Transparency
Data sources
Every source VINLytix consults, what each one can actually verify, and — the part that matters most — what it cannot.
A report is only as good as the sources behind it, and a source is only useful if you know its limits. This page documents both. It is the same information the report itself carries in its “what we checked” section, set out in full.
NHTSA vPIC
Active- Used for
- Vehicle identity and specifications: model year, make, model, trim, body class, engine, fuel type, drive type, transmission, manufacturer, assembly plant.
- What it can verify
- What the manufacturer built and reported to the federal government. This is authoritative for build specification.
- What it cannot verify
- Anything that happened after the vehicle left the factory. It has no knowledge of condition, mileage, accidents, ownership, modifications or aftermarket equipment.
- Update timing
- Manufacturers submit specification data on an ongoing basis. A given VIN's decode does not change once published, which is why VINLytix caches it for 30 days.
- Limitations
- Coverage varies by manufacturer and model year. Older and low-volume vehicles frequently return fewer populated fields. Some manufacturers submit far more detail than others, so a sparse decode reflects the submission, not an error.
NHTSA Safety Recalls
Active- Used for
- Published safety recall campaigns, including the defect description, the safety consequence and the manufacturer's remedy.
- What it can verify
- That a recall campaign has been published covering a particular year, make and model.
- What it cannot verify
- Whether the repair was carried out on one specific vehicle. The public endpoint matches on year, make and model — not on VIN — so it cannot report per-vehicle repair status. Only a franchised dealer or the manufacturer can confirm that.
- Update timing
- Campaigns are published continuously as manufacturers file them. VINLytix caches recall responses for 12 hours.
- Limitations
- Covers safety recalls only. Service campaigns, extended warranty programmes and technical service bulletins are not in this database and will not appear, even where a model has a well-known issue handled that way.
Market valuation provider
Not connected- Used for
- Estimated market value, market range, private buyer target, dealer acquisition target, quick-sale estimate and suggested listing range.
- What it can verify
- Approximate market pricing for a vehicle of a given specification, age, mileage and region.
- What it cannot verify
- The condition of the specific vehicle, its service history, its title status, or any aftermarket equipment fitted to it. A valuation is a market reference, not an appraisal.
- Update timing
- Pricing moves continuously. VINLytix caches valuation responses for 30 minutes at most.
- Limitations
- No licensed pricing provider is connected to this deployment. Reports show 'Market valuation temporarily unavailable' rather than a figure. VINLytix does not estimate a vehicle's value from the VIN alone.
Vehicle history provider
Not connected- Used for
- Accident records, title brands, salvage and flood history, odometer records, ownership history, auction records.
- What it can verify
- Nothing at present — no provider is connected.
- What it cannot verify
- Everything in this category. Every VINLytix report states explicitly that accident and title history was not checked, and recommends obtaining a full history report separately.
- Update timing
- Not applicable.
- Limitations
- The legitimate sources for this data are commercial and licensed. VINLytix does not scrape CARFAX, AutoCheck or any other protected source, so this capability stays off until a provider is properly licensed.
Attribution
Vehicle specification and safety recall data are provided by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, an agency of the United States Department of Transportation, through its public APIs.
VINLytix is an independent commercial service. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or acting on behalf of NHTSA, the US Department of Transportation, any other government agency, any vehicle manufacturer, or any dealership. Use of official public data does not imply any such relationship.
Checks you can run yourself, free
Two official sources are worth running directly. VINLytix does not integrate either, for the reasons given, but both are free and take a minute.
NICB VINCheck — theft and salvage
The National Insurance Crime Bureau offers a free lookup that reports vehicles recorded as stolen and unrecovered, or reported as salvage by participating insurance carriers.
VINLytix deliberately does not integrate it. NICB publishes no API, and limits the service to five searches per IP address per day specifically to discourage commercial and bulk use. There is no authorised programmatic route, and we will not scrape a service that has been engineered against exactly that. Run it yourself at nicb.org/vincheck.
NMVTIS — title, brand and salvage history
The National Motor Vehicle Title Information System is the only vehicle history database that all states, insurance carriers and salvage yards are required by federal law to report to. It carries title records, brand history including salvage and flood, and the most recent recorded odometer reading.
Only approved NMVTIS data providers may sell reports built on it, so VINLytix cannot query it directly. The official list of approved providers is at vehiclehistory.bja.ojp.gov. Reports typically cost a few dollars. Note that Carfax and Experian supply dealers only and cannot provide a consumer NMVTIS report.
What we will not do to get data
VINLytix uses official public APIs where they exist, and licensed commercial providers where they do not. It does not scrape websites to obtain data that is available through an official API, and it does not scrape or otherwise extract data from commercial vehicle history providers.
The practical consequence is that some sections of the report are empty. We would rather show you an empty section labelled “not checked” than fill it with data we had no right to take.
Caching
Responses are cached for a period matched to how quickly each kind of data actually changes: VIN decodes for 30 days, since a vehicle’s build specification never changes; recall campaigns for 12 hours; valuations for no more than 30 minutes, because stale pricing is misleading pricing.
Reporting an error
If a VINLytix report contradicts what you know about a vehicle, the decode itself comes from NHTSA and corrections to manufacturer-submitted specifications have to go through them. If the problem is in our interpretation, presentation or scoring, we want to know — get in touch.