This sounds like a dumb question, but here's the deal. I ordered my CM last December and I took delivery in the 2nd week of January. The build date of mine was late October and I have always assumed that it was a MY 2013 as it has all of the MY 2013 updates (Countryman lettering on the back, window switches on the driver side door). It's also the Cooper ALL4 (not the S) which was introduced into some markets in the last half of 2013. However, just the other day I was cleaning out the glovebox and I came across the printout from Magna Steyr with the build options, and right at the top it says "MJ 2014". Does that mean that officially it's actually a MY 2014 car?

 

1. Get your VIN
2. Go to this site: http://www.vindecoder.net/
3. Enter your VIN
4. Get your answer

 

Thank you Rktcyntst. This is what I get:

Is there anyone else here with a 1984 Countryman?

 

http://www.bmwarchive.org/vin/bmw-vin-decoder.html


Go to this site instead and type in the last 7 digits of your vin

 

Cool - was worth a try! Hopefully that other site yields better info for you!

 

What a wealth of info on this site - it's nice to finally have English translations of most of the options on my CM! Alas, there's still no info on the model year, but I just learned that my Countryman came with Brake energy regeneration - cool!

 

On cars built for the North American market the 10th character of the VIN identifies the model year.

An "E" would mean 2014 model ... which makes sense for a car built in October 2013.

 

I was able to get the correct info using http://vindecoder.eu/mini:


The model year is encoded as the 10th digit of the VIN, and since there's only 1 digit you will end up with the same code representing multiple years (remember Y2K?). In my case, 'E' is used to represent both 1984 and 2014.

I've also learned that "Modelljahr" is German for "model year", so that also explains the "MJ 2014" on my printout.

Anyways, thank you Rktcyntst and Khrystian for your help. I definitely learned a few new things today!

 

Thanks for the info. Mine is actually not sold in North America (look up production code XD71 if you're interested), however this fact doesn't change what you wrote.

By the way, would you happen to know when they started building the 2014 model year cars?

As for why I'm so curious about this, in early December we had the opportunity to purchase (and take immediate deliver of) a CM identical to the one we have now. However, that one got sold during our few days of indecision. And once we decided to pull the trigger we then had to wait a month for the next shipment to arrive. To find out that ours is in fact a 2014 model year would be our "reward" for waiting, as the resale value will be slightly higher.

In addition, there were some minor tweaks for 2014 - see http://www.leftlanenews.com/mini-rew...-for-2014.html

I know that mine has the heated mirrors (option code S314A) and 12V outlet in the rear cupholders. I have no idea if it has heated washer jets, and I will also need to check for the padded rear armrests.

 

CN R60, glad I could be of some help.. even if it wasn't for the original information you were looking for!