Bulk VIN Decoder & Recall Checker

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🎯 What this scrapes

NHTSA's free vPIC service decodes any 17-character string you throw at it, valid or not, and hands back roughly 150 mostly-empty-string fields with no warning that the VIN itself was garbage. This Actor validates the ISO-3779 check digit locally first, for free, before any network call or billed event, then batch-decodes the survivors and normalizes NHTSA's noisy payload into a clean flat row — optionally joined with recall and crash-safety-rating data for the same make/model/year.

🔥 What we handle for you

• 🔍 Local check-digit validation, free — every VIN is validated against ISO-3779 before any network call, so a typo never costs you a billed row.
• 🧹 NHTSA's noisy payload, cleaned — every empty-string field NHTSA returns becomes a proper null, not a string you have to filter yourself.
• 🔁 Retries with exponential backoff on 408 / 429 / 5xx — up to 5 attempts, Retry-After honoured.
• 🫠 One bad batch never fails the run — a failed decode chunk or enrichment lookup is logged and skipped; the rest of your VINs still ship.
• 🧊 Clean, typed dataset rows — Pydantic-validated, stable fields, JSON / CSV / Excel export straight from the Apify Console.
• 💰 Pay-Per-Event pricing — you only pay for VINs that actually decode. Invalid or no-match VINs are free.

💡 Use cases

• Bulk-normalize a dealer inventory feed's raw VINs into make/model/year/trim before listing.
• Screen an incoming used-car lead list against NHTSA recall data before appraisal.
• Back a fleet manager's maintenance system with structured engine/plant/spec data.
• Feed an insurer's underwriting model with decoded vehicle attributes plus crash-safety ratings.

⚙️ How to use it

1. Click Try for free at the top of the page.
2. Fill in the input form — most fields have sensible defaults.
3. Click Start. Output streams into the run's dataset.
4. Export from Storage → Dataset as JSON, CSV, or Excel — or fetch via the API.

📥 Input

Field	Type	Required	Default	Notes
vins	array	yes	['1HGCM82633A004352', '3VWD07AJ5EM388202', '1G1ZT53826F109149']	17-character US Vehicle Identification Numbers to decode, 1-500 per run. Each one is validated locally (ISO-3779 check…
include_recalls	boolean	no	True	Join NHTSA recall records for each decoded VIN's make/model/model-year. One lookup per unique combination, cached and…
include_safety_ratings	boolean	no	False	Join NHTSA crash-safety ratings (overall, front, side, rollover) for each decoded VIN's make/model/model-year. Off by…
proxyConfiguration	object	no	{'useApifyProxy': False}	NHTSA's vPIC and api.nhtsa.gov services are public, keyless US government APIs with no anti-bot surface and need no…

Example input

{
  "vins": [
    "1HGCM82633A004352",
    "3VWD07AJ5EM388202",
    "1G1ZT53826F109149"
  ],
  "include_recalls": true,
  "include_safety_ratings": false,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": false
  }
}

📤 Output

Every row is one dataset item.

Field	Type	Notes
vin	string	Input VIN, uppercased.
is_valid	boolean	Local ISO-3779 check-digit validation result.
validation_error	string	Reason the VIN failed local validation; null when valid.
nhtsa_error_code	string	NHTSA's own ErrorCode from the decode response.
nhtsa_error_text	string	NHTSA's own ErrorText from the decode response.
make	string	Decoded vehicle make.
model	string	Decoded vehicle model.
model_year	string	Decoded model year.
trim	string	Decoded trim level.
body_class	string	Decoded body class (e.g. Sedan/Saloon).
drive_type	string	Decoded drive type (e.g. FWD, AWD).
series	string	Decoded series designation.
engine_cylinders	string	Decoded engine cylinder count.
engine_displacement_l	string	Decoded engine displacement, liters.
engine_hp	string	Decoded engine horsepower.
fuel_type_primary	string	Decoded primary fuel type.
transmission_style	string	Decoded transmission style.
plant_country	string	Decoded assembly plant country.
plant_city	string	Decoded assembly plant city.
gvwr_class	string	Decoded gross vehicle weight rating class.
doors	string	Decoded door count.
airbag_front	string	Decoded front airbag location.
airbag_side	string	Decoded side airbag location.
recall_count	integer	Number of recalls found for this make/model/model-year; null unless recall enrichment is enabled.
recalls	array	Recall summaries ({nhtsa_campaign_number, component, summary}) for this make/model/model-year; null unless recall…
safety_overall_rating	string	NHTSA overall crash-safety rating; null unless safety-rating enrichment is enabled.
safety_frontcrash_rating	string	NHTSA frontal-crash rating; null unless safety-rating enrichment is enabled.
safety_sidecrash_rating	string	NHTSA side-crash rating; null unless safety-rating enrichment is enabled.
safety_rollover_rating	string	NHTSA rollover rating; null unless safety-rating enrichment is enabled.
decoded_at	string	ISO-8601 timestamp when this row was decoded.

Example output

{
  "vin": "1HGCM82633A004352",
  "is_valid": true,
  "validation_error": null,
  "nhtsa_error_code": "0",
  "nhtsa_error_text": "VIN decoded clean. Check Digit (9th position) is correct",
  "make": "HONDA",
  "model": "Accord",
  "model_year": "2003",
  "trim": "EX",
  "body_class": "Sedan/Saloon",
  "drive_type": "FWD",
  "series": null,
  "engine_cylinders": "6",
  "engine_displacement_l": "3.0",
  "engine_hp": "240",
  "fuel_type_primary": "Gasoline",
  "transmission_style": "Automatic",
  "plant_country": "UNITED STATES (USA)",
  "plant_city": "MARYSVILLE",
  "gvwr_class": null,
  "doors": "4",
  "airbag_front": "1st Row (Driver and Passenger)",
  "airbag_side": null,
  "recall_count": 3,
  "recalls": [
    {
      "nhtsa_campaign_number": "04V123000",
      "component": "AIR BAGS",
      "summary": "..."
    }
  ],
  "safety_overall_rating": null,
  "safety_frontcrash_rating": null,
  "safety_sidecrash_rating": null,
  "safety_rollover_rating": null,
  "decoded_at": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z"
}

💰 Pricing

Pay-Per-Event — you pay only when these events fire:

Event	USD	What it is
actor-start	$0.20	One-off warm-up charge per run
result-row	$0.0025	Per unique dataset item

Example: 1 000 results at the rates above ≈ $2.70. No subscription, no minimum, no card to start — Apify gives every new account $5 of free credit.

🚧 Limitations

• Up to 500 VINs per run — chunked into batches of 50 per NHTSA's documented per-call ceiling.
• Non-US-market VINs vPIC can't resolve are returned best-effort, often mostly null — NHTSA covers the US market.
• Safety-rating enrichment resolves the first matching NHTSA VehicleId when a make/model/year has multiple trims or body styles — it isn't a per-VIN exact trim match.
• Recall and safety data reflect NHTSA's own records at request time; this Actor doesn't backfill or correct upstream gaps.

❓ FAQ

Do I need an API key?

No. NHTSA's vPIC and api.nhtsa.gov services are keyless, public US government APIs — no auth, no login.

Why do some VINs come back with mostly null fields?

NHTSA decodes even VINs it can barely parse and returns empty strings for unknown fields — this Actor converts every empty string to null so you can filter cleanly instead of guessing what '' means.

Do I get charged for an invalid VIN?

No. This Actor validates the ISO-3779 check digit locally, for free, before any NHTSA call. A VIN that fails validation costs nothing and never leaves your run.

What's the difference between decode-only and enrichment?

Recall and safety-rating enrichment are joined on the decoded make/model/model-year and ride the same per-row charge — no extra billed event, just turn on the checkbox.

💬 Your feedback

Spotted a bug, hit a weird edge case, or need a new field? Open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab on Apify Console — we ship fixes weekly and we read every report.

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