Vehicles built at Toyota's first plant in the country, NUMMI in California all get a "1." Vehicles built at the Toyota Motor Manufacturing plant in Kentucky get a "4." Vehicles built at the Toyota Motor Manufacturing Plants in Indiana and Texas get a "5". It is that simple. It has nothing to do with the domestic content of the vehicles built at those plants.
Here is something else for you to chew on - Titians and Frontiers get a "1" for the first digit. Quests, Armadas and Xterras get a "5." The Domestic content is nearly the same for Armadas and Titans . How do you explain that?
BTW, US built Sentras get a "3." US built Altimas get a "1". US built Maximas get a "1" Guess what, Maximas don't count as domestic vehicles, and Altimas do. Why do they both get a "1."
You keep telling people to search for the proof to prove you right. Well I have searched and IT DOES NOT EXIST. Telling people to search for nonexistent proof is dishonest. If you had any proof at all, you would have provided it long ago.
Jeff, that's a *great* article in USA Today. Thanks very much for providing a link.
Yeah, there's no doubt that unique VIN numbers are running out, but you know they'll run out even faster if there's a domestic parts content Rule tied to the use of 1, 4, and 5 for American-assembled cars.
Why don't we ever see a Toyota VIN starting "1T" ? The only VINs I've ever seen for U.S.-assembled Toyotas either begin with 4T or 5T .
2T and 3T of course refer to cars assembled in Canada and Mexico.
Searching the online inventory at PenskeToyota.com (the largest Toyota dealership in the U.S.) doesn't show a single 1T anywhere.
Of course a lot of Corollas begin with a "1" but their second character is an "N," not a "T" ("N" for the joint GM-Toyota plant in California: NUMMI ).
The biggest problem with the labels is that labor is not included as part of the content. A Ford built in Mexico can have higher domestic content than a Toyota built in California, but the latter is built in a UAW plant providing living wages to workers. This suits the purposes of the U.S. based automakers who are desperately trying to move as much assembly outside the U.S. as possible, while touting "domestic content."
A vehicle that truly has high domestic content, and is assembled in the U.S., has no advantage (in terms of the label) over a vehicle that is manufactured elsewhere in North America with low domestic content. People pay no attention to the label anymore. OTOH, the Japanese manufacturers have done a good job of publicizing the fact that most of their mass marked vehicles are manufactured in the U.S..
The best way to support the U.S. economy is to buy vehicles made in the U.S.. You'll never figure out the true domestic content, so just go by where the factory is. This is especially useful for the Japanese companies, since they are sourcing as many components from the U.S. as possible because they want the component manufacturing close to the factory, and because they want to be shielded from currency issues caused by the massive U.S. deficits, courtesy of George Bush.
You are correct, all the Toyota Trucks assembled in the US get a "5". The trucks assembled at NUMMI are "5T" Cars assembled at Nummi aren "1N" It seems that Toyota uses the "5" in the first location to indicated the vehicle is a truck (just like Lincoln does).
Where are the "1" Lincoln or Mercury Trucks and SUVs? SAE assigns the WMIs. I assume Toyota has their own reasons for using them like they do. Just like Ford uses a "5" as the first digit for all Lincoln "trucks" or a "4" for Mercury "trucks."
Ed, I was going to let things smoothe over between us, but you refuse to let me do so.
Once again you are not correct. You write, "It seems that Toyota uses the '5' in the first location to indicate the vehicle is a truck (just like Lincoln does)."
Toyota does Not use a "5" in the first VIN position to indicate a truck. You will also find a 5 leading the VIN for Sienna minivans assembled in the Princeton, Indiana plant. "5" also leads VINs for Sequoias assembled there. That plant, by the way, is indicated by the letter "S" found in the eleventh position.
Your favorite Toyota factory (a joint operation of GM and 'Yota) is indicated by a "Z" in the eleventh position. The "Z" refers to NUMMI in Fremont.
There's no reason to use the first VIN position to indicate a truck, because charactes 4 through 9 (right after the WMI) comprise the "Vehicle Descriptor Section."
Ed, I will let this debate go as long as we both recognize that Mike Hunter's assertion regarding the first VIN position has not yet been definitively disproven :-)
Considering that there is not a lick of evidence that Mike's conjecture is true, no documentation of it in the US code or any website, and much information that is inconsistant with it, it is effectively disproven.
As far as CAFE is concnerned, Siennas, Sequoias, Tundras, and Tacomas are all light trucks, and amazingly, they all get a "5" for the first digit. Maybe this is just a coincidence. Navigators and Lincoln Mark LTs are also "light trucks" and they also have a "5" for the first digit. Why don't they get a "1" since they are clearly domestc vehicles? Mercury Trucks (Mariner, Mountaineer) get a "4" as the first digit. Why don't they get a "1"? They are clearly domestic vehicles as well.
I don't think there is a rule that requires Toyota or Ford or Lincoln or Mercury to use a 1 or 4 or 5 to indicate the type of vehicle or the plant where it was built. The first three digit taken as a whole identify the manufacturer. Many manufacturers have multiple WMIs. These are assigned by the SAE. There is an easily found list of Ford WMIs and how they are assigned. None of the Ford WMI are assigned based on domestic content. Although Wikipedia has a list of Toyota WMIs, there is not clear list showing how Toyota uses them. By looking at VINs for various Toyta models you can determine the following:
1N - Nummi built cars (Corrollas)
5T - Toyota USA manufactured Light Trucks (Sequioas, Tundras, Tacomas, Tundras)
4T - Toyota USA manufactured Cars (Camry, Solara, Avalon)
The third digit has some relationship to the body style. There are lots of different third digits for trucks, not so many for cars (as far as I can tell the third digit for all Camrys and Avalons is "1").
There are no "1T" Toyotas as far as I can tell (but plent of "1Ns"). Why is this the case? I don't know. But I do know that the domestic contnet labels for several Toyota models show 75% or higher domestic content. If the rules required that the first digit indicated domestic contnet, I would think these vehicles would have a "1". Likewise Lincoln LTs which have a 90% domestic contnet, would have a "1" as well, instead of the "5" they actually have for the first digit.
So here is the way I see it:
1) Just comparing domestic contnet labels and VINs suggests there is no relation ship between VINs and domestic conntent
2) No one has ever provided any evidence that there is a link between domestic content and VINs. Mike Hunter has alluded to the existence of such a link, but has been unwilling to provide a verifiable reference despite being asked for this repeatedly.
3) If such a link existed, why is it so difficult to find any evidence of it?
4) I think Mike Hunter dreamed up the link and is too stubborn to admit he was wrong.
And? If you go to the Toyota Fleet VIN Decoder
formatting link
they claim that at a "1" inthe first position of the VIN indicates NUMMI built vehicles. For Position 1 - 1 = USA:NUMMI, 4 = USA: TMMK (Kentucky), 5 = USA: TMMI & TMMCA (Indiana and California)
It is pretty obvious that this VIN decoder is not up to date since it won't correctly decode some newer VINs and does not address the new plant in Texas.
That may be ture, but as far as I can tell, all current USA assembled Toyota "Light Trucks" (Light Trucks include Vans and SUVs) get a 5 for the first digit.
Hard to prove a negative. No one, not you, not Mike, has provided any evidence that the first digit has anything to do with domestic contnet. Don't you suppose if this was true there would be at least one easily found refernce that confirms it?
Mike treats his wild speclation as if was true becasue he said so. He makes vague references to unfindable documents. When he is challenged on this, he says something like "I am not going to do your research for you." Clearly he doesn't have any proof of his claim and is just trying to avoid admitting it is merely his speculation and not a fact.
Mike Hunter said his engineer friend told him about the VIN content thing. So he might not have dreamt it up. Not that it matters.
I concur that he is too stubborn to admit he is wrong.
I have admitted I am wrong many times. I even got the type of weight on wheels wrong (I said aluminum instead of lead. Oopsie - Big brain fart there).
But it is to find evidence that this conjecture of Mike's is wrong. Like the Lincoln and Mercury trucks/SUVs and their VINs. Unfortunately, there is no affordable master list of all the VINs. SAE has one, but it is too expensive.
The fact that the first digit of the VINs are 1, 4 and 5, rather than 1, 2 and 3 is consistant with the 4 and 5 were added on later, as the US ran out of WMIs. Otherwise, the US would 1, 2 and 3, and Canada and Mexico would be
4 and 5.
Had the internet been widely used back in the 80s (yeah, I used it college and grad school then), and newspapers were on it back then, there probably would have been documents on sae.org as well as newspaper articles about the new assignment of the first digit of the VINs. But, the archives are incomplete going back that far, at best. And the avaiable sources, like wikipedia are incorrect or misleading, too.
Of course, if the VINs reflect content, there should be easily found documents about this too, in the US code, the Transportation Department or SAE, but, there aren't any.
The bottom line is that the VINs don't reflect content. That's why there is so little evidence.
That is ease, although the vehicles you referenced are built on the same assembly line they do not have the same US content . The bodies are the some but the trim, grills and many other parts are NOT the same, and come from Canada and not the US. Parts are made in Canada do not count as US content to meet the US Departments of Commerce standard to get a '1'
If that were true, as you choose to believe, why does Toyota not have just a
4, rather than a 4 and 5. On the other hand Nissan, who started to assemble cars and trucks in the US of US parts rather than imported part many years after Toyota, have a '1' as the first number of the VIN on the Titan and Altima, and not a 4 or 5 ? ;)
The reason is, it is not a non union Toyota plant. The vehicles built in the GM/Toyota plant have a '1' because that is the only plant that has a UAW contract that requires 70% US content in the vehicles.
I have no idea why Toyota has allocated the WMIs the way they have done it. Can you explain why does Ford uses 1, 4, and 5 in the first position of the VIN? Why does a Ford Explorer use a 1 as the first digit and a Mercury Mountaineer use a 4? Why does a Ford Expedition use a 1 as the first digit and a Lincoln Navigator use a 5? Why does a Ford Escape use a 1 as the first digit and a Mercury Marier use a 4? Why do all Mustangs have a 1 as the first digit, when V-6 Automatic Mustangs don't have enough domestic content to qualify as a domestic car? Why don't you provide one verifiable reference that confirms your speculation that the WMI is related to domestic content?
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