100,000 Miles Takes 7 Years in Louisiana and 12 in Hawaii
Odometer readings get judged against a single national rule of thumb, usually 12,000 miles a year. Split the same data by state and that rule turns out to be wrong in both directions, by enough to change what a number means.
We Hold Complaint Data on 2,604 Models. Crash Tests on 311.
A specification page looks complete because the blanks are quietly dropped. We went the other way and counted the blanks: which facts exist for how many models, and which model years are simply dark.
People Asked for a Ford Window Sticker 970 Times. It Exists Zero Times.
The original Monroney label is the one document that proves how a car left the factory. Whether you can get it has nothing to do with the car and everything to do with the badge on it.
Mercedes Buyers Check the VIN Eight Times More Often Than the Market Average. Chrysler Buyers Check Half as Often.
We can compare how often a brand gets checked against how often it's actually for sale. The gap doesn't track risk at all — it tracks how much the mistake would cost.
By Its VIN Codes, Chrysler Is a Mexican Brand
The first three characters of a VIN say who built the car and where. Counting them by brand produces a map of manufacturing that doesn't match any brand's marketing.
BMW Sells 104 Different Models. RAM Sells 10. Both Get Checked the Same Amount.
Two brands can command the same amount of buyer attention and organise it completely differently. One sells a catalogue, the other sells a handful of things very hard.
People Decode VINs on New Cars and Ask What Old Ones Are Worth
Two tools, same visitors, opposite age profiles. Which one someone reaches for turns out to say whether they're buying or selling.
Car Shopping Happens at the Weekend. Checking the Car Happens on Wednesday at 5pm.
We can see exactly when people look up a car they're considering. The pattern doesn't match when people go and look at cars, and the gap says something about how a purchase actually unfolds.
We Checked 105 Cars Our Readers Actually Own. They Carry 5.9 Open Recalls Each.
Every argument about unclaimed recalls uses national estimates. We have something better: the actual cars our readers saved to their garage, and what was still open on them.
People Run 217,000 Checks on Cars Built Since 2020. On Pre-2000 Cars, 13,000.
I sorted every VIN lookup by how old the car was. Attention piles up on nearly-new vehicles and thins out exactly where a car's history starts to be worth reading.
A Tesla VIN Gets Run 42 Times. A Ford VIN Gets Run 11.
We can see how many times each individual VIN gets looked up. Sorting that by brand produces a ranking of buyer anxiety, and one manufacturer is a very long way clear.
A Motorcycle VIN Has 17 Digits Too. Almost Everything Else Is Different.
I went through our catalog and marked every motorcycle by hand — 918 of them. Decoding a bike VIN works the same way as a car's until you get to the parts that actually matter when buying one.