Hidden vin locations!

[erco]

I was fortunate enough to buy my car from a totally legit seller named Tommy. Yeah, that's the ticket!

[Deadwolf]

I've had two cars brought in from other states that had inspections go sideways. They go through a physical inspection at the DMV here in Arizona. Any sign that something isn't right and they will get scrutinized big time when they make you take the car to the state police garage for a Level III inspection. If anything is out of whack or they feel there is fraud when numbers don't match up, it could be the last time you see your car. I got both of those cars cleared but one now carries a "Restored Salvage" title which lowers the value and sometimes limits how much comp insurance coverage you can get. That car had a "washed" title and when I took the seller to court I found out he had already been arrested for doing the same thing to someone else.

In Michigan it is all about the title. If you don’t have one it is next to impossible to get one, which means you can’t register it, which results in a lot of cars becoming parts cars. Since a bill of sale doesn’t make it any easier to get a VIN it almost encourages people to VIN swap since if you find a rust free body, next to impossible in Michigan, without a title the only other thing you could do is cut it up for patch panels. I’ve already ran into this on an Impala that luckily was bought for parts. Now on the 1963 Impala the frame has the VIN stamped on it, but not the body, so the previous owner could have legit done a bolt on frame swap, but since the vin tag had actual pop rivets in it I suspected otherwise. That body was cut up for patch panels with the remaining going to the salvage yard. But the frame was solid and sold to someone else doing a frame swap.

Without a mechanism for getting titles with a bill of sale the state has kinda shot itself in the foot and promoted illegal behaviors.

[erco]

I was cleaning up my RF wheelwell today for painting and I noticed another number above the crossmember VIN, not very legible but appears to be stamped from the opposite side.

[azdave]

Interesting. Some owners report seeing various stampings like that here or there and usually surmise they are part identifiers for the individual panels but that number looks much longer than others I have seen.