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Reference

VIN model year codes (position 10)

The tenth character of a VIN encodes the model year using a repeating 30-year cycle of letters and digits. Letters ran from A (1980) to Y (2000), digits 1–9 covered 2001–2009, and the letter cycle restarted at A for 2010. The letters I, O, Q, U and Z and the digit 0 are skipped.

Which of the two years is it?

Because the cycle repeats every 30 years, M could mean 1991 or 2021. For US-market vehicles the tiebreaker is position 7: if it's a letter, the vehicle is from 2010 or later; if it's a digit, it's from the earlier cycle. In practice the vehicle itself usually settles it — a Telluride can't be from 1991.

Model year vs. build date

The code encodes the model year, not the production date. Manufacturers typically start building the next model year in late summer, so a car assembled in September 2023 is usually coded as a 2024. The actual month of manufacture is printed on the door-jamb certification label, not in the VIN.