As the VIN on any teener is only 10 digits long, how do use such a service when attempting to validate its history?

ANSWER: you dont

Aaron, youve been down this road?

i tied doing this on mine....ive heard people saying that you cant do cars that are pre (? year)

no possible way to carfax a 914.

I have yet to find ANY of those VIn search outfits that can accomodate a VIN number less than 17 chars.

Everyone is right. You don't.

81 is the cutoff.....

If it's a California car one thing you can do is check the smog check history. Of course this only works for '74-76 cars.


http://www.smogcheck.ca.gov/vehtests/pubtstqry.aspx

You can do a search usually with the DMV in your state. Some charge for this and others won't let you have the info. If it was reg in more than 1 state you would have to ask for title info in both states.