Z4-forum.com

Not sure this has been posted before but I find it very useful for getting the full spec of cars I'm looking at.

Get the registration number of the car you are interested in / looking at.

Enter the Reg number in the BMW Insured Warranty online quotation site

http://www.bmw-warranty.co.uk/Pages/CarDetails.aspx

Click Next (I have found a few that require you to call for a quote)

You will then be presented with the following information;

Registration, Model Description, VIN (Chassis) & First Registration Date

Copy the last 7 digits of the VIN and paste it in to the site below

http://www.rubmw.ru/vincode/eng/

Enter the result of the math question then click Search.

Good job! Worked well. With such an old 03 model the original spec is really interesting to know. Amazing but scary what information is out there!

Nice didnt realise you could get the VIN from the reg on there. There are other ways to get the spec from the VIN but this is simple enough, good work

For those Alpina owners, the Russian site shows a lot more detail than the BMW owners page that just shows an alert that it's an Alpina car.

PS this site is slightly better from a sharing perspective as it gives you a link to the VIN..

http://www.bmwvin.com/