Supposed I want to buy a new car and I have its VIN. Is it possible to find information about the car such as whether it has a moonroof or turbo engine from its VIN number? There are services which give you car history (accidents, maintenance, etc) and you need to pay for the report. Is there a service which gives detailed information (such as moonroof, turbo engine, etc) about the original state of the car when it is/was newly manufactured and is such a service free?
Thanks.
Depending on the dealership, you can take the VIN to them and they can give you all of the options which were installed on that particular car from the factory. (At least here in the States you can do that.) They are the only ones which are going to know exactly what was installed from the factory.
Yes, it's possible. I don't think you'll find a free service that will tell you everything you want, but if you have a specific car in mind, you should be able to find a website that will give your the info for that specific brand, e.g. if it's a Subaru, you can try a Subaru owners forum, or Nissan, Ford, etc. You will need the engine number to find out whether it's a turbo though. VIN will only give you make and model. From the model, you can do an extra web search to tell which model options are available for that specific model.
With the engine number,the code tells you everything about the engine in a very simple way. The Vauxhall Z20LET engine for instance tells you that it's an 8.x compression ratio (From the Z) 2 litre (20) engine complying with a specific Euro emissions target (L) with electronic fuel injection (E) and it's turbocharged (T). The exact code differs by manufacturer, but coincidentally, Nissan follows the same approach. So an RB26DETT is a 2.6 liter TwinTurbo (this engine was found in the R34 GTR) while the RB20DET is a 2 liter Turbo (Nissan 200sx and Silvia).
