Escape numbers

[gbaglo]

The reason I raised it was there was discussion of when the VINs rolled over for a new year.

 

[Brian B-P]

Just to throw a wrench in this whole thread, my 2009 17B was completed in July, 2008.

The reason I raised it was there was discussion of when the VINs rolled over for a new year.

They didn't start the practice of restarting from zero each year until several years after your trailer was built, so the strange year identification doesn't affect the serial number sequencing. And, Ron's right...

I don't think that throws a wrench into the mix. If there was enough data collected it would show that yours was manufactured in 2008 regardless of the delivery date.

Also, your VIN (as shown earlier) contains a model year code (the tenth character, "8") which confirms that this is a 2008 trailer... regardless of what other documentation shows.

 

[rubicon327]

Also, your VIN (as shown earlier) contains a model year code (the tenth character, "8") which confirms that this is a 2008 trailer... regardless of what other documentation shows.

Brian: I don’t know about the 10th character (ours is an “A”...??) but when you put Glenn’s VIN into an online decoder it does come back as 2008. Ours comes back correctly as a 2010 as expected.

 

[padlin]

Might be Hex, A = 10

 

[mconrath]

Being relatively new to the Escape community, I need a history lesson from the more seasoned vets. It seems that several events happened at ETI around the same time. I was wondering who could put these in chronological order with approximate dates and speak to any relationship between these events.



- Began to reset VIN each calendar year.

- Change of body style.
- Fire.
- Expansion of production.

 

[cpaharley2008]

Expansion of construction started in late 2015 early 2016 with the introduction of the 2ndG body style. Reace wanted to install a better refrigerator and the 1stG door opening was limiting the choices. Thus the 2016 models were the first with new style 2ndG. Escape expanded from something like 3 buildings in the rear forward to taking over another 2-3 buildings to where they are now. The fire occurred in 2018 or 2019 and was limited to one building which was destroyed. It was the headliner process which involved flammable glues.

 

[Brian B-P]

Brian: I don’t know about the 10th character (ours is an “A”...??) but when you put Glenn’s VIN into an online decoder it does come back as 2008. Ours comes back correctly as a 2010 as expected.

Yes, "A" is the model year code for both 1980 and 2010, and "8" is the code for 2008 (and will be again for 2038).

Might be Hex, A = 10

Close. They just started with "A" in the first year of the standardized VIN, went to the end of the alphabet (skipping the letters I, O, Q, U, and Z), followed that with the digits (skipping zero and nicely lined up so that 2001 = 1), and then started with the letters again... so "A" follows "9", just as it does in conventional hexadecimal notation (but the VIN continues past "F", unlike hex).

 

[Brian B-P]

- Began to reset VIN each calendar year.

The beginning of 2016 or 2017... I'm not sure.

- Change of body style.

During 2016; first-generation (original, "classic") and second-generation (vertical side walls) were in production at the same time for a while, with the new version of each model introduced at different times through the year as the new body moulds became available. By the end of the year, all models had been changed over and no new first-generation trailers were being built.

 

[Brian B-P]

... when you put Glenn’s VIN into an online decoder it does come back as 2008. Ours comes back correctly as a 2010 as expected.

That CMVID service from NISR is cheating a bit, on a part unrelated to the year. The "2E9" at the beginning of the VIN is the World Manufacturer Identifier (WMI), but it does not specifically identify Escape Trailer Industries. ETI is a small manufacturer, and 2E9 corresponds to various small manufacturers (under 500 vehicles per year) with names starting with "E" in Canada. To know that it is ETI, the 12th through 14th characters are needed and called the "WMI suffix" - in this case "068" indicates ETI. If you try the "Find WMI by Maker" feature in that tool, you'll see that it pops up a list of all known manufacturers with their assigned WMIs, but that list does not include Escape (or Bigfoot, for example).

That's why there are only three digits available for the serial number: a normal manufacturer has the last six digits, but three of them are fixed for a small manufacturer, leaving only three to number the units. That's not a problem, because most manufacturers would (as ETI does now) reset the counter each year, and three digits is enough to number 500 vehicles.

 

[LIJ Michael]

My 2019 21 picked up in Aug last 3 are 326

I'm going to confuse things a bit. The above mentioned 2019 21 that was delivered in August was 326; my 2019 that was completed July 23 and picked up July 24 is 328. Go Figure.

 

[Brian B-P]

I'm going to confuse things a bit. The above mentioned 2019 21 that was delivered in August was 326; my 2019 that was completed July 23 and picked up July 24 is 328. Go Figure.

That sort of thing will happen, because they assign VINs then juggle the production order as necessary and don't confuse order tracking by changing the VINs. In this case it might be even simpler: #326 was picked up in August, but may have been completed much earlier.

 

[75thRanger]

That sort of thing will happen, because they assign VINs then juggle the production order as necessary and don't confuse order tracking by changing the VINs. In this case it might be even simpler: #326 was picked up in August, but may have been completed much earlier.

My 21 (326) was completed on Aug 12 and I picked it up Aug 13. I was at ETI before they were there that morning. Ready to go!!

 

[dfandrews]

Once the trailer is out of the mold and onto the frame, there is a VIN number for it. I know that some of the work is done in batches, so it may sit a bit before joining the assembly line.

 

[War Eagle]

Random recollections:
1) At one point (early 2016?), U.S. border customs halted imports of Escape trailers until ETI changed their VIN numbering system to comply with U.S. standards (some new owners were having trouble getting their trailers licensed in the U.S. because of the VIN problem).
2) As part of the VIN changeover, ETI started assigning their new VIN numbers in batches of 12 (at that time). If they were making a run of 17s, and they ran out of VIN numbers, the next 12 VIN numbers in sequence would all be assigned to the next 12 17s built, regardless of what was actually on the assembly line at the time. That said, I ran into some odd exceptions when I was collecting a database of 2017 model VIN numbers at the time.
3) When we ordered our 21 in mid 2016, ETI gave us the choice of getting one of the 1st generations being phased out (and would be designated as a 2016 model) or one of the 2nd generations being phased in (and would be designated as a 2017 model). We chose the latter.

 

[Brian B-P]

1) At one point (early 2016?), U.S. border customs halted imports of Escape trailers until ETI changed their VIN numbering system to comply with U.S. standards (some new owners were having trouble getting their trailers licensed in the U.S. because of the VIN problem).

The VIN numbers were not the problem; ETI just had not properly registered with U.S. federal agencies as an importing vehicle producer. The VINs themselves were fine, but officials trying to look up the trailer in their databases found no valid manufacturer. When that was resolved (by registering the company in the right database, using the same VIN codes), the trailers moved again. There's no change in the VIN structure after versus before this event, other than the annual resetting of the final three-digit serial portion which doesn't matter to regulators.

3) When we ordered our 21 in mid 2016, ETI gave us the choice of getting one of the 1st generations being phased out (and would be designated as a 2016 model) or one of the 2nd generations being phased in (and would be designated as a 2017 model). We chose the latter.

Whatever was said about year designation, it appears that trailers built in 2016 are all identified as the 2016 model year in the VIN (the tenth character is "G"), regardless of whether the body was the first generation or the second generation (which at the time was called the "2017" style).

 

[War Eagle]

The VIN numbers were not the problem; ETI just had not properly registered with U.S. federal agencies as an importing vehicle producer. ....

I need to go back and find Tammy's original thread on this whole ordeal, but I recall something about a "secret" verification code within a U.S. VIN, that to be legit in the U.S., certain digits within the VIN have to add to a certain number - or something like that. And the original ETI Canadian VINs didn't meet that U.S. requirement. I also recall something to the effect that ETI had to establish a registered U.S. representative, so that when U.S. Customs had a problem, they could contact someone in the U.S. about it rather than having to track down someone in the country of origin representing the manufacturer. Now where is Tammy's old thread about that unfortunate chapter in their corporate growing pains....

 

[dfandrews]

Original discussion about VIN and delay with exports:
http://www.escapeforum.org/forums/f20/wow-all-exports-temporarily-suspended-8276.html

 

[Brian B-P]

I need to go back and find Tammy's original thread on this whole ordeal, but I recall something about a "secret" verification code within a U.S. VIN, that to be legit in the U.S., certain digits within the VIN have to add to a certain number - or something like that. And the original ETI Canadian VINs didn't meet that U.S. requirement...

Uh... no. The 9th character has always been required in North America (including Canada) to be a "check digit", and ETI VINs have always had that feature. Government agencies and insurance companies checking VINs will typically use this (as intended) to detect erroneous VINs, and owners of older Escapes don't need to worry about it.

It initially looked like there might have been a concern with the Vehicle Description Section, but ETI didn't change that part of their VINs, so it must have been okay.

If anyone wades through the thread which Don linked, they will see confirmation that the structure and content of the VIN on the trailer never was an issue.

 

[War Eagle]

I believe ETI's VIN problem (if I'm remembering this correctly) had something to do with "The 9th digit check digit" as discussed near the end of the article pasted below. Some of the the original Canadian VIN numbers used by ETI didn't add up and triggered red flags when some new U.S. owners tried to register their Escapes.
http://kerrywilsoninsurance.com/vin-facts/

Edit: Never mind, see Brian's simultaneous post above.

 

[War Eagle]

Original discussion about VIN and delay with exports:
http://www.escapeforum.org/forums/f20/wow-all-exports-temporarily-suspended-8276.html

Thanks for finding that thread, Don. After a very quick browse, it seems the VINs were okay, but some VINs triggered a red flag that the manufacturer wasn't properly registered under new U.S. NHSTA guidelines. Pasted below (I hope) is Tammy's first "official" response on the forum to the situation (Post #175):
http://www.escapeforum.org/forums/f20/wow-all-exports-temporarily-suspended-8276-9.html#post152965
We had just made our down payment two months before this happened, so needless to say, we were more than a bit interested in what was going on and how/when it would get resolved.