How to find the VIN of a car by Australian registration number

Have you ever wanted to find the VIN of a car but all you have is the cars registration number?

There are a few ways that you can find the VIN for free online.

1 - Free car history websites

Some of the car history websites will show you part of the VIN but not all of it. Some will give you the first half and some will give you the second, so you can put together the VIN by checking on two websites. Although these websites charge for the vehicle history, the VIN is shown on a page before you actually have to pay.

www.carhistory.com.au and www.carfacts.com.au are two websites you can use for this.

2 - Get an insurance quote from NRMA

This may only work for NSW but insurers in other states may do the same thing.

Go to www.nrma.com.au and choose to get a comprehensive car insurance quote. Enter all of the details it requires and make sure you use the option where you enter the registration number rather than choosing the type of vehicle from a list. Once you have the quote you will then need to choose to pay for the policy and during that process you will get to see the cars VIN number. You don't need to go through the full process to pay for the policy, of course.

3 - Recall websites

This works for BMWs and you may find something similar for other brands. To find the VIN of a BMW go to www.recall.bmw.com.au and enter the registration number. When you go to the next page you will see the full VIN.