Hello everyone!

Not only am I a Justa owner - I'm currently writing a book where a Red Mini takes center stage and causing a whole heap of trouble.

I need some expertise on Mini VINs.

In the book, the Private Investigator is trying to locate a recently purchased Mini - he was given the VIN and the color, nothing else.

The premise of the story is that the VIN he was given was off by one digit. Knowing what I know about VINs, the last 6 digits of the VIN are production numbers.

My question....Is it feasible, that there are two red Mini R56's out there with almost identical VINs with the exception of the second to last digit? In the book I have the PI was give a VIN where the last two digits were 81 and they should have been 61.

Is this scenario possible?

Any help is appreciated

Amanda

 

If it's a MINI sold in North America, a VIN that's off by the second to last digit will
usually force a corresponding change in the "check digit" (9th one) by a mathematical
protocol (see link http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Vehicle...s)/Check_digit ).
For a BMW based car sold in Europe, this might not apply.

 

It's North American based book. Would any of those last six be able to be mistaken? Or better yet, any number at all in the VIN. I just need two Red R56's to be mistaken by the VIN number and it has to be plausible.

 

There's a couple ways of thinking about this.
One - if the VIN is wrong in only one of the production numbers, then
by plugging in the check digit formula, you can determine that it's not a
valid VIN.
Two - if you knew that only one digit is wrong and which digit is wrong, you
can determine from the check digit what the mistaken digit was originally.
In other words, you could determine that it should end in 61 instead of 81
in your case if you knew that the 8 was the wrong digit.
Three - if you pick the specific digits correctly, it's quite possible to have
two valid VINs that differ by two number characters. Also, you can change just one
letter character (for example a B can be changed to either a K or an S since those
characters have the same numerical weight) and still have a valid VIN. You can
also change a number to a letter with the same numerical weight per the transliteration key
on the link and things will work out.

 

I need the VIN to be wrong in the sense that a client asked a PI to locate someone. That someone has a red Mini with the VIN xxxxxxxxxx123456. Only the VIN is relayed to PI as xxxxxxxx128456. (the 3 was mistaken for an 8). The PI locates the car with VIN ending in 128456. It's red, same model - so he thinks he found the person, in reality he has the wrong car, because the VIN was off by a digit.

That's the storyline I'm going for. He doesn't know the VIN is wrong.

 

Is this situation more plausible?

xxxxxxxx3xxxxxx3x vs xxxxxxxx8xxxxxx8x

Where the 9th and 16th digit were mistaken for another number.

 

Maybe. The way to check would be to change the 16th digit then do the calculation
to see what the corresponding 9th digit should be in that case. In some cases the 9th
and the 16th could be the same and in other cases they'd be different from each other.
It depends on the actual numbers and positions plus some number theory modulus and remainder stuff.

Here's a link with an free online calculator that corrects the 9th digit if necessary when a 17 number VIN is entered:
http://www.alton-moore.net/vin_calculation.html
That saves you from doing the cumbersome calculation yourself.

 

if its fiction, does it matter if its plausible? I work in healthcare and I cringe anytime they do scenes in hospitals.

 

LOL - Most definitely - Readers call authors out on the smallest of things.

 

Thank you - I went to the site but it's looking for valid VIN numbers - I'm just looking for information "in theory". Thank you for all of your help though.

 

I put in 12345678901234567 and it corrected it to 12345678701234567
It just has to be "valid" in terms of the 9th check digit working with all the others.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to shine in my own pedantic way.

 

That must be reassuring to know someone has read your book.

 

According to the Bentley manual, for '07 - '11 Mini's (which includes the R56S), digits 12 - 17 of our 17 digit VIN is for "Serial number" --- "Sequential production number for specific vehicle". Seems to me that your original scenario is very plausible. Note that digit 12 is probably always an alpha character.

Digit 9 is specified as a "Check digit" --- 0 - 9 or X, calculated by NHTSA". Maybe this is what Christo is alluding to? A check digit that varies with sequential serial numbers? If so, you have a 1 in 11 chance of having a legitimate set of VIN's.

Also, none of the digits reference color, and if you don't specify body style or model year, it will be difficult for a critic to identify a faulty VIN.

 

As mentioned, I understood the last digits starting with the letters to just be a serial number so TL10941 is a certain car with a certain colour (I happen to know that's a purple Cooper-S). MINIs come off the production line in a very random order, there's not necessarily any correlation between one MINI and the next one off the production line. When we took the factory tour, you'd see a blue convertible followed by a yellow hardtop or whatever.

While its unlikely that any two MINIs would be the same, it is possible, and red is possibly the most popular colour for a MINI, so that would make it more probable. If you can find suitable VINs which follow the mathematical formulae as given above.

 

Contrary to my 1st opinion, if a VIN is subject to a "checksum" process, there's no way that only one digit can be different. That's the purpose of the 9th digit --- to make all the other digits add to the assigned "checksum" value.

So, if your story can be changed to reflect only the most commonly used "last 7 digits", your single digit error will work. Otherwise, a knowledgeable critic will have a field day.

Or, as mentioned above, its fiction - never mind the details.

And, as far as VIN sequential assignment, I'm willing to bet that the VIN is assigned at the factory by some order-taking clerk, or a computer, before anything else happens, hence the sequential nature of the number. How / when the car comes off the assembly line has no significance. My '07 MCS was built in 9/07, probably in line with some of the early '08s. Some early software I obtained shows my last 7 digit VIN as an '08 MCS. The RealOEM web site lists it correctly as an '07, with the same last 7 digit VIN.

When / if you are published, would you let us (at least me) know, via a PM? I'd like to see how you resolve this issue.

 

Changing two of the last 5 numbers of a VIN, makes no difference at all to the check sum. The last 5 are production numbers The last two letters before the serial # specify the year of the car.

So my car is TX41704, a 2010 Chili red hardtop. It's entirely possible that TX 41740 is another Chili red hardtop... Using either of those numbers will get you to a specific car. It would be possible to find out who and where the owners are...

So, OP, go ahead, the only people that are going to be upset are loons anyway. Just hope they aren't like Kathy Bates in Misery...

 

Actually, changing TX41704 to TX41740 will change the check digit by +4, since the
16th digit has a weight of 3 and the 17th has a weight of 2 (if adding 4 to the check
digit makes it go above 11, then subtract 11).
oldbrokenwind's idea of just using the last 7 digits is a good one. If you make it the last 8
it also tells you what model year MINI it is.

Here's another link that spells out what different parts of the VIN tell you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_Identification_Number

 

I used this German Vin Decoder site to compare hundreds of Mini Coopers while trying to find a car with factory LSD and no sun roof. Hopefully it will help you out.

http://www.bmwarchiv.de/vin/bmw-vin-decoder.html

 

The simple answer is yes, go with it. Let us know when th e book is ready.