01-23-2018, 03:19 PM | #1 |
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Factory from VIN?
I got my VIN yesterday and did a few of the online lookups but none seemed to indicate the factory. What's the best way to tell where your car was built?
My VIN starts with "WBAJB32000.." I did find an old post which seemed to suggest "W" meant the car was built in Germany, but then another suggested WBA is South Africa. <confused> Any tips on where I can reference current VIN against my build to find out the above info? |
01-23-2018, 03:27 PM | #2 |
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Drives: '18 M550i, '15 Jaguar F-Type R
Join Date: Sep 2017
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada
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If you go to website bimmer.work and enter the last 7 digits of your VIN, the production facility will one of the bits of information that will be decoded
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01-23-2018, 03:33 PM | #3 |
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01-23-2018, 03:57 PM | #4 |
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I noticed this 6 years ago when I took delivery of my 2011 X3. Its VIN also starts with WBA whereas I had always understood that US-built cars start with "1". Looking into it at the time I found out the first 1-to-3 characters don't always mean the country the vehicle was built in. It can also refer to the location of the headquarters of the car company - which in this case is Germany hence the VIN starting with "W".
I've also noticed this with several Volvo's we've owned over the years. Despite knowing (for example) our long departed and missed C30 was built in Ghent Belgium (which has a YA or YB country code), its VIN started with YV - indicating Sweden. You learn something new every day. Tony |
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