All vehicles, whether automobiles, trucks, motorcycles or snowmobiles, have a unique identification number. The Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) provides a number of characteristics about a vehicle, including manufacturer, year of manufacture and specific factory-installed options. A snowmobile VIN contains 17 digits that reveal a number of meaningful attributes of the snowmobile. It is possible to decode the VIN of your Yamaha snowmobile, if you can read the number. It is fairly easy to crack the code of your snowmobile's VIN.
Find the VIN for your snowmobile. On a Yamaha snowmobile, the VIN is located on the right side tunnel, where you rest your foot while riding.
Interpret the first digit of the VIN as the country of manufacture. A number one or four signifies the snowmobile was manufactured in the United States, while a two signifies Canada and the letter "J" signifies Japan.
Make certain that the second digit of the VIN is a "Y" to signify that the snowmobile was manufactured by Yamaha.
Verify the year of manufacture with the 10th digit. The years 1971 to 1979 and 2001 to 2009 are signified by the digits one through nine. The letters A through Y, skipping the letter I, signify 1980 to 2000. The letter A is recycled for 2010.
Notate the 12th through 17th digits. These will indicate the relative manufacturing order of your particular snowmobile. The number 000001 would indicate the first snowmobile off the line.
Contact Yamaha for the significance of the 3rd through 8th digits. These signify the particular attributes such as body style and engine type, and their significance changes from year to year.
Ignore the 9th and 11th digits. These are a check digit and assembly plant, respectively.