Quote:
Originally Posted by Rickysnickers
Respectfully, astronaut, I disagree with you. The primary purpose of a VIN is to identify the vehicle it is attached to. The title is for the purpose of identifying the legal owner.
VIN laws are pretty clear, you cannot swap VINs from one vehicle to another. While your intention, meaning you and what you stated, isn't to cover up any type of criminal activity, the fact that you are placing a VIN plate from a completely different vehicle, albeit the same make and type of vehicle, is illegal. Despite it being difficult to get a replacement, it is still doable. They make it difficult for a reason.
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In my state and plenty of others it's 100% legal to take an old VW Bug, strip the body off, hack whatever you want onto the frame, and title/register/insure the creation (whatever it ends up as) as a "VW Bug" with the VW's vin number. That vin number is no longer attached to a "VW Bug" and no longer identifies the VW Bug that the frame came from, but it's legal. It does identify the owner that registered the creation via that vin number.
Lets say that I bought the leftover VW Bug body that the previous owner discarded when he used it's frame to build a Dune Buggy, and the vin tag from the body was attached to said Dune Buggy. I also buy a same-model year VW Bug parts car that is complete with a clean title but is wrecked and rusty and at the end of its useful life. I take the two and make one and it's registered as the parts car but using the clean body leftover from the Dune Buggy build. It's all VW vin'd, VW titled, and registered as a VW. So... I used a different (but same model/year) VW body on a VW frame and it's all registered as a VW but that's illegal because the vin tag was moved over to a better body? What point would there be in me getting a new vin assigned other than to be able to register and title the "newly built" vehicle under my ownership? The vin from the donor/frame serves that purpose 100%.
Which example is legal, and which example is more correct ethically? The mixed-manufacture Dune Buggy is legal but my vin swapped VW would be illegal even though it's more of what the vin identifies it as.
Being legal doesn't always mean its right or wrong, it's just the way the government thinks things should be. Sometimes they get it right, sometimes they don't, sometimes the principle behind the law is good but the technical details could use some wiggle room for common sense situations like my body swap example.