Practical, data-backed guides to identifying, specifying and servicing construction, farm and power equipment — compiled from the manufacturer documents behind this site.
Perkins and Kubota serials encode the build year; Cat, John Deere, Deutz, Yanmar, Volvo Penta and MTU don't. What each plate tells you and how to get the year.
The machine model doesn't tell you the engine. Where each engine maker puts its plate, how to read the model code, and why the EPA label misleads.