I took out the old one and put in the new one in this morning. The old Bosch VR's two spring-loaded prongs had about 0.25 in. left, one was a bit shorter and the tip was black. I noticed that the new Bosch VR I got is slightly different. For one, the last two digits of the part number is different--it's 028 whereas the old Bosch VR is 023. Secondly, the old VR had a green diode thingy and the new one doesn't. Do these differences matter?

On a side note, locating and changing the VR is very easy. The hard part was actually finding room and trying to screw in the new VR with the longer prongs. I had to do a lot of contortions just trying to nestle the new VR in and holding it there while trying to set the screws in before the VR popped out!

I wouldn't be concerned about the part number since manufacturers continuously revise these parts.

As long as you got the regulator from a reputable source I wouldn't worry about diodes and such being different.

Sixto
... stay tuned