Utimate diesel engine swap brewing? One of the kind mitsubishi diesel truck in US?

[Monterorider]

Damn. Sorry for stirring up the pot guys then I some times google lies I guess http://www.vin-decoder.net/vin_MMBMG45H08D083611

Of course there is always possibility that custodian may have wrong info.

 

[roaming knome]

I'm not calling anyone a liar, but from the info on that link it says that it was an auto trans also. The customs agent said that it was indeed a gasoline fueled, 2wd, 5sp manual transmission vehicle. I would suspect him to be correct and also it's pretty hard to mistake a manual for an auto transmission.
Or like you said both could be giving bad or misinformed info. I also googled the VIN using that same site, and would trust the VIN decoder, but when I called and inquired about it to confirm if it was indeed an "apple" (diesel, auto like VIN decoder said) and the customs agent said "No, it's an orange" (2wd, 5sp. manual)
I'm just sharing what I found out, that's all. I would have hated to invest that money to find out I did indeed purchase an orange when I was expecting an apple. I just hope whoever the winner was got what we all wanted, the "apple".

 

[Monterorider]

Oh neither do I. I now suspect you are correct and site is not. Although when I bought my 92 from GSA they had it listed as 4 cylinder. Overall VIN-decoder site seem to work very well. All my cars interpreted correctly. Some from abroad matched as well including couple diesel L200 I could find. Still, when I've tried to enter bogus VIN number by modifying one listed on gsaauctions it always comes back the same diesel/auto/4door. I suspect now it returns some kind of default value. Guess they say inspections are recommended for a reason. I hope no one bought it plainly based on forum comments.

 

[off-roader]

Maybe it returns the same info for bad vin numbers. IIRC VIN numbers are a N. America thing and I don't believe vehicles built for other markets have the same format ID numbers.

 

[Monterorider]

It does work on abroad vehicles. For example http://www.vin-decoder.net/vin_MMBJNKB407D158939 Matches nicely http://www.euroncap.com/tests/mitsubishi_l200/314.aspx
One might notice it shows more info than for Mexican L200. Although again for my former Cruiser it only produced few basic things.
Something is obviously amiss.

 

[off-roader]

It does work on abroad vehicles. For example http://www.vin-decoder.net/vin_MMBJNKB407D158939 Matches nicely http://www.euroncap.com/tests/mitsubishi_l200/314.aspx
One might notice it shows more info than for Mexican L200. Although again for my former Cruiser it only produced few basic things.
Something is obviously amiss.

I think your first sentence should read "It does work sometimes on abroad vehicles".

 

[Monterorider]

Agreed. Apparently it should in lieu of we learned now.

 

[off-roader]

Maybe it returns the same info for bad vin numbers. IIRC VIN numbers are a N. America thing and I don't believe vehicles built for other markets have the same format ID numbers.

Yup, after posting this and reading how some non-us vehicles also have VIN numbers I decided to do some more research and discovered there are a number of countries who also use the same VIN standard as the US such as many European ones however there are other countries who don't use the US VIN system except for cars destined for US shores. Japan is a perfect example.

They use something called a Frame Number instead of our VIN system for their domestic vehicles. So if you imported a JDM vehicle it would not have a VIN. That said I wonder if any of these free vin lookup websites are smart enough to allow you it input whatever number your vehicle has and it will look up and provide the correct info automatically?