About the VIN... (archive)

I tried to find a good VIN decoder to find out which motor it has, but was unsuccessful. The VIN of the 635 is: WBAEC710108173805. Anyone know how to decode a VIN?

EC71 = 635CSi, euro market, high comp motor, manual tranny.

In similar manner:

DC71 = M535i, euro market, high comp motor, manual tranny.

Here's is *generally* what the codes stand for:

E stands more or less for E24
D stands more or less for E28

C stands for 3430cc M30

the first number usually stands for the engine/tranny choice (e.g., 5 = low compression, manual; 7 = high compression, manual

the second number stands for the market (e.g. 1 = europe, 2 = UK RHD, 4 = USA).

But US cars only had low compression, and their # codes are 74 and 84, so it is inconsistent with the european codes. That's just how BMW did it, don't ask me why.

Usually, though, if you have a "1" as the 7th digit, it denotes european market, and a "5" denotes low comp motor with manual, "6" denotes low comp motor with automatic, "7" denotes high comp motor with manual, and you guessed it, "8" denotes high comp motor with automatic.

Hope this helped, rather than confused...

Chris Graff

Follow Ups:

A little more about the VIN... Kpmcd528i 23:01 4/07/2002 (0)

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