How To Uncover Your Car’s Life History

Posted by David C. Atkin in Tuesday, October 6th 2009

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This is a new topic for me, but it’s a topic that should be discussed, due to the fact that I myself have had problems running down the history of a car or two in my day of restoring them, it always helps to know as much as you possibly can about the car your restoring.

There are a lot of ways that a car manufacture uses to tell you about the car that you have, first it starts with a build sheet, this is a document from the factory telling you what they put on the car during the manufacturing process of that car.

The problem with a build sheet is that a lot of the time the person that your buying the car from doesn’t have a build sheet, you could try the manufacture of the car to see if they keep an archive of build sheets, if so you may get lucky and find one.
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With a build sheet you’ll know exactly what your car came with from the factory, you’ll know what’s been changed, and what’s original on the car, you may even find a dealer invoice that came with the car, and you’ll then know the original price of the car.

You can also try tracking the title back from owner to owner through your state’s DMV, this is usually handy for getting info about the modifications that have happened on the car, and finding information about wrecks that your car may have been in, among other great things that a past owner can tell you.

Knowing your car’s history can save you a lot of time and money in the long run, this is of course just a starting point, there are a lot more things to check out on your car, after you’ve tracked the history of your car, it’s time to run the numbers back on the car.

This by itself can be a daunting task, you should never second guess the numbers, because what they say is usually true, with the accept-ion of the RPO code on a Chevrolet, these can be machined off, and re-stamped, and sometimes a thief may try it on you, to squeeze more money out of the car.

There is a number on the engine that cannot be tampered with, this is the casting number on a Chevrolet, if the casting number doesn’t match the RPO code, you can bet that your RPO code has been tampered with.

Your RPO code, and casting numbers must also match up with the vin tag, and the protect-o-plate that came with the car, if you still have the protect-o-plate, this will be gone a lot of the time, but if you match up those three things, you can bet that the engine belongs in the car that you bought.

There are also stampings on the transmission, and the rear end of the car, and these should also match up with your vin tag, and your build sheet if you have it, they should also match you protect-o-plate on a Chevrolet product.

Your vin plate will also tell you what color the car was painted from the factory, and what interior options that car cam with, you can never know to much about the vin tag on your car, it’s impossible to know to much, learn as much as you can about your car.

There are a lot of publications out there to help your with your car also, one of my favorite is Hemmings Motor News, this is a great way to find information about your car, publications like cars & parts this also contains a lot of information that can help you out.

There is also a series of books called By The Number, I use them all of the time for Chevrolet products, I don’t know if they publish them for any other makes of cars, but if I were you I’d look in to it, they are great books for any gear head to have.

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