Rental Fleet VIN Capture at Check-Out and Return

Where to Find the VIN on a Rental Fleet

Rental staff can read the VIN through the windshield from outside the car, which makes it the fastest identifier during lot walks and returns.

Capture and Extract It Reliably

Photograph the windshield plate at an angle that avoids sky reflections; use the door-jamb label as a fallback. Then send the photo to the VIN OCR API, which returns the VIN and the surface it was read from. Test with the free VIN scanner.

Where This Fits

• Lot audits: Replace manual transcription of 17-character identifiers with a photo.
• Check-out and return: Attach the extracted VIN and its source surface to the record for audit.
• Damage claim records: Send low-confidence reads to a review queue instead of saving them.

Python Example

Send the image as Base64 JSON and read the VIN fields.

Prerequisite: Python 3.9+, `pip install requests`, and a STRUCTOCR_API_KEY

import base64
import os
import requests

with open("vin.jpg", "rb") as image_file:
    image = base64.b64encode(image_file.read()).decode("ascii")

response = requests.post(
    "https://api.structocr.com/v1/vin",
    headers={"x-api-key": os.environ["STRUCTOCR_API_KEY"]},
    json={"img": image},
    timeout=30,
)
response.raise_for_status()
data = response.json()["data"]
print("vin:", data.get("vin"))
print("confidence:", data.get("confidence"))
print("carrier_type:", data.get("carrier_type"))

Sample VIN Response

Illustrative response using the Wikipedia sample VIN. The API returns the VIN as read; decoding happens in a separate step.

{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "vin": "1M8GDM9AXKP042788",
    "confidence": "High",
    "carrier_type": "metal_plate"
  }
}