How to tell the eact year of my car?

[Rob]

Howzit all,

Well this is an odd request I suppose. However I think my car maybe an early 91' model, with a M20 engine in it. As I've just seen a picture of a 525i 1990 model with a different dash. I mean it had an anolog clock and no OBC buttons... Where mine has a digital clock and some OBC buttons.

Any ideas guys?

Thanks.

[joshua43214]

the model year is encoded on the vin code. The 10th digit is the code, 1980 model year is A. I,O,Q are not used. So, your 1990 vehicle should have a L in the 10th digit. The date of manufacture is printed on the sticker on the left door below the latch. BMW looks for parts based on the serial number part of the vin. The aftermarket will look for when a vin split occured and then list their parts by date of manufacture. It is a good idea to always provide DoM as well as model year when ordering parts through the aftermarket.

[SRR2]

Easy. Plug the last seven digits of your VIN into realoem and it will tell you exactly what you have.

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/select.do

[Alexlind123]

The analog clock is no reason to suspect its a '90. My 1990 has wood trim, obc, airbag (everything except passenger airbag, the funnybig wheel climate control, and tracction control).

[jjdickm]

I have a 1990 with the m20 engine and a digital clock and obc I thought 1991 is when they started putting in the m50 actually it was mid 1990 when they did that.

[Rob]

I have a digital clock in mine. No airbag. Also I don't have the full OBC I think. Like setting a timmer ect. Will check my VIN number tonight though.

Thanks guys!