(I think you meant BMW, not IBM...)

5ilv3r · on March 3, 2016

BMW VIN must be longer than 7 digits.... IBM product license serial numbers at 7 digits would make more sense.

sjwright · on March 3, 2016

BMW only ever cares about the last 7 digits of your VIN, as demonstrated on their iDrive software update page:

http://www.bmw.com/update

(an example code would be "J123456")

devy · on March 3, 2016

Yes, VIN numbers are 17-characters long, but only the last 7 characters are unique, called "sequential number".[1] The first 10 characters are composed of make, model, year etc.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_identification_number