Vehicle Identification Number (VIN)
The unique 17-character identifier assigned to a vehicle. The key that ties an asset to its title, its recalls, its warranty and its history.
The VIN identifies one specific vehicle and encodes manufacturer, model, engine, plant and year. It follows the asset from build to disposal.
For a fleet it is the join between systems that otherwise cannot talk to each other: the maintenance system, the title and registration record, the recall lookup, the warranty claim and the auction listing. A VIN entered wrong once propagates quietly into all of them, which is why it is worth validating on entry rather than discovering at a recall.