evidence that backs up my statement, since this was all done in a public-ish setting.

Below is a photo of a 2021 Acura RDX PMC Edition that was parked outside of Acura PMC and its VIN tag.

If you were to run that VIN on Carfax and Acura's MyGarage portal, nothing would show up. When you find a standard '21 RDX PMC, like this one for sale, you'll notice the VIN is a little different. Searching the VIN on the two websites mentioned will generate a result.

The 9th position (green) is a check digit, which the orange car has the correct calculation. What sticks out for me is the 11th, 13th, and 14th position.

For the 11th position, L designates the East Liberty, Ohio plant, which is around the corner from the Marysville plant. Y is seen on second-generation NSXs like this one. From my quick passive searching, I've only seen RDX PMCs with L in the 11th position.

The 13th and 14th position pattern from the orange car was not found in other RDX PMCs I've seen for sale.

TLDR: VINs that return zero results may actually exist, but are meant for some sort of internal use only.

** Here is another example, but with results that would appear. This car is also under Acura's possession.

Interestingly enough, this particular NSX resembles a Type-S, which was released in 2022, even though the VIN shows it is a 2017 model. For all we know, maybe the dashboard was swapped in to make the car complete - just speculating here.

With the above statements said and again, things like this just kind of exist with no real logic behind VIN patterns, etc. with pre-production cars if there is a VIN result. I have photos of another NSX in a similar fashion, but with an odd VIN like the RDX. That one sports a 2019MY VIN, which returns no results on Carfax and Acura's portal.

TLDR: The whole thing about the pre-production cars is a weird gray area. The random VINs I found such as 1T000001 that AfterEffect couldn't find, probably aren't counted in the sales figure that Honda reported. Do note I managed to uncover more VINs than the sales figure.

I know these cars fall outside the gap mentioned above, but hear me out on my rambling for the sake of science. According to my notes, Insight YT000050 generated four Carfax reports. On a similar website, there was a note indicating it was a corporate fleet vehicle, which later received a salvage title in 2003 - it is likely scrapped. YT000059 was featured at the 2000 North American International Auto Show, which has a Monroney label and one Carfax history report that mentions AHM.

 

Canadian 2001 with VIN 800001 is SawBite, which Honda gave to the Canadian government for testing, and was never sold. So, maybe something similar was done with American 2000 VIN 000001?

Most of the gaps were early vehicles in 2000, likely test/crash cars.

YT000333 has three Carfax reports, which initially was a car I had no issue finding. This one is interesting, though. It was sold to a government contracting company called KARCO Engineering, which performed the crash testing for NHTSA. With that said, I don't think this explains the gaps such as 1T000001 or even YT000001.

1T800001 (Sawbite) has nine Carfax reports. AfterEffect can attest to this since he is the only other person with that data, but I found 409 VINs for Canada. The reported sales figure was 399. Those ten cars generated a VIN despite not appearing on Carfax, however they were found through an internal source.

Sawbite was not one of those ten cars.

I'd love to see all the public VIN info available publicly. Or should we just scrape your website? .

@AfterEffect: he might be an exception in our one conversation earlier regarding security. Good luck.

Maybe when I visit and you ask nicely, I will show you the findings. I showed a few people at the Frederick meet and InsightFest last year. I am waiting for AfterEffect to verify my manually found data using a script, since he did find one incorrect VIN on my sheet, to my knowledge at the time of posting this.

Thoughts on the data:
-Do we really only expect that QTY6010 G1 Insights are still roadworthy? How is this estimate calculated? If this number is close, then there are ~QTY50000 non-Insights on the road for every lonely G1 Honda Insight. Sad 52 Hz whale tone!

I mentioned FOIA requests in post 14 that I was originally going to do; however, I decided to hand the torch to AfterEffect to deal with all of that. I hate to rain on the parade here going, "wELL aCkcHyuALLy," but that data supplied by the DMVs/MVAs/RMVs/(insert whatever acronym here) will only show what is registered, not what is truly out in the wild - similar to the UK-based website "How Many Left." I'm sure we can think of a few people here who have Insights that could theoretically be on the road, but aren't.

-Am I reading the data correctly that ALL Canadian Insights were MT... and had air conditioning?

Correct.

-My daily driver JHMZE13581T001563 is marked "without A/C", but I believe it has the factory installed A/C. How do I tell if my MY2001 AC is factory or dealer installed?

Under the hood somewhere should bear a sticker that looks like this, added by a dealer technician. I pulled it off a car at the junkyard that had a 5 in the 8th position of the VIN.

The VIN alone is a clear-cut answer to the installation method, full stop.

How 'useful' would blanket CarFax data actually be for every VIN?
Would this cost a few thousand dollars?

In my honest opinion, blanket Carfax data would be great to determine what Insights have recent (~3 years) reports to determine what is on the road and what isn't. I was using Orto in the early days of this project and found a number of 2000MY cars that had recent reports at the time. Orto was an app that generated reports just like Carfax. I ran a few VINs on both Orto and Carfax at the time, and both produced the same data. It cost me a one-time fee of something along the lines of $9.99 for unlimited entries, but it stopped working after a few months of me paying for it.

I got as far as YT000352, which means I found 126 cars that, in theory, were driving at the time. This was using the ~3-year criteria.

To keep the data consistent, reports will likely need to be run on the cars with said recent data to see if/when they fall off. The other fault I see in this is what if a car that was once brushed off, thinking it was done, decides to come back from the dead? I can't genuinely answer whether it'd be worth the hassle.

Here are the prices for the general public:

I believe dealers have the option to have an unlimited plan, but I'm sure the cost isn't cheap. I think the plan is on a month-to-month basis, but don't quote me on it.

 

@AfterEffect or @julianachos

Does the serial number and CVT vs MT (or for that matter, whether or not it has AC, or the color) match any pattern like "today/this month we are making CVTs" or "today all cars are red"?

Does this differ at the beginning of the model year?

Is there a VIN 0001 for 2004? I have 0002, and there is evidence suggesting that it was used for tuning or testing before it was sold.

What is the VIN of the first MT of 2004?

And finally, what is the VIN of the first US CVT in 2001? Were any MTs made after that CVT in 2004? (This last one is to answer a question I've had for a long time: why does the Electrical Troubleshooting Manual discern list "late 2001" for changes in the air fuel ratio sensor? All CVTs (AFAIK) use a Denso four-wire sensor, while MTs from 2002 on use the Denso (a rectangular black module inside the ECM that handles the AFR sensor is also marked Denso; in the 00-01 MTs it is a green potted module.) Wondering if the changeover to Denso for MTs might have happened in late 2001 for a few cars or if "late 2001" really means "2001 CVT".)

Finally finally, many people with project or parts cars (like me) won't be able to update the registry since mileage is a required field and the car requires a working 12V battery or an instrument cluster to read the mileage. (A "rough estimate" checkbox for those???)

 

Does the serial number and CVT vs MT (or for that matter, whether or not it has AC, or the color) match any pattern like "today/this month we are making CVTs" or "today all cars are red"?

Does this differ at the beginning of the model year?

I noticed patterns of one color being made, then having various configurations of manual/base, manual/AC, and/or CVT, if that makes any sense. The serial number had no deciding factor from what I have seen. There were some stretches of manual/base, manual/AC, and/or CVT in various colors, but the colors seem to come first.

To directly answer your question, my guess is they would go, "We are making all red cars today, but mix them up."

At the beginning of the model years, it tends to follow the above. Sometimes the string of one color only has one 7th and 8th position VIN combo.

Is there a VIN 0001 for 2004? I have 0002, and there is evidence suggesting that it was used for tuning or testing before it was sold.

There is no VIN for 4T000001.

What is the VIN of the first MT of 2004?

4T000007.

And finally, what is the VIN of the first US CVT in 2001? Were any MTs made after that CVT in 2004? (This last one is to answer a question I've had for a long time: why does the Electrical Troubleshooting Manual discern list "late 2001" for changes in the air fuel ratio sensor? All CVTs (AFAIK) use a Denso four-wire sensor, while MTs from 2002 on use the Denso (a rectangular black module inside the ECM that handles the AFR sensor is also marked Denso; in the 00-01 MTs it is a green potted module.) Wondering if the changeover to Denso for MTs might have happened in late 2001 for a few cars or if "late 2001" really means "2001 CVT".)

See posts 3 and 8.

 

See posts 3 and 8.

I asked this less than a week ago? I am losing my mind.

Thanks for the info. I guess I have #1 from the 2004 model year. And it is a rare color, Navy Blue. Sadly, it lived in Rustvillle USA previously. I pulled the transmission to replace the urea grease and check the splines. I better put it back together!

 

Great stuff! Regarding your observation of gaps in the 2000MY VINs, you may find some of these when you get to EU or JP cars? We have JHMZE1350YT000032 (has A/C fitted) but it fails your check digit test. It was first owned by Honda UK and went to JOHN WILDING HONDA in Kendal, Cumbria.

 

I don’t think either of us will be able to get an extensive list with those two markets like we did with the North American cars, however I mentioned to AfterEffect that it was a good idea to collect the data, even though his registry currently does not support it.

Only the North American cars have the check digit in the VIN. This is the way with many cars, if not all.

 

Thanks. Odd that the check digit isn't global! Be very happy to help collect the data. Note that we don't have a build date on the door pillar either.

 

I'm with @mudder, all the vins should be available to the public. It's not 'sensitive' information and I'm not sure where this unguided notion is coming from. I can walk up to any car, like Julian did at the Honda dealer, and get vins, why is this information being kept like the ark of the covenant? Lol

Also, CarFax's can be had for a WHOLE lot cheaper than that. There are many Russian websites that sell CarFax's for 2-4$ea.

 

It sounds like I need to either make mileage not required (easiest) or add an "unknown" option. That field is locked to numerical values, so I may go with option 1.

We have JHMZE1350YT000032 (has A/C fitted) but it fails your check digit test.

This is interesting. I was working under the assumption that UK vehicles should have a "2" in the 12th position of the VIN, which that VIN does not. It certainly fails the check.
The check digit for US vehicles is calculated using a weighted sum of the other 16 VIN characters, with letters transliterated to numbers. (A to 1, B to 2, etc). The sum is divided by 11, and the remainder becomes the check digit. If the remainder is 10, the check digit is represented as X so it remains a single character.
If that VIN were a US car, the check digit would be 5.

That is also not a VIN that exists in my US data. I wonder if some of the sequential VINs just didn't get a check digit, and were sent to the UK?

Is there a VIN 0001 for 2004? I have 0002, and there is evidence suggesting that it was used for tuning or testing before it was sold.

I also don't have a VIN 0001 for 04. My data agrees that 0007 is the first MT. I own 0023, which is the 10th Navy Blue. It is also a CVT.

I'm with @mudder, all the vins should be available to the public.

I can't speak for Julians data, but my only concern with releasing the VIN list was that it could piss off a few people and limit engagement. If that is not the case, I have no issue releasing a sanitized list of VINs with their associated colors. Some of the other data I am collecting could be "sensitive",so I will only be showing it in graph form if at all.

I believe dealers have the option to have an unlimited plan, but I'm sure the cost isn't cheap. I think the plan is on a month-to-month basis, but don't quote me on it.

Also, CarFax's can be had for a WHOLE lot cheaper than that. There are many Russian websites that sell CarFax's for 2-4$ea.

I have some previous experience working with Carfax and other providers. We could sign up for an API account, and request certain "groups" of data points. The price per report depends on how many groups you want per VIN. I'm sure I could get it down to ~$1/VIN for the data we need, but that's still $14k. I'm not paying that out of pocket, and I don't want to monetize the registry.

 

It sounds like I need to either make mileage not required (easiest) or add an "unknown" option. That field is locked to numerical values, so I may go with option 1.




This is interesting. I was working under the assumption that UK vehicles should have a "2" in the 12th position of the VIN, which that VIN does not. It certainly fails the check.
The check digit for US vehicles is calculated using a weighted sum of the other 16 VIN characters, with letters transliterated to numbers. (A to 1, B to 2, etc). The sum is divided by 11, and the remainder becomes the check digit. If the remainder is 10, the check digit is represented as X so it remains a single character.
If that VIN were a US car, the check digit would be 5.

That is also not a VIN that exists in my US data. I wonder if some of the sequential VINs just didn't get a check digit, and were sent to the UK?



I also don't have a VIN 0001 for 04. My data agrees that 0007 is the first MT. I own 0023, which is the 10th Navy Blue. It is also a CVT.



I can't speak for Julians data, but my only concern with releasing the VIN list was that it could piss off a few people and limit engagement. If that is not the case, I have no issue releasing a sanitized list of VINs with their associated colors. Some of the other data I am collecting could be "sensitive",so I will only be showing it in graph form if at all.






I have some previous experience working with Carfax and other providers. We could sign up for an API account, and request certain "groups" of data points. The price per report depends on how many groups you want per VIN. I'm sure I could get it down to ~$1/VIN for the data we need, but that's still $14k. I'm not paying that out of pocket, and I don't want to monetize the registry.

Nobody is going to get upset the vins are available. Lol. Again, unguided notion.

Removing the mileage section from the form would be a mistake. All junked cars with no mileage can simply assume the 000000 mileage number.