Glossary

A VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) is the 17-character identifier the manufacturer assigns to every car at the factory. It encodes the manufacturer, the country of origin, the model year, the plant and the car's unique serial number. The letters I, O and Q never appear in a VIN: they look too much like 1 and 0 and caused errors, so they were removed from the standard.

The 9th character of a VIN is a mathematical checksum calculated from the other 16 characters; its purpose is to catch a typo or a fabricated VIN. The standard (ISO 3779) is mandatory only for cars built for the North American market (required by NHTSA); in European and Japanese VINs a mismatch is common and is not a sign of fraud.

vPIC is the free, public database of the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). It decodes a VIN's manufacturer code (WMI) and descriptor section (VDS) into make, model, model year, engine type and factory equipment. vPIC contains factory specifications only — no accident or ownership history.

NMVTIS (National Motor Vehicle Title Information System) is the central database established by the US Congress. It consolidates records from every state's vehicle registry, from insurance companies and from salvage yards. It shows a car's title status (clean/salvage/flood/rebuilt), the officially recorded odometer readings and its total-loss history.

Both are authorised NMVTIS data providers and give baseline title and accident information. Carfax additionally uses its own, far larger archive (dealer service records, insurance detail), which is why it costs more; ClearVIN is lighter and cheaper and is based mainly on NMVTIS data.

All three are major US vehicle auction platforms, and they are where most cars imported into Georgia come from. Copart and IAAI mainly trade insurance and salvage vehicles, while Manheim is primarily a wholesale dealer-to-dealer auction.

Customs clearance is the import charge payable to register a car brought in from abroad in Georgia. The amount depends on the engine size and the age of the car. Always verify the official, final amount with the rs.ge calculator.