VIN API – VIN Decoder for anyone
UPDATES:
See Phase II details for complete dataset information.
Take a look at the PHP examples and the .NET examples.
And ... while it's been great being able to give this information away freely for about a year now, we have to share some of the cost with our users, so please read about our pricing model.
END UPDATES
VIN API came about through lots of work on a current project of ours - Mr. Quotey. We are dealing with auto insurance and wanted a way to decode VINs. The other solutions we found (API-wise) were too expensive for our small, unfunded startup. So like the way most great things come about, we decided to build our own VIN decoding API.
Using VIN API:
This is explained in detail at VIN API's site, but I will give you a look at what it does here.
If you use Ruby on Rails like I do, then you have the option to use ActiveResource:
Then you can use it like this:
Current Limitations:
Right now each account is limited to 20 VIN requests a month, we are looking to take it slow and prevent abuse. If you do need more VIN decodings a month, feel free to let us know at Mr. Quotey, we'd be happy to up the max for your account.
Where to next?:
It is too soon to really tell. We'd like your feedback and to know if this service is useful. If it gets enough buzz, we would probably pursue it a bit more and drop the monthly limitations.
