[ricohman]

VIN plate swap?

I went to look at a 1986 SVO today hoping to bring it home.
The car is red but the buck tag and the door plate say 1E, which is silver. The door sticker looks like it was peeled off and stuck back onto this car. But some time ago.
The VIN plate has been painted black and is not attached with the usual rivets, looks not right to say the least. But the seller is an older fellow and has owned this car a long time.
The buck tag is silver though.
I'm in Canada and I don't think it's legal so buy a car with a tampered VIN so I passed.

 

[tjm73]

Could have been the result of a repair.

 

[ricohman]

Could have been the result of a repair.

Perhaps. But the VIN plate under the windshield has also been changed. I wonder if you are allowed to remove that and swap it onto another vehicle?

 

[Mstng93SSP]

You absolutely cannot put a vin from one vehicle onto another vehicle. It is illegal.

 

[tjm73]

Perhaps. But the VIN plate under the windshield has also been changed. I wonder if you are allowed to remove that and swap it onto another vehicle?

Yeah that's sketchy. I would have passed too.

 

[5.0thunder]

So both tags are different? or do the vins match on both but color is wrong?

 

[Mustang5L5]

There are additional VIN stickers on the body panels. Each bumper should have one on it, two in the hatch water channels, 1 on each door on bottom, 1 on hood, 1 on each fender at the hood edge and possibly a few more that i missed.

 

[7-UP BILL]

I'd run not walk from that one. That has jail written all over it

 

[nocry.nofry]

For a long time I could not find a site that removes information available on the VIN code on the Internet. It's good that they gave the site VIN Cleaner. Removing the American vehiсles history from Internet resources and the specialists helped me remove all this information. It's very convenient.

 

[russ3747]

The rivets is definitely a red flag. The paint color on a car that has been repainted is not, unless you can tell the unibody of the car was always not silver.

I understand vin swapping is not allowed most of the time it is to sell stolen or vehicle with a lien.

But if you had two cars with both having clear title and the unibody was better on one and the rest was better on the other. If the only part from the unibody car was the shell more of the car would be the other. If you made one car out of them which vin should the car be?

I have only seen one vin swapped mustang. It was obvious and I told the seller then walked away. Could have gotten it cheap but did not want any issues that might come up. Vin / title did not match any of the body stickers, and the year of the car didn't even match the year of the title.

I told the seller he omitted the car had a lien on it.

 

[Werecow91]

My ex-wife and I had a discussion just today on this very subject. We were wondering what some of the auto specialty places do as far as the VIN if they have to take 2 cars to make one. Like if they have to use the firewall and strut towers from one car and the rest of the car from another one due to rust damage (actually saw something similar to that on YouTube) but I didn't know how on earth you'd actually be able to VIN a car cause it's made of more than 1 car.. I surmised that they would have to use the VIN associated with the firewall but I'm not sure how that works out really...

 

[russ3747]

I have heard the saying the only part of the car that can't be replaced is the VIN tag. Talking about a totaled rare classic.

I say I did a body swap on my mustang. Took "everything" off an 89 5.0 T5 hatch and put it on 87 2.3 auto coupe. Other than a few non factory fasteners it's an 89 5.0 speed coupe. But the title still says 87 2.3, I am not getting into vin swapping.

 

[Werecow91]

Well for that matter I've got a 90LX with a 351M and a C6 tranny...... But the VIN on it still shows it's a 4cyl auto car... As far as the insurance knows it's still a 4cyl auto car as well...