🚀 go-pugleaf

mnp@clsi.COM (Mitchell N. Perilstein) writes:

>We can't tell what this fellow is doing, but on the optimistic hand,
>just think how useful a VIN decoder could be. 

>When you bring your car in to the shop, they could use the VIN to look up
>your particular car in a central database shared by all shops.  It could
>get your car's history, plus know how to order 3rd party parts for it
>without needing any other (possibly wrong) info from a fallible human.
>Looking up parts in a cross reference guide is error prone.

They can do this easily and cheaply already:
a) hire someone who has worked at a car dealership as a title clerk and
   knows how to do this, and has memorized a lot of stuff about VIN's.
b) buy a book from several manufacturers which lists what car features are 
   in the VIN.

Not all auto manufacturers encode the engine size in the VIN.  For instance,
my 84 Chrysler paint color was in the VIN, but engine size was not.  When I 
had an 84 Plymouth Turismo, my insurance company had to ask me whether I had 
the 2.2L or the 1.6L engine, because the VIN did not tell them.

Not all auto manufacturers encode everything one would need to know to order
parts for an auto in the VIN.  It just uniquely identifies an auto; it isn't
DNA for the car!
-- 
-- Esther Lumsdon, not speaking for my employer
   Rational Software Corporation.
esther@verdix.com           wanna be where the sky is Carolina blue!