The Trim Problem
Every tire shop knows the moment. A customer calls or checks out online, and the first questions are year, make, model, and trim. Year, make, and model are easy. Trim is where it stalls: "It's a Civic... I think an LX? Or EX?" Guess wrong and you quote the wrong tire size, which turns into a return, a re-order, or a second trip to the bay.
The VIN avoids the guessing. Every vehicle has one, it's printed on the registration, the insurance card, and the driver-side door jamb, and a customer can read it off in seconds. Tire API's VIN lookup turns that single 17-character string into the decoded vehicle and its factory (OE) tire sizes in one request.
What Changes for Your Counter or Checkout
- Service desk: instead of walking a customer through year, make, model, and trim, the advisor keys in one VIN and gets the OE tire sizes back.
- Online checkout: one input field replaces a chain of dependent dropdowns, which also means fewer places for a customer to abandon the form.
- Phone and chat quotes: the customer reads the VIN from their registration, and the quote starts from the right size.
How It Works
The VIN is decoded against the NHTSA vPIC dataset, then matched to the fitment database by year, make, and model. The response contains the decoded vehicle details and a list of OE tire sizes. If you're a developer, the endpoint is GET /api/v1/by_vin/{vin}, authenticated with the x-api-key header, and our VIN checkout tutorial walks through the implementation. If you're not, the point is simply that this is a single lookup your platform or developer can wire in.
What It Costs
VIN lookup is included on every plan, including Free, and is metered with its own monthly quota on top of your normal daily request limit:
| Plan | Monthly VIN lookups | Price (CAD) |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 10 (plus a one-time 50-lookup welcome bonus) | $0, no credit card |
| Starter | 500 | $40/mo or $420/yr |
| Pro | 5,000 | $70/mo or $700/yr |
| Business | 20,000 | $150/mo or $1,500/yr |
A practical way to size this: count how many tire quotes or checkouts you handle in a month where you'd want VIN entry, and pick the plan above that number. Quotas reset on the first of each month, America/Toronto time.
Where It Still Needs a Fallback
Be upfront with your team about the limits, so nobody treats VIN lookup as infallible:
- Some VINs won't decode. A well-formed VIN can still come back with no result. Keep your year/make/model search available as the fallback.
- The check digit isn't verified yet. A mistyped VIN that happens to look valid may decode to the wrong vehicle or not at all, so show the decoded vehicle ("2021 Honda Civic LX") and have the customer or advisor confirm before quoting.
- OE sizes are the starting point. The lookup returns factory sizes. Customers who want plus-sizing or a winter set will still go through your normal size options.
Try It Before You Commit
New Free accounts get 60 lookups to start (10 monthly plus the 50 welcome bonus), enough to test it against real vehicles from your own customer base. The live demo page doesn't have a VIN search box, so trial it through Swagger UI or hand the endpoint to your developer.
- API guide: https://tire.vdim.app/api/docs
- Swagger UI: https://tire.vdim.app/api/docs/v1
- Sign up: https://account-tire.vdim.app/signin/signup
Support & Resources
Need help? Contact support at support@vdimtech.com or visit the API portal at https://tire.vdim.app.
Conclusion
VIN lookup won't replace every manual search, but for the customers who have their VIN to hand it removes the one question they're least able to answer. Keep a fallback, confirm the vehicle before you quote, and it's a low-effort way to get the first tire size right.