Contents/Buying and auctions/AWD or FWD from the VIN

AWD or FWD? telling from the VIN and the listing photos which one you are actually bidding on

Started by first_awd_winter on Sep 9, 2025 in Buying and auctions, 6 posts

first_awd_winterOP

New platesBurlington, VT11 posts, joined Aug 2025

Sep 9, 20258:05 pm, #1

i do not own a crossover yet. i have a 2009 Civic with 211,000 miles and one Vermont winter left in it, and i have spent a month on this board working out how to bid on a car i cannot stand next to. the thing that nearly got me twice is dumber than anything else people worry about: the trim name does not tell you whether the car has all wheel drive.

EX, XLE, SEL, Premium, all of those come both ways. the listing gives you the trim because the trim is what is on the bank's paperwork, and plenty of listings never put the words all wheel drive anywhere on the page. in Burlington that is not a detail, it is the whole reason i am buying a different car.

so here is the order i worked out, mostly from reading this board and two phone calls. the people who have actually done this should tell me what i have wrong.

one, the window sticker. if there is a photo of the original Monroney out of the glovebox, read the model code line and the drivetrain row and stop, you are finished. about half the listings i have looked at have that photo.

two, the VIN. NHTSA runs a free VIN decoder and it prints the drive type for most cars built after about 2010. type in the 17 characters off the VIN plate photo and read what comes back. this is the only item on my list i would bet money on, because it comes off the manufacturer's own build record instead of whatever a clerk typed into a spreadsheet at a bank.

three, the photos, in this order. the console, because a mode dial with snow or mud on it usually means all wheel drive on a RAV4 or a Forester. the shot from behind the back bumper looking under the car, because a gas AWD has a rear differential and a driveshaft running up the tunnel and a front driver has a bare floor and an exhaust pipe. the badge on the hatch, which is worth nothing, because badges fall off and get removed and some dealers never stuck them on.

four, the one i did not know you could do. you can just ask. i emailed m&a about two different lots and asked each time for three pictures: door jamb sticker, center console, and one taken from behind the car aimed underneath. the first one came back the next morning and that car was front drive, in a trim that every forum on the internet says was AWD only that year. the second took four days and the lot closed while i was waiting, which is my own fault for asking on a thursday and then going to my sister's wedding.

so that is one front driver caught and one lot missed. tell me what else belongs on the list before i write a figure on the third one.

subaru_tech_ivan

High milesPortland, ME58 posts, joined Aug 2025

Sep 10, 20256:20 am, #2

your list is better than what most people walk into my service drive with. three things to add.

the fuel economy label on the window sticker has different numbers for the AWD and the front drive version of the same trim. if you can read the city and highway figures off a sticker photo and compare them against the EPA site for that model year, you have your answer without the model code.

on a Subaru, everything except the BRZ is all wheel drive. if it is a Forester or an Outback you can skip this whole exercise, and people forget that and spend an hour on it anyway.

and the one that is not obvious: on the hybrids the underside trick does not work. the electric AWD cars have a motor on the rear axle and no driveshaft, so from behind the bumper a front drive hybrid and an all wheel drive hybrid look the same. i wrote that in the CR-V thread too, because it caught a customer of mine in june.

boulder_rav4_xle

Daily driverBoulder, CO23 posts, joined Aug 2025

Sep 11, 20257:45 pm, #3

mine had the window sticker in the photo set and i still sent the m&a photo request, since rust on the rear coupling and the exhaust mattered to me more than confirming the drivetrain. took them one morning and cost nothing.

the thing i would add to your list is about you, not the car. ask for the shots before you build your number, not after. once you have decided what a car is worth you start reading the photos to agree with yourself. i did that and i am fairly sure i am still doing it two months later.

mod_priya_s

ModeratorColumbus, OH54 posts, joined Aug 2025

Sep 15, 20251:10 pm, #4

from the service desk side of this: somebody drives in believing their car is all wheel drive about once a week, and it is a coin flip whether they are right. they believe it because a salesman said so, or because there is a badge on the back, or because it is a Subaru shape. the VIN is the only thing i will act on before i put a car on a lift.

worth knowing for the registration end of it too. your insurance quote and your title both run off the VIN, not off what the listing called the car. so if you want to know what you are going to be insuring and plating in Vermont, you already have the number that decides it.

ann_arbor_crv

Daily driverAnn Arbor, MI19 posts, joined Aug 2025

Sep 24, 20258:30 pm, #5

the hybrid thing ivan said is what would have caught me if my lot had been a hybrid with no sticker photo. mine had both the sticker and the model code and i still went looking under the back of the car like an idiot before i remembered there is nothing back there to find.

one more photo worth asking for: the rear subframe and the spare well. on the hybrids the well is shallower because the battery and the rear motor eat the space, and it is the fastest way to see whether you are getting a real spare or a can of sealant and a pump. in Vermont in february i would want to know which one is under the floor.

first_awd_winterOP

New platesBurlington, VT11 posts, joined Aug 2025

Oct 6, 20257:15 pm, #6

closing the loop, in case somebody digs this up in a year. the third lot was a 2022 Forester Premium out of a yard in New York, and i needed none of this on it because Subaru, so i spent the photo request on rust instead. the rear subframe had more scale on it than i wanted to see on a car with 28,000 miles. passed on it.

i have two on the list now, a 2023 RAV4 LE out of Pennsylvania and another 22 Forester with 31k. the thing i do differently is that i send the photo request the same hour i find the lot, before i have any feelings about the car. M and A has been quick when i ask early in the week and slow when i ask on a friday afternoon, which is probably true of every business that has people in it. the lots get posted at mandaautollc.com, and watching that page for a week taught me more about pricing than any single listing did.

the winter tires are already sitting at the shop in Williston from my other thread. if i do not have a car by the first week of november i am putting them on the Civic and starting over in the spring, which would be the stupidest available outcome and i am about 30 percent sure it is the one that happens.