Registration from chassis number.

11wingnut · 01-02-2023 11:53pm #1

Hi would anyone be able to find out if a golf gti chassis number WVWZZZ17ZDW290729 was Irish. It is for sale in uk as previously registered out of uk . I suspect it could have been Irish can someone tell me thank you

w124man · 02-02-2023 10:26pm

I put that code into a couple of VIN decoders and it keeps coming up as a 1100 cc three door

Type 17 · 04-02-2023 7:56pm

If you had access to the car, you could tell - Irish type 17's never had rear foglights, and there was never a wire in the rear or dash looms for it. Even if a rear foglight was retro-fitted to an '83 Irish car to pass a UK MOT, the added wire would be obvious, unless the rear and dash looms were changed for UK ones (extremely unlikely, unless the loom was changed for other reasons).

Type 17 · 04-02-2023 8:53pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120194447#Comment_120194447

I doubt that those VIN decoders are that knowledgeable, as there's no info in a VW VIN on which trim-level/model of Mk1 Golf the VIN belongs to.

For entertainment's sake, here's the info contained in the VIN:

WVWZZZ17ZDW290729

W - Made in Germany

VW - Volkswagen

ZZZ - blank filler characters

17 - type 17 (Mk1 Golf)*

Z - blank filler character

D - 83 model year (Aug '82 - July '83)

W - Made in the Wolfsburg plant

290729 - the 290,729th Mk1 Golf (of all trim levels) made in Wolfsburg during the 1983 model year

PS: On the strut behind the grille, under the bonnet latch, there is a body plate, with a bar-code (to be read on the production line) with a long number underneath, and the first three digits define the week number (of the calendar year, not the model year), and the day number (1 = Monday, 2 = Tue, etc), so you can confirm what date the body was completed and painted (the car might have been fully completed that same day, or the one after).

*The 1 defines a VW passenger car. The digit after defines the model - others include: 4 - Karmann Ghia, 5 - Golf Cabrio, 6 - Mk1 Jetta, 7 - Mk1 Golf, 8 - Mk2 Jetta, 9 - Mk2 Golf. Since single digits are exhausted, later Models use a letter, eg: 1K - Mk5 Golf.