TAC Tech => Number Crunching => Topic started by: JDMopar on December 12, 2022, 11:08:57 AM
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I was reading another thread here http://www.transamcountry.com/community/index.php?topic=83594.0 and saw the pic of the rusty VIN tag in that thread. If you have one like that, which is practically gone, can you get a replacement? Mine is a little rusty, but not as bad as the one in the pic. Flat tags like I'm used to on the old Mopars I've always fooled with can be reproduced, but a tag such as one on an F body, that is bent 3 or 4 directions would be hard to do. Just curious if one could be made if needed.
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I think it's possible to duplicate one. The GM ones had a little bit of shape to them, but not much. I have not seen an example of somebody forming them for sale, and I don't know if anybody does.
You can get flat ones made new all day long. The rivets are also available on cars where they used a special rivet. It's not legal to install one, as I'm sure you know. That said, all 50 states evidently have a process for VIN replacement which would cause you, I think, to have an assigned VIN. Nobody wants that, but it is available. Just looking at the form here in my state, the state offers a replacement VIN plate where it appears the VIN would be original.
Coincidentally, I knew a guy who built a 1969 Camaro almost entirely out of new individual panels (they're really cheap for that car) and it didn't have one on it. I told him he ought be at least mildly concerned about somebody stealing it. He has since sold it. I wonder what the buyer thought about it.
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And then there was the case where someone restored a vintage 'vette and removed and re-installed the vin tag. It was flagged and confiscated by the state police and ordered to be destroyed. There was a long court battle, the owner was able to get the car back after all.
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They reproduce the data/cowl tags pretty reasonably. The VIN tags however, I'm not sure. Someone has to be out there reproducing them. There's not much to it, just getting the pressings and the font correct. If cowl tags are being repro'd perfectly, the VINs can't be too hard either. I don't know about the legal ramifications, and I don't see it as much of a grey area, there's a legal issue or there isn't. The car hasn't been re-bodied, it is just a part that is damaged. The VIN tags are commonly removed during restorations for cars that are being sandblasted/stripped as they can be damaged during this process, and the rivets aren't anything special either. If you order a new VIN plate off someone, go into a dark shed, destroy the old one and put he new one on, no police officer or court is going to be able to recognize they have been replaced by simply looking through the windscreen of the car when it's reassembled.
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It's a federal law to tamper with a vin tag. Legally they can not be reproduced by anyone. That's why no one reproduces them.
You can go through proper channels in your state. You would have to take your car to the state and they would verify the original vin off of one of the many hidden in the car.
They would then attach a new vin tag with the original vin number.
There might be some states that do it a bit different.
Just an FYI my brother went to jail for two years for tampering with a vin tag.
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I was about to say similar. If anyone did do it and you had all information and story to back it up, they would likely issue a replacement with it's own number that was clear to anyone that it was not an original and had been replaced legally. I think many people would be steering clear of it even if it all checks out.
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Yeah....I'm not about to remove mine. I'm too dang old to go to jail, lol. It may end up with a few pits in it that I can fix after I lightly glass bead it when the windshield comes out, and none of those will be on any of the numbers. I'll just etch it, All Metal it, and sand it with a Dremel and paint it. I also suspect that going to Google and typing in "repro VIN tag" would be about as bad as typing in "How to build an IED". :shock: In about 2 minutes.....the black Suburbans would roll up and you'd be headed to the big house!
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Def a no no to mess with the vin tag. Even removing and re installing is a bad idea. Some of them do have specific rivets and the guys (law enforcement) that matter do know what they are looking at.