Acura Legend VIN Decoder

Decode any Acura Legend VIN free in under three seconds. Type the 17-character vehicle identification number into the decoder above and pull the generation, model year, body style, engine, plant of origin, and any open NHTSA recall. No account, no credit card, no email gate.

This page is the dedicated Acura Legend hub. Below you’ll find the real body and engine codes the Legend carries inside its own VIN across both generations, the single plant that built every one, a position-by-position guide to the 17 characters, and where to physically find the VIN on the car.

About the Acura Legend

The Legend was one of Acura’s two launch models, arriving alongside the Integra when Honda introduced Acura as a standalone luxury brand in the United States in March 1986. It was Honda’s answer to the question of whether a Japanese automaker could sell a genuine flagship sedan against Mercedes-Benz and BMW, and for most of a decade it did exactly that, styled in part with input from Pininfarina and, on the second generation, actually assembled with the level of fit and finish American buyers didn’t expect from anything wearing an “H” badge in disguise.

The Legend ran two generations before Acura retired the name and replaced it with the RL for the 1996 model year:

Generation	Model years	Body styles	Engine	Built at
1st gen	1986-1990	4-door sedan; 2-door coupe added for 1987	2.5L C25A V6 (1986-1987 sedan); 2.7L C27A V6 (1987-1990 coupe, 1988-1990 sedan)	Sayama, Saitama, Japan
2nd gen	1991-1995	4-door sedan; 2-door coupe	3.2L C32A V6	Sayama, Saitama, Japan

The coupe is a genuinely separate body, not a two-door version of the sedan with the rear doors welded shut; it rode on a shorter wheelbase and got its own sheet metal both generations. On the second generation, the sedan carried trim names L, LS, and GS, while the coupe ran L and LS, and a 6-speed manual became available on the LS coupe starting in 1991, one of the few manual-transmission Honda/Acura V6 applications from that era. Every Legend, sedan or coupe, first generation or second, was assembled at Honda’s Sayama plant in Saitama Prefecture, Japan; the model was never built in North America, unlike later Acuras such as the TL or TLX.

If you’re chasing a Legend VIN because you actually own a later Acura RL, you’re one step off: the RL replaced the Legend outright for 1996 and does not share its VIN structure. Use an RL-specific decoder for those.

Acura Legend WMI codes (positions 1 to 3)

The first three characters of a VIN form the World Manufacturer Identifier, assigned by SAE on behalf of ISO. Every Legend VIN we decoded, spanning 1987 through 1995, sedan and coupe, both engine generations, carried the same WMI:

WMI	Country	Manufacturer	Notes
JH4	Japan	Honda Motor Co., Ltd.	Every Acura Legend, both generations, sedan and coupe

Because the Legend was built at one plant for its entire run, this WMI never varies the way it does on a nameplate assembled across multiple countries. If a VIN presented as a Legend doesn’t start with JH4, decode it with the tool at the top of this page before trusting the listing; it’s either a different Honda or Acura model, or a data-entry error.

How to read an Acura Legend VIN: position by position

Every Legend VIN uses the 17-character ISO 3779 standard, split into a World Manufacturer Identifier, a Vehicle Descriptor Section, a check digit, and a Vehicle Identifier Section.

Positions 1 to 3: World Manufacturer Identifier

See the WMI table above. Because the Legend has only one plant of origin, this block is the least useful part of the VIN for narrowing down what you’re looking at; positions 4 to 8 do the real work.

Positions 4 to 8: Vehicle Descriptor Section (VDS)

Positions 4 and 5 read KA on every Legend VIN we checked. Position 6 is the character that actually tells you body style, generation, and engine displacement, and it’s remarkably clean once you have real examples to check it against:

Positions 4-6	Body	Generation	Engine
KA2	4-door sedan	1st gen	2.5L V6 (1986-1987)
KA3	2-door coupe	1st gen	2.7L V6 (1987-1990)
KA4	4-door sedan	1st gen	2.7L V6 (1988-1990)
KA7	4-door sedan	2nd gen	3.2L V6 (1991-1995)
KA8	2-door coupe	2nd gen	3.2L V6 (1991-1995)

All five codes above were confirmed against real, checksum-valid Legend VINs decoded through NHTSA’s vPIC database, drawn from dealer and auction listings covering both generations and every model year from 1987 to 1995. Position 7 shifts with restraint hardware and doesn’t map to a single published meaning we could confirm across every VIN we pulled, so we’re not going to guess at one; position 8 behaves the same way. The decoder above reconstructs trim and options from the full VDS plus factory build data, not from positions 7 to 8 read in isolation.

Position 9: Check digit

The check digit catches typos. It’s calculated from the other 16 characters using a fixed weighting table and modulo-11 math. Every VIN used to build this page passed NHTSA’s check-digit validation; mistype a single character anywhere in a Legend VIN and the math stops matching, which is why any compliant decoder, state DMV, or the NHTSA recall lookup will reject it.

Position 10: Model year

The 10th character maps to model year on the standard 30-year cycle every VIN-compliant vehicle uses. For a Legend, only the first cycle run from G through S applies, since the model was gone before the cycle could repeat:

Char	Year
G	1986
H	1987
J	1988
K	1989
L	1990
M	1991
N	1992
P	1993
R	1994
S	1995

The letters I, O, and Q are always skipped because they resemble 1 and 0, which is why the sequence jumps from H to J and from N straight to P. We confirmed H, J, K, L, M, N, P, R, and S directly against real Legend VINs decoding to 1987 through 1995 respectively, one honest gap: we could not locate a G-coded (1986) VIN on a public listing that also passed the check-digit validation, so we’re not asserting we’ve personally verified that one character. G is still the correct code for 1986 on the ISO cycle and every other manufacturer’s 1986 VINs confirm it; 1986 Legends are simply scarce in the listings we could check, likely because the car was new for only a partial model year before the 1987 lineup (which added the coupe) took over.

Position 11: Assembly plant

Every Legend VIN we decoded, across both generations, both body styles, and every engine, carried the same single character:

Char	Plant
C	Saitama Factory, Sayama Plant, Sayama, Japan

Acura never built the Legend anywhere else, so this position doesn’t discriminate the way it does on a nameplate assembled at multiple sites.

Positions 12 to 17: Serial number

The final six characters are the production sequence stamped on your specific Legend as it left the line. Combined with the previous 11 characters, this makes every Legend VIN globally unique; two cars with the same generation, body, and model year still differ here.

Where to find the VIN on an Acura Legend

• Lower-left corner of the windshield, visible from outside the car
• Driver’s side door jamb sticker (on the door itself or the pillar behind it, depending on model year)
• Stamped on the engine bay firewall
• Vehicle title, registration, insurance card

The windshield and door jamb are the fastest to check on a used-car lot or in a private-sale ad. The firewall stamp is the one to check if you suspect a cloned or re-titled car, since it’s physically tied to the vehicle and far harder to alter than an adhesive label. On early first-generation cars the door jamb label can be faded or missing after four decades, so the windshield tag and firewall stamp are the more reliable pair to cross-check.

Check Acura Legend recalls and safety information

NHTSA’s own recall database lists several real campaigns against the Legend, most of them concentrated on two systems. A 1990 campaign (90E043003) covered driver-side front airbag modules on certain 1989-1991 Legends after TRW, the inflator manufacturer, found threaded components that could have been damaged during assembly and separate on deployment, releasing hot gas into the cabin. A separate 1992 campaign (92V109000) covered passenger-side front airbags on 1992 Legends that were assembled without igniter material, which could cause the airbag to fail to deploy, or deploy too slowly, in a crash. A later, broader campaign (95V103001) covered front seat belt buckles across a wide range of Honda and Acura models built with Takata buckle hardware, including Legends going back to 1986, after the red plastic release button was found prone to cracking and shedding pieces into the buckle mechanism. First-generation cars also saw a 1991 powertrain campaign (91V065000) tied to the automatic transmission on certain 1991 models.

To check your specific Legend:

1. Decode the VIN with the tool above to confirm the exact model year and generation
2. Cross-reference the 17-character VIN with NHTSA’s recall database
3. Contact your nearest Acura dealer, or an independent shop experienced with older Hondas, for any open campaign repair

Recall repairs are free regardless of vehicle age, mileage, or ownership history, though on a car this old, parts availability for a 30-plus-year-old campaign can be a real obstacle even when the repair itself is free.

Frequently asked questions

How do I decode an Acura Legend VIN?

Type the 17-character VIN from the windshield, door jamb, or title into the decoder at the top of this page. Results return in seconds and include generation, model year, body style, engine, plant of origin, and any open NHTSA recall. No sign-up.

Is the Acura Legend the same as the Acura RL?

Not the same car, but its direct successor. Acura retired the Legend name after the 1995 model year and replaced it with the RL for 1996, using a different chassis code and VIN structure entirely. If your VIN is from a 1996 or newer Acura flagship sedan, it won’t decode as a Legend; use an RL-specific decoder instead.

Where is the VIN on an Acura Legend?

The two easiest spots are the lower-left corner of the windshield, readable from outside the car, and the driver-side door jamb sticker. Both are required by federal labeling regulation and have been since well before the Legend existed. The firewall stamp in the engine bay carries the same number and is harder to tamper with, which matters more on a car old enough that door labels routinely go missing.

How do I tell which Legend generation and body style I have from the VIN?

Look at positions 4 to 6. KA2 is a first-generation sedan with the 2.5L V6 (1986-1987). KA3 is a first-generation coupe with the 2.7L V6 (1987-1990). KA4 is a first-generation sedan with the 2.7L V6 (1988-1990). KA7 is a second-generation sedan with the 3.2L V6 (1991-1995). KA8 is a second-generation coupe with the 3.2L V6 (1991-1995). The 10th character then confirms the exact model year.

Was the Legend Coupe just a two-door sedan?

No. The coupe, introduced for the 1987 model year, used its own body panels and a shorter wheelbase than the sedan, not a sedan shell with two fewer doors. Its VIN reflects that: it carries a distinct body code (KA3 on the first generation, KA8 on the second) rather than sharing the sedan’s code with a different position elsewhere.

Is the Acura Legend VIN decoder really free?

Yes. VinDecoderPlus decodes every Legend VIN free of charge with no sign-up. The basic decode covers everything the factory stamped into the VIN. A full vehicle history report (accident records, odometer history, prior ownership, salvage status) is available as a paid upgrade if you need it, which matters more on a car this age since a clean title doesn’t rule out decades of undisclosed work.

Can an Acura Legend VIN be faked?

The 17 characters can be retyped on a counterfeit plate, but the check digit at position 9 catches most single-character changes through math, and the firewall stamp is physically tied to the original car. If the windshield and door-jamb VINs match but the firewall stamp doesn’t, treat the car as potentially cloned or reconstructed from parts. The guide how to check if a car is stolen by VIN walks through the verification steps, and on a car this old, classic car VIN decoding covers the edge cases that a modern-vehicle decoder sometimes misses.

Decode any Acura Legend VIN free

Type your 17-character Legend VIN into the decoder at the top of this page for an instant breakdown. To go deeper into VIN structure or check other Acura models:

• Acura VIN decoder hub for the brand-wide guide
• How to read a VIN number for the general standard
• What every character in a VIN means for a position-by-position reference
• Classic car VIN decoder for pre-1981 vehicles and older VIN quirks
• VIN decoder vs. vehicle history report for what a decode covers vs. what it doesn’t