Vin Decoder
and
OEM Part Lookup

I was the only developer and architect for a new automotive startup called Vinventory. In the junk and part recyclers world there are 2 main Yard Management Systems (YMS). Hollander and UGC. Both of these do a decent job of helping you understand the available part inventory on a car.

For example, you have a truck that was in an accident and the front is totaled. Well, the rest of the car can be sold for parts. The issue with the current YMS software is that it only gives you about 30,000 or so available parts when there are upwards of 150,000 parts in the average car.

Enter, Vinventory. Using propriatery algorythms to associate OEM parts with the vehicles VIN, we were able to get almost a full list of available parts on any given vehicle. Going back to that truck, if you wanted to sell the Tow Hook, using Hollander and UGC it's a "MISC Part" so you price it how you want. Most places would pick $50-$75 for it. Well to buy it as an OEM part from the manufacture, it would cost $300. So just by knowing that from Vinventory, you can easiely charge $200 for it used and make back the money you left on the table. This is one of thousands of examples Vinventory has.

The process to look up and decode VINs is public information but the ability to connect that VIN to a list of parts with this much detail, thats special. The decoder I built would give you all the vehicle information that is on the other sites out there but it would also alert you to special parts that could be in demand and therefor make you more money than you expected from the vehicle.

I built a parts search engine that would allow you to look up an OEM and see all the potential VIN patterns it could match to.