Quote:
Originally Posted by beta
I think you guys are missing the point. We don't have a list of wrecked cars, only that website where you can check if a car is wrecked. I imagine they can't release the full list, only let you check if you already have the vin.
As for scratching cars off the list... that'll make a dent of maybe 50 cars?
Best way is as Zstig says to divide the list and go through.
|
I agree with beta. The nicb.org site uses Captcha to discourage the use of automated scripts. I'm no expert in automating this but I expect that it would be difficult to defeat Captcha.
That's probably not even the biggest obstacle. The site states "A maximum of five VINCheck searches can be conducted within a 24-hour period per IP address." As an example, if 25 people volunteered to do this and actually did it until it was done, that would be only 125 VIN checks/day, so at this rate it would take over 40 days to complete the ~4800 VINs. That's with all 25 people doing 5 per day every day for 40 days. Of course if more people volunteered it would take less time, but some people would lose interest, miss days, etc. Someone would also have to divvy up all ~4800 VINs and assign them and then receive and collate the results. It's a big project!
Figuring that there's no harm in asking, I decided to contact the company so I've sent them this message through their website's "Contact Us" form. I identified myself as a member of the Zpost BMW Z4 Enthusiasts:
"We are a small group of enthusiasts and owners of the BMW Z4 M Roadster and BMW Z4 M Coupe. There were only about 4800 of our cars produced by BMW for North America from 2006-2008. We have the VINs of all of the cars produced and we would like to find which ones of these ~4800 cars have been totaled. We have discussed using your database against our list of VINs but with a limit of 5 VINS/day/IP address, even if we had 25 people doing this, this would take a long time. Is there any other way that this could be done? If we were to send you the list of VINs would you be able to tell us which ones have been totaled? Can you suggest any other viable solutions?
Thanks!"
I'll post if and when I hear back from them.