by When buying a used car, everyone risks falling victim to fraudsters. The internet and various automotive forums are rife with stories of stolen cars or vehicles assembled from three into one. Therefore, conducting a thorough check of the car before purchase will not be redundant. It is worth noting that hiring external experts is not cheap. Therefore, seeking experts as assistants when choosing a vehicle, when it is necessary to check more than one car, will result in a substantial amount.
Many car enthusiasts have already solved this problem by using the online service for checking vehicle history Carlife.in.ua. 
Carlife – is the first all-Ukrainian service for checking cars by their VIN code. The main condition for using the service is to have the vehicle’s VIN, not the state number. Note that the VIN code must be 17 digits long, and on the internet, you can sometimes find cars even with 9-digit codes. What is a VIN code?
VIN code – is a unique identification number of a vehicle, consisting of 17 characters.
The code contains information about the manufacturer, year of production, and characteristics of the car. The structure of the code is determined by standards ISO 3779-1983 and ISO 3780. Identification numbers are applied exclusively to non-removable parts of the body or on special number plates. The VIN code is a reliable identification of any vehicle, practically immune to forgery. However, very often, fraudsters attempt this, and sometimes they succeed due to simple human inattentiveness.
The ISO 3779 standard, defining the format of the vehicle’s VIN code, helps not only fully identify the car but also serves as additional protection against theft and robbery. More about the VIN code
Car VIN code – is a combination of letters and numbers that cannot be forged or altered because the code’s generation uses a checksum calculation algorithm, which can verify if a car has been stolen. Even knowing the principle of creating the algorithm doesn’t allow thieves to fake the VIN code to a specific checksum. For the first time, automakers began using the VIN code in 1977 in Canada and the USA. And still, all exporters and automakers in the USA strictly adhere to this standard, but in Europe, this method of car identification is not always followed.
How should a VIN code look?
- The car’s VIN code in the documents should be printed on one line and without spaces.
- On the car body, the VIN is applied in one or two lines also without spaces. Moreover, the groups of the VIN code should not be separated when transferring.
- The VIN code consists only of numbers and letters. The last four symbols are necessarily numeric.
- The VIN code includes the following Latin letters and numbers: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F G H J K L M N P R S T U V W X Y Z. The use of letters I, O, Q is prohibited because they are similar in shape to numbers 1, 0, and to each other.
Principle of Operation of the Carlife Service
The service allows you to easily and quickly check the VIN of almost any car. Car life provides information about vehicles of any brand registered in Ukraine – that’s over 10 million cars.
The report contains data on previous owners and all operations related to the car, as well as information on all registered road accidents. In addition, each vehicle is checked against theft/wanted databases. Information is selected based on the body number. The VIN is entered on the main page of the service, after which information about the car is issued for free. Free general information on almost all brands and models provides an accurate and complete picture, but sometimes undefined values are found.
But this is only part of the information that the service can provide. The most interesting is the report on the car’s history from the moment of its first registration in our country. This report is paid, but it costs only 50 hryvnias. An interesting feature of the service is that you first check the information on the requested vehicle and only then is payment for the full report offered. That is, you can be sure that by paying for the service, you will not get a “blank sheet”.
The detailed report displays information on the vehicle’s passport data, checks for presence in theft/wanted databases, as well as lists all operations in the MREO with the indication of the date and region. 
But the main thing is checking for registered road accidents. If the car was involved in an accident, you will receive information about it with the date and all vehicle damages recorded in the GAI/police report. To date, there are already many services offering car checks by VIN code. Often on the internet, people search for a free car check by VIN, but remember – free cheese, you know where it is.
Moreover, if you find a “freebie” check, it will be very superficial and often simply unreliable information, so you will only waste time, nothing more. If you have found a suitable used car, it is better to spend a little money on a high-quality and truthful VIN check – it is an investment in your future.
