What a VIN actually encodes
The VIN on a U.S. car is 17 characters, no I, O, or Q. You can read it through the windshield on the driver’s side, on the door sticker, and on the title.
The first three characters are the world manufacturer identifier. They point at the company and the region that built the vehicle, not the store that sold it.
The next six describe the vehicle: model line, body, engine, restraint system, and a check digit. That check digit is math on the other characters. It is there so a mistyped number fails, not so a buyer can decode a secret.
The last eight are the vehicle identifier section: a model-year code, a plant code, and a serial. Two cars from the same plant in the same year should not share that serial.
A VIN is not a GPS beacon and it is not a title. It is the string a shop, an insurer, and a state office use to talk about the same unit. If a window sticker, a title, and the metal plate disagree, stop and get the plate read in person.
Service records hang off that number. So do recalls. The plate does not tell you what someone paid, and it does not tell you if the title is clean. It only says which vehicle you are looking at.