I recently bought a Honda del Sol, '97 model... or so I thought. When I gave my insurance company the VIN number, but never mentioned the year, my insurance says it's a '96.

The dealer I bought it from was actually the one who pointed this out as a "mistake" by my insurance company. If he knew it was a '96 and was trying to hide it from me, I doubt he would have pointed it out.

So my question is: how can I tell, by looking at the car, what year it is?

Thanks for your help in advance!

 

in the door jam it will say manafactuer year.. and if it says like 02/97 then its 97 but any thing after the 8th month is the next year so 10/96 is 97...

 

Look at the 10th digit/letter of your vin:

10th POSITION MODEL YEAR
L = 1990
M = 1991
N = 1992
P = 1993
R = 1994
S = 1995
T = 1996
V = 1997
W = 1998

 

I didn't see any date on the door jam, just two stickers, one with the VIN and one with what appeared to be random numbers (no "97" or "96" in them at all, an no "/" or "-" or "." at any point either).

My VIN does have a tenth digit of V though, so thanks for that!

 

Edit: I'm wrong


Modified by AWD Terror at 10:01 AM 10/10/2007

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by AWD Terror &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I thought they stopped making them in 96, but I'm prolly wrong</TD></TR></TABLE>

You are

Another way to see year, is by the year stamp on the engine head. Of course, if the engine isnt original, this means jack.
Engine years are off by 1, so if the chassis is a 97, the engine says 96.

If its B series, look above the 3rd exahust runner - (9|x)
If its D series and a y7/y8 it can be at the top corner, close to the timing belt

Really, the vin is best - glad you figured it out