Just bought a DeLorean today!!!

[91 zeee]

Hi. I'm in Virginia and just bought a DeLorean today. (So I thought I'd join the forum!)

Here is my first question......I have my VIN number, what information can I get with that? Any suggestions?

Thanks!

[steve]

Welcome and congratulations. Who's did you buy? The Vin will tell you quite a lot.
We need more D's in Richmond.

[DMC-81]

Welcome and congratulations!

Among other things, you can use the VIN to get a reproduction window sticker, and an original owner certificate from the Delorean Museum. https://squareup.com/store/the-delorean-museum-inc

[Delorean3610]

Find all the information you can on it's service history, and write down everything you do to the car. It will save you in the long run.

[91 zeee]

good info. I appreciate the help. I have no history on the car (other than the current owner who has had it for 5 years. I ran a Carfax and that shows virtually nothing. Any idea how I might get the service and previous owner history? (I do plan to order the documents that are currently available -- like the window sticker, etc...) I just don't know how to find subsequent owners and service history...

[Jonathan]

What does your VIN get you?

It used to indicate whether you were on a vendor's blacklist or not. Thankfully Special Ed is gone and took his silly lists with him.

You can share it here with us. It's not anything overly secret. Usually just a way to identify your car from all the other ones that are identical. Identical like snowflakes that is.

The number itself will tell you where in the overall chronology yours was built. That then gives you what your car (VIN) likely looked like when it left the factory. Meaning, while there were really only two options (manual or automatic trans, and black or grey interior), many things evolved over the years of production. Hood styles, wheel colour or spoke thickness, radio manufacturer, whether your door pull handles were loose or built into the door panel, location of the antenna, etc. There is quite a bit of variation if you are going to get into the weeds of it. Many of us do considering that owning a DeLorean borders on a bit of a sickness, or passionate hobby perhaps. We introduce ourselves like you might at an AA meeting anyway.

Your VIN can also help you figure out if any of the safety recalls for the car were done by the factory (typical on late cars, not so much on early cars). So too for which alternator your car has. Early ones were determined to be less than ideal so they switched part way through.

None of that is as good as just getting very familiar with your own car by inspecting it closely, inside and out and definitely from underneath. You'll benefit from making note of differences in your snowflake, especially if someone got creative with extra wiring or modifications to add something like cruise control or a thumping stereo or to try and fix something they didn't know how to fix properly. Don't forget that for about a decade in the mid 80s to mid 90s, there was no Internet nor good access to the spare parts inventory and so car conditions suffered as a result.

You can type your four (or five) digit VIN into the search bar on this forum too and see what comes up. Could be your car was owned by someone already on this forum. That's likely the best bet for the most info. Current info anyway. The DeLorean museum stuff is nice for showing at events, but is only going to tell you about the car's first days. If the car didn't come with service records when you got it, they will be hard to come by. You may get a vendor that recognizes your VIN to share some records with you if your car was taken to their shop, but that is really hit and miss. Rob from PJ Grady's seems very willing to do this for an owner when he has something to share.

Oh, and before any grammar police get you, VIN stands for Vehicle Identification Number. So saying VIN number is a little redundant, right? Like it's saying the same thing twice, get it? Like repetitive, you see? Like unnecessary, oui? Besides, you sound like a damn fool when you say it wrong (just kidding... prepare yourself for random BTTF references at about any moment in time from now on).

Congrats on getting your car and welcome aboard.

[delgato]

Here is an interesting little website with some very early history of our cars

http://deloreanpogs.com/

There may or may not be info on your particular car.

If you go through some of the links here you can get a lot of info that will lead you all over.

http://dmctalk.org/showthread.php?29...s-Part-I-of-II

Have fun

[Dangermouse]

Go ahead and post the last 5 digits here. As you can tell from the left hand side of these posts, most people are open with their VIN. There is really nothing to lose by posting it, and as Jonathan says, plenty to gain, particularly when you post a technical question, or a "should my car have" question.

There are also several members who keep unofficial lists of cars and may be able to share info

[steve]

Richmond is a small town. Their are only a hand full of people willing to work on them.

Steve

[cravings]

Richmond is a small town. Their are only a hand full of people willing to work on them.

Steve

i looked at it on the map and saw you have a neighboring town called "mechanicsville"... sounds promising.



op: congrats on your new car!