What Does VDA Boot Size In A Car Mean?

We have mentioned very frequently of the term VDA, when referring to car boot sizes. Not many are aware what does this mean, even the sales people freely quote xyz litres VDA boot size when selling their cars without actually understanding what does it mean. The use of "litres" as a unit of measurement for the VDA method causes further confusion to the regular guy on the street. Do they fill the boot with water to measure its size?

VDA is short for Verband der Automobilindustrie, which is loosely translated as the German automobile industry association. VDA is an umbrella group made up of all German car makers and automotive parts suppliers. Working together under the VDA umbrella, the group works as a powerful industry lobby group to look after the common interest of the German automotive industry. Car makers cannot negotiate / lobby for certain terms / conditions on their own, because this will raise questions about conflict of interest. Whatever policies made have to be made in the interest of protecting jobs and the greater German automotive industry in general and not just for any one particular group or company (contrast this to the way things are done in Malaysia...). Thus, German car makers need to come together under an impartial third party body to voice their concern / further their common interest.


Among the VDA's function is to push for greater standardisation among German car makers and parts suppliers. Some of them are due to economic reasons (standard CAD-CAM usage, transfer of electronic files, trailer / container size etc etc) to facilitate parts procurement from different suppliers while others are for quality and production related issues - the VDA 6.1 is a common quality standard adopted by all German automotive parts suppliers while the VDA German Quality Management System is followed by all German car plants, these are all extensions from the international ISO standard as VDA is a member body. Other standards are aimed at protecting safety of road users, including location of vehicle batteries and common points within the car body that are designed to be cut open by rescuers "Jaws of Life" tools in the event of a serious accident.

Anyway back to the VDA boot size calculation. The measurement is done using blocks of wood measuring (200x50x100)mm, which translates to 1,000,000 cubic mm. If you still remember your high school math, 1 cm cubed has the same volume as 1ml. So 1,000 cubic mm equals to 1 ml which again translates to 1,000,000 cubic mm equals to 1,000ml, which equals to 1 litre. In short one block of wood has an equal volume to 1 litre. So what they do is to fill the boot space with as many of these blocks of wood as possible. So if 500 blocks can be crammed inside the space, then boot space is equals to 500 litres VDA. So if the Honda City sedan is rated at 506 litres VDA, it simply means that it can fit 506 blocks sizes measuring (200x50x100)mm in its trunk.

So now that you know better, go and spread the knowledge. There is an e-mail / Facebook link below in case you don't know.