Where do I find the VIN on a Hyundai?

You'll find the VIN of a Hyundai in five possible places. The primary one is the bottom left corner of the windscreen on the dashboard: readable from outside through the windscreen, without having to open the vehicle. In the engine bay the VIN is stamped on a chassis rail or a cross member. On the driver's-side door pillar there is a sticker, and on more recent models sometimes a plate as well. The B-pillar carries an additional stamping on many Hyundai model lines. In the documents, the VIN appears in field E of Part I of the registration certificate and in full in Part II of the registration certificate (the vehicle title). On a Hyundai the WMI code is especially revealing: it tells you whether your vehicle was built in South Korea or at the European plant in Nošovice, Czech Republic.

Hyundai follows the international standard for VIN placement, but supplements it with plant-specific variants depending on model year and target market. The windscreen is the first place to look on most models: at the bottom left you can see the stamped metal plate from outside, without opening a door or the bonnet. In the engine bay, the VIN on older Hyundai models is often on the front cross member, while on newer ones it tends to be on the left chassis rail near the body. The door-pillar sticker is useful above all for a quick cross-check; anyone buying a car should check the sticker for authenticity. Freshly replaced or overprinted stickers point to possible tampering. On Hyundai models from European production (i30, certain Tucson model years) from the Nošovice plant, the sequence of VIN positions is identical, but the WMI code differs markedly from its Korean counterpart. On modern Hyundai vehicles, an OBD reader also displays the VIN in the diagnostics menu.

Hyundai is one of the few groups that produces both in South Korea and in Europe — and that is clearly identifiable from the WMI code of the VIN. A Hyundai i30 from the Nošovice plant starts with TMA instead of KMH. That's not an error but correct coding. Anyone buying a supposed i30 whose VIN begins with KMH should ask questions: the vehicle would then have been produced in South Korea, which is not the rule for certain i30 model years destined for Europe. That doesn't automatically mean anything negative, but it is a difference in the supply chain and can be relevant for spare-parts sourcing and warranty history. As for the model year: position 10 contains an indicator that on Hyundais — as with most Asian manufacturers — generally follows the ISO standard, but can differ from the actual year of registration in Europe. The date of first registration in the vehicle title is always the more reliable source. On Hyundai electric vehicles (Ioniq 5, Ioniq 6), the VIN contains no information about battery status or charge cycles; this data is only accessible via OBD diagnosis or an on-site check.