[T3] dash pad talk

[Jim Adney]

On 10 Jan 2013 at 16:56, Gary Gamboa wrote:

> so, let's say that in 1974,  junior sliced up his parent's DP with a
> box cutter. that owner takes it to the dealer for replacement. what
> would the dealer do? 

The easy way would be to ignore the law, pretend you didn't know any 
better and transfer the old VIN tag to the new dash and install it in 
the car.

The official way is to take the new dash to the authorities, they 
create a new VIN tag (with a new, unique number) and attach it to the 
new dash with their special pop rivets, which don't look like the OG 
ones. This leaves you with a car that's completely legal, but now has 
2 different VINs. 

I know that makes no sense at all, but that's how a friend explained 
it to me, after a state trooper explained it to him. He had just 
bragged to the trooper about how he had restored his old truck by 
transferring a good cab onto it and moving the VIN plate to keep the 
numbers matching. The trooper let him off because he had admitted 
what he had done and was clearly not trying to pull any kind of "fast 
one."

This is all in the name of preventing car theft, but it makes little 
sense since any vehicle inspection will always look for the number 
that's on the pan, and mis-matched numbers will always create 
questions, even if both numbers are legit.


-- 
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Jim Adney, jadney at vwtype3.org
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
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