Did you check ALL of your new cars serial/VIN's?

[R Walling]

This could happen to you!

 

 

[ted sweet]

likely the legal owner is an insurance company

[edinmass]

^{Watch the video, he correctly states a title is meaningless.......in ALL fifty states. If you car is in the VID and they have an issue, you don’t have a car.} 
 

^{VID= vehicle identification database...........department of justice, or in many cases, the department of shove it up your ass.......to honest people.} 

[SC38dls]

Totally agree Ed, but add insurance companies to that shaft organizations also. 

[Guest]

That was excrutiating.16:25 minutes with about 3 minutes of actual information.

[60FlatTop]

To finalize the destruction of the car a court judge should make a public statement of how the action has benefited the public in general and the state and federal agencies directly involved. Without some benefit it would be simply a senseless destruction.

 

The state and federal agencies should be required to provide a regular report on the benefits of the destruction for a period of time into the future as agreed upon or until a goal of betterment of all has been achieved.

 

The courts should have the opportunity and mission to weigh the case as it applies to both the law and justice. With the proper tools justice could do it.

[JACK M]

1 hour ago, GregLaR said:

That was excrutiating.16:25 minutes with about 3 minutes of actual information.

 

I have seen this guy before and I agree about talking to much.

He is a lawyer after all.

[m-mman]

I am always amazed at the amount of knowledge and work people will put into "fixing/repairing" their collector car but then either have no interest in or know nothing about titles and VINS. 

 

ABSOLUTELY! you need to verify the numbers on every car you buy. You need to know where all the hidden VINS are know how to translate them and connect them to the vehicle (year, model, engine, etc.) and make sure everything is appropriate. 

 

At most every major auction there are 3-5 cars that are rejected during check in. The VINS do not match the papers (or there is no VIN at all)  This almost always comes from sloppy work. You would not restore a car with chicken wire and bondo. Sawdust in the oil? I dont think so.  BUT too many people think it is OK to "BUY A TITLE" or swap numbers off of some other car. 

 

Typically the number situations are so wrong as to be comical.

A 57 Ford convertible that is wearing a Ranchero data plate. The paper title matches the Ranchero number but the frame number is a correct convertible sequence. Obviously the 'restorer' popped the plate off of a junkyard Ranchero that came with some papers and figured it was easier than properly resurrecting the convertible VIN.

 

A 100% hot rod that arrived with a paper title bearing a number. However, that number did not exist anywhere on the car. When questioned the consignor admitted that there was no numbers on his car (kit? made from parts?) but then illustrated his stupidity by complaining "You mean to tell me that every car out here has a number stamped on it??!!"  Uhhhh. . . .yeah they do! 

 

When VIN issues are found, the sellers-consignors are typically told to just take the car and go. Remove it from the property. Sometimes they try to insist that the auction house sell it (they wont).

If they refuse to remove it, then the Highway patrol is called and it is impounded for having an altered VIN . . . then good luck getting it back. 

 

IF you dont put as much effort into perfecting your title as you do properly restoring the rest of the car, it will come back to bite you. 

Edited September 3, 2021 by m-mman (see edit history)

[60FlatTop]

Recent personal experiences and increasing stories from friends lead me to believe the days of the casual (person to person) sales of motor vehicles are numbered. Also the exchange of cash in any manner. Buying a car will be more like working through a Real Estate network of certified and legal people. It's coming.

 

Yesterday I was scanning the O2 sensors on my '05 Silverado. Displaying the VIN was step two.

 

There is a worldwide effort involving about 200 countries cracking down on their shadow economies. The efforts will greatly restrict what many consider economic freedom. Hobbies and collectors are quite tightly entangled in those efforts.

[1912Staver]

Is there a accessible { to non - law enforcement people } source of information as to where these " hidden serial number " stampings are located ? Pretty hard to verify numbers if their location is a secret .

 Older cars can have more than one number , engine and frame numbers for example, that don't match from the factory. And it is very possible that in some cases the engine number for example was used for Registration / Title , where as perhaps in the State next door they usually used the frame number. 

 Verification of what is the " correct " number would be quite difficult I would think. 

On  " modern " cars things are relatively simple, but older cars have so many possible variations.  

[AL1630]

41 minutes ago, 1912Staver said:

Is there a accessible { to non - law enforcement people } source of information as to where these " hidden serial number " stampings are located ? Pretty hard to verify numbers if their location is a secret .

 Older cars can have more than one number , engine and frame numbers for example, that don't match from the factory. And it is very possible that in some cases the engine number for example was used for Registration / Title , where as perhaps in the State next door they usually used the frame number. 

 Verification of what is the " correct " number would be quite difficult I would think. 

On  " modern " cars things are relatively simple, but older cars have so many possible variations.  

That's what happened to me. My car came from Oregon (I'm in Idaho) and Oregon used the body number in the door jamb on the title, while Idaho wanted to use the serial number plate under the hood. It was a mess and I had to have the state police come check all the numbers but it was eventually sorted out.

[m-mman]

4 hours ago, 1912Staver said:

Is there a accessible { to non - law enforcement people } source of information as to where these " hidden serial number " stampings are located ? Pretty hard to verify numbers if their location is a secret .

Yeah, this very forum.  Nobody knows more about our cars than we do. 

Post on this board and you are surely going to find someone who has dismantled that particular make & model to the bare rivets. They know what is correct and where things are located, like all the numbers. They know how to decode casting numbers and model numbers on carbs and distributors. 

 

3 hours ago, AL1630 said:

That's what happened to me. My car came from Oregon (I'm in Idaho) and Oregon used the body number in the door jamb on the title, while Idaho wanted to use the serial number plate under the hood.

And nobody knows LESS about our cars than a government bureaucrat. Typically they barely understand the process for late model cars and certainly NOT our cars. I have had to bring in original shop manuals and statements on club stationary and then end up reading their own vehicle code to them!  

 

You must become the expert on your car and your local laws and be prepared to fight and push back a little when they cant adjust to our ancient vehicles. 

 

Example: the VIN is a unique identifier assigned to a particular car by the manufacture to track and identify that particular car through their system (recalls, quality problems, warranties, etc.) It is not a "body number" although those were sometimes assigned by the body builder (Fisher, Briggs, Murray, etc) for their own tracking purposes.

 

The VIN was typically applied (usually stamped in iron) on a part of the car that the manufacturer thought was the most important and unchangeable part. In the ancient days that would be the "engine". (the block of course but sometimes it was the transmission or even the flywheel - 1900s cars) This was because way back it was understood that bodies could and would be swapped. BUT in some eras and on some manufactures the VIN IS stamped on the body along with the heavy iron part . . . .

 

Later on the need to track models and body styles and assembly plants caused each manufacture to devise their own system and their own codes. Too confusing, the Feds said enough and created the 17 digit standardized VIN.

When the 17 digit VIN became common the bureaucrats pretty much felt that they didn't need to know or understand about our ancient systems so they are oblivious to the old systems and try to force our cars into their 17 digit understanding.  

It then becomes our job to educate them to what is correct for our cars. 

 

But is it really any harder than welding floors and swapping frames? 

[joe_padavano]

On 9/2/2021 at 2:25 PM, GregLaR said:

That was excrutiating.16:25 minutes with about 3 minutes of actual information.

 

So, just like every other YouTube video...

[zepher]

Everyone should make sure every car they begin to put money into has a clear title and all the numbers are straightened out.

If you don't, you risk putting money into a car you will eventually lose.

[Akstraw]

23 hours ago, zepher said:

Everyone should make sure every car they begin to put money into has a clear title and all the numbers are straightened out.

If you don't, you risk putting money into a car you will eventually lose.

Totally agree.  I sadly walked away from a brass car purchase last month after I had already been thoroughly over the car and negotiated price.  Even had arranged transport.  I had told the seller up front that any title issues would be a show-stopper, and at the end of the day, the VIN on the title did not match the physical number on the car.  Historical paperwork showed that the mismatch went back through three generations of his family to the nineteen-seventies.  Perhaps you can hand-wave that away in some states, but not in mine.  If the seller thinks the paperwork is not a big deal, then let him/her get it sorted with a new, clean title in his/her own name, and then bring it back to you.  Good point to ponder on your own cars, too; they'll all be for sale some day.

[60FlatTop]

1 hour ago, Akstraw said:

the VIN on the title did not match the physical number on the car.  Historical paperwork showed that the mismatch went back through three generations of his family to the nineteen-seventies.

That would put the 1970's purchaser in the group who lived during the 1930's depression. Especially with a brass car interest. Those are men at the top of my least trustworthy list. During impoverished times esteem is placed on those with the ability to cheat and lie their way into gaining things of value. And those skills remain in their nature for life. Check your Aesop's Fables.

 

I am very cautious around survivors of that group. They were plentiful in my formative years.

 

You know, people wouldn't put much faith in stereotypes if groups of people didn't keep doing the same things.

[JCHansen1]

These sort of messes happen more than almost all casual enthusiasts realize. I see variatons of this sort of stuff pretty regularly. Not too long ago I went through a 65 Mustang for a guy in Germany. Almost immediately figured out something was amiss when I found late summer sheet metal date codes all over the body shell on a Mustang with a late December VIN number. Unsurprisingly, the only piece of December sheetmetal I could find was the drivers front inner apron with the VIN stamping on it that had been welded in. Scraping away the undercoating on the undersides of the hidden VIN stamps on the inner fenders told the rest of the story... small strips of metal with "matching" December VINs had been tack welded in place where the original hidden VINs had been cut out. Totally bogus car, and fairly high dollar at that, being sold by a licensed dealer who was indifferent at best with my observations. Stuff like this is a fairly regular occournace for me. Not all the time, luckily, but maybe a half dozen or so times a year I keep people from getting completely screwed on a fake car. Way too many people out there are willing to blindly trust a stranger or salesperson thousands of miles away to be both honest and knowledgeable, and then wonder how they get into a mess. Certiantly some buyers know what they're looking at, but lots of buyers don't have the first clue what to look for even if they see the car for themselves. 

[kgreen]

I recently learned that Ohio registered vintage cars with a permanent registration.  I'm led to believe this occurred to a particular car in the 70's.  The car was sold out of state nearly 40 years ago.  Upon inspection by the local police here in Georgia, I was told that it was still registered to that man and thus belonged to him.  The police were not willing to tell me who owned the car, but that he was born in 1930.  The lesson here is more that a car that was permanently registered years ago is unlikely to have been unregistered and it's sale can create problems years down the road.

[TAKerry]

At a time in the past, I was buying (and selling) quite a few antique motorcycles. All legit on my end. VINs always scared me!  

 

After tearing apart, and sometimes putting back together, I can say there is a 'hidden' vin underneath the heater box on a second gen firebird. The heater box must be removed and the vin is stamped into the firewall. 

[JCHansen1]

1 hour ago, TAKerry said:

At a time in the past, I was buying (and selling) quite a few antique motorcycles. All legit on my end. VINs always scared me!  

 

After tearing apart, and sometimes putting back together, I can say there is a 'hidden' vin underneath the heater box on a second gen firebird. The heater box must be removed and the vin is stamped into the firewall. 

That's correct. However, you don't have to remove the heater box to get to it, which is a PITA on F-bodies. I had to authenticate a 1973 SD455 for someone a few years ago, and SD's have their own specific engine codes in the VIN, so the hidden VIN mattered. It took a little time, but I devised a rig for my borescope the enabled me to fish the camera down through the cowl, through the fins of the heater fan and face the front edge of the firewall, enabling me to get images of the stamping. I was also able to sight around the stamping itself to try and rule out someone cutting in a stamping cut from another car, but admittedly if they'd cut out a huge chunk of cowl to make that happen I might not see that. Not many (any) sellers are going to be allowing folks to pull inner fender liners and heater boxes off their Trans-Am's for vetting purchases, so my method is obviously much less invasive! 

 

Ditto on the motorcycles, and my concerns were always with indicated miles and ridiculous representation of low original mileage on bikes. It's easy enough to swap out a car cluster to pull mileage shenanigans, but my 9 year old daughter could swap a speedo on most antique motorcycles. I always took any mileage claims on antique bikes as pretty much fantasy.