Interpretation ID: nht81-3.43

DATE: 11/24/81

FROM: AUTHOR UNAVAILABLE; Frank Berndt; NHTSA

TO: Dart Transit Company

TITLE: FMVSS INTERPRETATION

TEXT: This responds to your recent telephone conversations with Roger Fairchild of this office, in which you requested our approval for Freuhauf to change the vehicle identification numbers (VIN's) on certain of its trailers which your company purchased. As we understand your situation, your company intended to purchase and Freuhauf intended to provide you 1980 model year trailers. The trailers you actually received had Freuhauf's statements of origin indicating they are 1980 model year trailers. However, the first character of the third section of the trailers' VIN's is apparently a "B," thus indicating that the model year is 1981. Freuhauf reportedly wishes to correct the VIN's and use an "A" instead of a "B," thus indicating the 1980 model year. We understand too that these vehicles were not manufactured in serial sequence, but are scattered randomly through the manufacturer's production run.

Based on our understanding of the facts you have provided us, this agency does not have any objection to this change being made by Freuhauf. The requirements of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 115 provide the manufacturers with substantial latitude regarding model year designation. S4.5.3.1 of the Standard requires that the first character of the third section of the VIN indicate the model year. S3 of the Standard defines "model year" as "the year used to designate a discrete vehicle model irrespective of the calendar year in which the vehicle was actually produced, so long as the actual period is less than 2 years." In issuing the standard, the agency anticipated that once the manufacturer of a discrete vehicle model switched from designating those vehicles with a given model year (e.g., 1983) to the next model year (i.e., 1984), the manufacturer would uniformly designate all vehicles with that new model year until it switched to designating all vehicles uniformly as being produced in the following model year (i.e., 1985). More than any other user of the VIN, the manufacturer itself would benefit from this practice since it promotes the orderliness of records. However, Standard No. 115 does not actually require that this practice be followed. Further, the departure from the practice in a limited circumstance should not pose any significant practical problem for the users of the VIN's of trailers in question.