by Karl » Fri Sep 17, 2010 4:42 am
[quote="Terry Kennedy"]
[quote="Karl"]
A quick FYI - Farmers' insurance database, according to Bill, does not accept incorrectly formed VINs (aka those that do not pass checksum). As far as I know, none of the Brammo PINs have a correct check digit, so you may not be able to get insurance through Farmers if the PIN is what was used as a VIN on your state registration.[/quote]
I think it doesn't even get to the point where it cares about the check digit. A lot of places have a hard-coded
WMI list and if they can't find the first 2 characters, they say "not valid". Way-back-when, I convinced CARFAX to try looking up data for VINs anyway, rather than punting when they can't determine the WMI. My Atom has a couple CARFAX entries - the first one is "alignment at dealer", since Brammo sent the cars out for wheel alignment. The second one is the title/registration record. AutoCheck claims my VIN is invalid.
[/quote]
I'm certain that it is a check digit issue. Farmers corporate is trying to figure out how to change their system to allow for specialty VINs, but that process is long an arduous, as you can imagine most corporate policy changes are.
[quote="Terry Kennedy"]
[quote="Karl"]
A quick FYI - Farmers' insurance database, according to Bill, does not accept incorrectly formed VINs (aka those that do not pass checksum). As far as I know, none of the Brammo PINs have a correct check digit, so you may not be able to get insurance through Farmers if the PIN is what was used as a VIN on your state registration.[/quote]
I think it doesn't even get to the point where it cares about the check digit. A lot of places have a hard-coded [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_Identification_Number#World_Manufacturer_Identifier]WMI[/url] list and if they can't find the first 2 characters, they say "not valid". Way-back-when, I convinced CARFAX to try looking up data for VINs anyway, rather than punting when they can't determine the WMI. My Atom has a couple CARFAX entries - the first one is "alignment at dealer", since Brammo sent the cars out for wheel alignment. The second one is the title/registration record. AutoCheck claims my VIN is invalid.
[/quote]
I'm certain that it is a check digit issue. Farmers corporate is trying to figure out how to change their system to allow for specialty VINs, but that process is long an arduous, as you can imagine most corporate policy changes are.