For new visitors and returning members
The car you sold is still out there.
FormerCars keeps a private garage of every car you have owned, reads the VIN for you, and gives you one-click searches for the places old cars turn up.
Illustration. Your garage is private until you decide otherwise.
Three steps, start to found.
Account, VIN, search. Most people are done with the first two in about a minute.
Create a free account
Set up your personal vehicle garage on the register page.
- Email and password, nothing else
- No card, no trial clock
- Every car starts out private
Add the VIN
Enter the VIN with year, make, model and color so you can tell the cars apart later.
DECODED · 2003 HONDA ACCORD
- 17-character VINs decode through NHTSA
- Older 12 to 16 character numbers can be saved too
- Add photos, notes and the years you owned it
Search for it
Six built-in searches show where your old car appears: a dealer lot, an auction, a classified or a salvage yard.
- Each link opens with your VIN already filled in
- Recall check runs on the same car
- Mark it found and the hunt is over
Search for it
Six places an old car can show up.
We do not scrape or store results. We send your VIN to each site, and you see exactly what that site shows anyone who searches for it.
Any public page that prints the number: dealer sites, forums, photo captions, auction write-ups.
Bing
A different crawl from Google. It sometimes finds pages the first search skips.
CARFAX®
Opens CARFAX with the VIN already filled in. A sponsored link.
Classic.com
Sold and listed collector cars gathered from auction houses and dealers.
Hemmings
Classic and collector-car classifieds, where old cars are more likely to be advertised.
eBay Motors
Cars & Trucks listings only, so a part with the same number does not bury the car.
Also one tap away on every car: Recall check → VIN decoder →
Which should you try first?
- 1Google
- 2Bing
- 3eBay Motors
- 4CARFAX®
Full 17-character VINs are printed on most listings, so general search engines do the heavy lifting. CARFAX is for checking a history once you have a lead.
- 1Classic.com
- 2Hemmings
- 3Google
- 4eBay Motors
Collector sites are where an old car is most likely to be written up. Shorter pre-1981 numbers are printed less consistently, so expect fewer exact matches and try the number with and without dashes.
What the VIN tells you
Tap a character. See what it says.
This is the sample number from step two. Every 17-character VIN splits into the same six parts.
Two decoders, one site
Which one reads your car depends on the number, not on a setting you choose.
| Number | Reads it | Example |
|---|---|---|
| 17 characters 1981 and newer | NHTSA decoder | 1HGCM82633A004352 2003 Honda Accord |
| Shorter numbers 1946 to 1980 | Classic decoder | 118683018 1968 Volkswagen Beetle |
| Fits two makes | You pick | 1122122978 1972 VW Beetle, or a 1962 Plymouth Valiant |
Not every pre-1981 make is covered yet, and we say so on the result rather than guess.
Classic cars we read
Makes the classic decoder covers, counted by decade. A make shows in every decade from its first covered year (21 makes today).
Counts update on their own as we add makes.
What the account does for you
A garage that remembers, so you do not have to.
One place for every VIN, what you know about each car, and whether you have tracked it down yet.
Search, find, close the file
Every car is either Searching or Found. Flip it when you get a match and it drops out of the pile of cars still missing.
A hit is only a hit if the full VIN matches. Two cars of the same year and color can sit on one street.
The numbers in the example garage are made up, not real data.
Photos and notes
Add a picture, the color, the trim and the story. A garage of ten cars stays readable years later.
Recall alerts
Open recalls reported to NHTSA for each of your cars collect on your Recalls page and as a badge on your garage.
Public per car
Make one car public for a page you can share. Everything else stays private.
A public garage
Pick a username and, if you want, show your cars on a profile page of your own.
All vehicles at a glance
One list with every car and a row of search icons, so re-running a search takes one tap.
Achievements
50 badges for building your garage, adding photos and finding cars again.
What the 50 achievements reward
Badges per category. They are a nudge to keep your garage complete, nothing more.
When it does not turn up straight away
Searching is a habit, not a one-off.
A search that finds nothing today can find something the week a dealer lists the car. The garage keeps the VINs so you only have to remember to look.
Save it while you remember
The VIN is the hard part to recover later. Everything else can be filled in whenever.
Re-run the searches
Listings appear and vanish. A search that came up empty in March can hit in July.
Match the full VIN
Check all the characters, not just the year and color.
Mark it found
Set the car to Found so your garage shows only the cars still missing.
Already have an account?
Six things worth doing next.
If you are here after signing up, this is the short list of what the site can do for the cars you have already saved.
What a VIN can and cannot do.
It describes the car and the records the car left behind. It does not describe people.
It can tell you
- ✓Model year, make, model and body style as the factory built it
- ✓Engine family, restraint system and series or trim line
- ✓Country of manufacture and the assembly plant
- ✓Open safety recalls reported to NHTSA for that exact vehicle
- ✓Whether a 17-character number is authentic, via the check digit
It cannot
- ✕Give you the current owner's name, address or contact details
- ✕Show where the car is parked right now
- ✕Show accident or service history on its own. That needs history-report sources
- ✕Decode every pre-1981 number. Old makers used their own formats, and we read the makes listed on our make pages
Straight answers.
Does it work with any VIN?
17-character VINs, which every car built from 1981 on has, decode fully through NHTSA. Shorter numbers from 1946 to 1980 go through our classic decoder, which reads the makes listed on the make pages. A number we do not recognise can still be saved in your garage and searched.
Do I need an account to decode a VIN?
No. The VIN decoder, classic decoder and recall check are open to everyone. An account is for keeping a garage and tracking cars over time.
Do you sell my VINs?
No. Every car is private by default. You choose, per vehicle, whether it gets a public page.
Can a VIN find the current owner?
No, and it should not. It finds public traces such as listings, galleries and recall notices. Who owns the car now is their business.
What does "found" mean?
Whatever you decide: listed for sale, sitting in a yard, restored or spotted in a parking lot. You switch each car between Searching and Found yourself.
Why did the decoder show two makes?
Some old numbers have the same shape across makers. Rather than guess, we show every match and let you pick the right one. More on how that works.