Have you all ever noticed....
 

on the rear tail lights on the left side where the reverse lights are that it show the year of the car? I saw 96 on my presently owned white car and 93 on the green car i recently sold. Actually, my friend showed me this. Unless the lights been changes, this can also be a good way to detect the year without the vin or sticker in the door.

By golly, you're right... sorta. I checked tail lights from a 93 SE (inners) and a 97 SSEi (left, right and center section) and a two-digit year appears on all along with some other characters. This is obviously a date code used for quality control purposes. The thing is that all were one year off from the model year of the car from which the came. The 93 SE lights had 92 and the 97 SSEI had 96 molded into the lens.

I guess it's about as accurate and confusing as the sticker inside the driver's door. I'm gonna stick with the 10th VIN digit to determine model years at a glance.

Yes, you're right. That number's been stamped on there for the past 40 years or more.

Rarely is it accurate, however, due to lens over runs, etc.

good find steve

Like Vital said they have been on cars for many many years now
go ahead check out the car parked next to you.

I've been checking the year of cars that way for 25 years. It'll bite you every now and then, but never by more than a year.

Lets see how acurate that is...

'83 Chevy C15: '73
'87 GMC G25: '85
'90 Olds Royale: '90
'94 SSE tails: '92

Ifind it more or less tells you the first year those tails were used. Good for knowing what gen it is, But you can usually tell that by the body.

It's a manufacture date. So, if nothing changed for a few years, and it's a really popular vehicle (or they just haven't changed that one part in a while) it could be off....

My old tails said 92...

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my tail lights say 00'