Who-Dey

I've got a RTV900 side by side, can someone tell me how to find the year it is, the serial number is c4938

Congrats on your RTV900. You are gonna love it. I bought an 06 just last Dec and I'm just now really getting to use it. It is awesome.
From what I've seen your serial number does not appear right. I think they should be 6 or 7 digits.

Doc said:

From what I've seen your serial number does not appear right.

Click to expand...

I agree, that can't be right.


On ours, there is a decal on the drivers side, behind the cab, above the battery, on , I think the frame. Black tab with numbers on it.

That is it should be, but many more numbers than that.

Give me a few minutes, I will have to think what "digit" tells the year ...

P.S.

THINK IT IS THE NINTH (9TH) DIGIT that tells the year of manufacture.....

............. TWO GUNS .....

Yes, it should be in the 9th digit for most models.

9th digit or last 2 digits generally the year of the machine

I think the newer ones have a different format. I just bought a used one (2011 or 12)and the vin is different from the descriptions here and my serial # is cxxxx.

The older RTV's were a number short on the VIN. VIN's are supposed to be 17 characters but until about 2007 (I don't recall the exact year), they only had 16. So, on the older ones, it was the 9th position.

Since many States required these vehicles to get registered, they needed to get it fixed so people could do their registration. Those of us with the 16-digit had a hard time since the State's system wouldn't accept 16 characters as a full VIN.

Now that they have it as 17 characters, the year is now correctly in the 10th position.

OK, for the last part of the VIN. Don't quote me on this but here's my thoughts.
Kubota is using the last 5 digits as their sequence number for that particular RTV. All the proceeding characters would be the same for vehicles coming off the line but they always need to increment one to make it unique.

So, back in 2004, the very first RTV ended with 00001. The 2nd RTV was 00002 and so on.

Jump ahead about 6 years or so and they reach 99999. Now they have a potential issue. Do they start back at 00001 or do they start an alphanumeric sequence? I'm thinking they don't want to start over. The reason being is the ROPS also has a serial number and that number matches the last 5 characters of your VIN. For liability reasons, they want those to match so in the event someone swaps out a ROPS then gets hurt in a rollover, they can tell if the ROPS is what came with that particular RTV out of the factory. So, if they reuse numbers, there's potential for swapping which they don't want.

Therefore, I think they went from 99999 to A0001 and kept counting until A9999 then moved on to B0001 and continue.

I just checked for the serial number again and this is the only thing i can find, behind the battery says this is the serial number==C4938 and on the back of cab== ROPS B8761
On my paper work from the dealer it says the serial # is C4938 Soooo what year is it???

walleyeman said:

I just checked for the serial number again and this is the only thing i can find, behind the battery says this is the serial number==C4938 and on the back of cab== ROPS B8761
On my paper work from the dealer it says the serial # is C4938 Soooo what year is it???

Click to expand...

I'm fixing to dig into this. Something we gotta know !!!!

Not sure of the year model for yours, but my 2011 RTV 900XT has a serial number of C3944. I purchased it new on July 12, 2011. I'd say it's at least a 2011 model.

walleyeman said:

I just checked for the serial number again and this is the only thing i can find, behind the battery says this is the serial number==C4938 and on the back of cab== ROPS B8761
On my paper work from the dealer it says the serial # is C4938 Soooo what year is it???

Click to expand...

On the plate behind the battery, is there a VIN? It should be 17 characters.

bczoom said:

On the plate behind the battery, is there a VIN? It should be 17 characters.

Click to expand...

Walleyeman,
Do what bczoom stated, or go to your paperwork. It will have to have a
VIN # ......

walleyeman said:

I just checked for the serial number again and this is the only thing i can find, behind the battery says this is the serial number==C4938 and on the back of cab== ROPS B8761
On my paper work from the dealer it says the serial # is C4938 Soooo what year is it???

Click to expand...

Sorry, I'm at a loss on this. If the paperwork lists the serial number as that short number I don't know where you'd go from here. Do you have a title for it? The dealer should be able to tell you the year, but it sure would be nice to verify. I have no idea how a state could register a vehicle with that kind of VIN number. Even though mine is not registered with the state my bank and insurance company wanted the 17 character vin.

Please keep us posted as to what you figure out on all this.

bczoom is correct in the fact that the older rtv's used a 16 character vin - I have an 04 w/ a 16 digit vin & the 9 digit (the #4) indicates the year as a 2004. As far as motor vehicles that are allowed on public roadways the VIN (vehicle identification number) was standardized worldwide to contain 17 digits in 1981. Prior to that is was up to the manufacturer to decide what the vin consisted of. From 1981 on the 10th digit determined the year & started using the alphabet - A for 1980, B for 1981, & so on. Certain letters were not used (O, X, I) I believe. Each section of the VIN stood for something (country of origin, manufacturer, model, plant of manufacturer, serial #, etc). The NICB (National Insurance Crime Bureau) keeps records on all vehicles manufactured in the world, this includes records on hvy equipment & off road vehicles (tractors - etc).I have worked closely w/ the NICB have been able to ID vehicles (stolen) w/ VIN plates removed to conceal the vehicle identity. I'm sure that Kubota went to a standard 17 digit VIN at the request of the Dept of Transportation. Years ago manufacturers of off-road equipment put PIN's (product identification number) on there equipment. So, I imagine everyone is going to a 17 digit number. Yeah, I know - info overload!!!.
Hey Doc, my 04 VIN is on a label above the battery on the on the outside of the left frame rail. If the dealer can't help u w/ some better info send me a PM w/ copies of what u have form the dealer & photos of any #s u can find & I'll talk to my contact at the NICB & see if he can help.

Thanks Popo. I'm good with mine. It's Walleyeman having the trouble and I was at a loss as to what to tell him. Maybe he can email or PM info to you and get some help. Thanks for the offer.

My tag has a serial# on the top line and a VIN on the second line which includes the serial #as the last 5 digits of the VIN. The VIN doesn't follow the convention of the older ones I've seen here. tons of letters not many numbers. I figure they've gone to a code sequence for the build options. The vin is 17 digits though.