Dacia VIN Check

Every Dacia carries a 17-character Vehicle Identification Number that records how the vehicle was built, even though Dacia — like the rest of Renault Group — does not follow the fully generic ISO VDS decoding used by many other manufacturers. Instead, positions 4–9 form a manufacturer-specific 6-character TVV (Type-Variant-Version) code. Positions 4–7 of that TVV typically match the vehicle-type code shown on the oval homologation plate fitted to the vehicle itself, which is why cross-checking the physical plate is often the fastest way to confirm a decode.

Dacia is identified by WMI UU1 or UU2, both assigned to Romania. UU1 covers vehicles from Dacia's Mioveni plant near Pitești — the company's main and historically only large-scale factory — while UU2 is used for a Dacia subsidiary/secondary registration. Because Dacia sits inside Renault Group, our decoder applies the same underlying TVV-based logic used for Renault-badged vehicles, simply keyed to Dacia's own WMI prefixes rather than Renault's VF1.

Dacia was founded in Romania in 1966 and originally built licensed Renault designs for the domestic market. Renault acquired the company in 1999 and relaunched it as its value-focused brand across Europe, positioning Dacia models as simpler, lower-cost alternatives that often share platforms and engines with sister Renault vehicles. That budget-first positioning — no-frills equipment, straightforward mechanicals, and pricing well below comparable Renault models — remains Dacia's core identity today.

To read a Dacia VIN manually, start with the WMI (positions 1–3) to confirm UU1 or UU2 and Romanian manufacture. Positions 4–9 then form the TVV block: positions 4–7 are the vehicle-type code — the same code stamped on the oval homologation plate — while positions 8–9 typically add gearbox and further homologation detail specific to that type. Critically, position 9 is not an ISO 3779 check digit on Dacia VINs, unlike on North American vehicles. It is simply the last character of the TVV/homologation code, so our decoder correctly reports check digit as "N/A" rather than attempting a weighted-sum validation that doesn't apply to European Dacia/Renault VINs.

Position 10 often carries the standard ISO year letter on European Dacia/Renault VINs, but Renault Group's internal type-approval documentation has used this position inconsistently across platforms and model years, so it should be treated as a helpful indicator rather than a certainty — always confirm against the registration document. Position 11 identifies the assembly plant: most Dacia-badged vehicles come from Mioveni, Romania, though some export variants (such as certain Sandero and Duster units) are built at Renault's Tangier, Morocco plant, and related badge-engineered models sold as Renault in some markets come from Chennai, India (RNAIPL). Because Dacia's TVV structure is manufacturer-proprietary rather than a public ISO standard, always verify a decode against the oval plate under the hood or on a door pillar, and against the vehicle's registration document, before relying on it for a purchase or service decision.