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Recalls Watch

Recall lookup by VIN

Type the VIN and see the NHTSA recall campaigns for that exact model and year. This page tells you which campaigns exist for the model; only NHTSA can tell whether your car has one open.

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17 letters and digits. It goes from your browser to the NHTSA decoder and is not stored by this site.

What a VIN lookup can and cannot tell you

There are two different questions. “Which recalls exist for my model?” can be answered from public data, and this page answers it. “Does my car still need a recall repair?” depends on records the manufacturers keep for each vehicle: whether your VIN falls inside the affected production range and whether a dealer already did the work. NHTSA offers that search on its own site and does not make it available to other sites.

So the honest use of this page is as a first pass. It decodes the VIN with vPIC, the public decoder of NHTSA, which reads the make, model, year and plant from the characters. Then it lists the campaigns filed for that model and year. Take the campaign numbers that look relevant to nhtsa.gov/recalls or to a dealer, and they will tell you which ones apply to your vehicle.

Where to find the VIN

  • At the base of the windshield on the driver side, read from outside the car.
  • On the label in the driver door jamb, next to tire pressures and the build date.
  • On the registration card, the title and the insurance card.

What the 17 characters mean

The first three identify the manufacturer and country. Characters four to eight describe the vehicle: model, body, engine and restraint system. The ninth is a check digit calculated from the others, which is how a typing mistake is caught. The tenth is the model year, the eleventh the plant, and the last six the serial number.

Lower corner of a windshield with the metal VIN plate on the dashboard, seen from outside the car
The VIN plate sits on the dashboard at the base of the windshield, driver side. Illustration: the plate is left blank on purpose.

Questions and answers

Does this page tell me if my VIN has an open recall?

No, and no public data service does. The official VIN recall search exists only on nhtsa.gov and on manufacturer sites. This page decodes the VIN with vPIC, the VIN decoder of NHTSA, and lists the recall campaigns NHTSA publishes for the decoded make, model and year. Use it to know what to ask about, then confirm at nhtsa.gov/recalls.

Where do I find the VIN?

On the driver side of the dashboard, read from outside through the windshield; on a label inside the driver door jamb; and on the registration and insurance documents. It has 17 characters and never contains the letters I, O or Q.

Is my VIN stored?

Not by this site. The VIN goes from your browser straight to vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov, the decoder of NHTSA. It is not written to the page address and not saved in the browser.

What does the check digit warning mean?

The ninth character of a VIN is calculated from the other sixteen. When it does not match, one of the characters was probably mistyped. Vehicles built for markets outside North America do not always follow this rule, so the lookup still runs.

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