Quote:
Originally Posted by BMWGirlFL
What's my Z4 M40i type code? HF93?
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Digits 4-7 of the VIN. If digit 7 is C it should be replaced by 3.
Actually, let me do a longer answer since I have time.
The older type codes are in the format "letter letter digit digit". The letters are chosen arbitrarily in incremental order as new models are created. The digit in the third position is also mostly arbitrary though it used to denote manual vs automatic transmissions, in pairs: the odd digit would be for the manual model, the even digit (odd+1 or 9 -> 0) would be for the automatic. The last digit is always related to the destination market, sometimes combined with the country of manufacture: 1 is Europe and markets where European models are sold (e.g. Middle East and China fall under this group), 2 is the same but RWD countries, 3 is North America, 4-0 are Thailand, Malaysia, India, Indonesia, Russia, Brasil - either market-specific models or CKDs with final assembly in those countries. I could give you the exact list here but it's complicated and I doubt anyone would care. The only notable thing is SLP production, which is kinda special: 8 is EU LWD, 0 is EU RWD, and 9 is NA, but only if the same model is also built in Germany, otherwise it uses 1, 2, 3.
When used in a VIN, in some markets the last digit was changed to the corresponding letter (e.g. 1 would become A in the Middle East and 3 would become C in NA).
At some point the space of type codes in this format got exhausted so they used a digit instead of a letter in the first position - but not a 0 (reserved for motorcycles) or a 9 (reserved for all those random cars that use BMW technology while not being BMWs like Morgans or Fisker Karma).
Then BMW decided that having two type codes per model (manual and auto) was too wasteful - probably because so many cars lost the manual version altogether, so the 3rd position no longer encoded the transmission, and it was now strictly one code per model.
At about the same time the "dldd" format also ran out so they shuffled the positions around. The type code became "ddll". Functionally, positions 1-2 and 3-4 were swapped. These type codes are now always used in VINs without modification.
There's probably 15 years worth of space for combinations of this format remaining so what I've written here shouldn't require any updates for a long time.