The Expert Podcast

So you're working on a vehicle, you're working on a car or truck, and you want to do something where you're going to switch some parts around. Maybe you're going to rebuild it, maybe it's a parts-only vehicle or certificate of destruction, and you want to use parts from another vehicle. At some point you're moving parts around that has to do with the VIN number, or you want to switch VIN numbers. Before you do that, make sure you are aware of what the rules are for doing anything with the VIN number of a vehicle.

This is the US Department of Justice Federal statutes section 511 - it makes it a felony knowingly to remove, obliterate, tamper with, or alter an identification number for a motor vehicle or a motor vehicle part. Notice what it says: vehicle part. Now you want to get more information about this, but a lot of times what people will do is say, "Well, this vehicle that I have, there's something wrong with the title. Either I don't have a title, or it's branded in the wrong way, or the ownership is in jeopardy, or there's a lien on it. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to use a different VIN number."

What you'll do is you'll move parts around from one vehicle to another, or you have a vehicle that has a front clip that came from another vehicle and it has the wrong VIN on it, so you switch the VIN from a different vehicle. Well, you want to be very careful in knowing that if you remove, obliterate, tamper with, or alter for motor vehicle or motor vehicle part, that could be a problem. You may want to get good legal advice from an attorney before you do it. Remember, we're not attorneys, but we do see this happening a lot in the automotive industry, in the insurance industry, in the investigative industry, and we're in all three of those.

You don't want to accidentally do something that's a federal felony. The last people you want up on your door is the US Department of Justice, and there's been people who have done this accidentally. There was a major vehicle customizing shop in California that built a lot of cars for movies and TV shows that was doing custom vehicles for clients and accidentally was moving parts around from one car to another and swapping the VINs in the wrong way. They didn't think they were doing anything wrong. They were prosecuted; they had regulatory action taken against them, an enforcement action.

Now there are some exceptions for that if you're doing legitimate work, but you have to document it, you have to get permission, you have to file notices. You can't just swap a VIN tag from one car to another or even swap an entire part that has a VIN tag on it without identifying it. That's why on salvage vehicles they get the VIN number for all major component parts.

So before you think that your solution to a title problem or solution to a vehicle problem has to do with anything involving changing or altering VIN numbers, make sure you understand section 511a of US Code Title 18, because that's going to be the enforcing action. In fact, many times when there is any questionable title activities done, they come back to that because everything has to do with the VIN number. If you tamper with a VIN number on a vehicle for an inspection, for a VIN verification, for a title application, they can come right back to 511a. It's a federal crime and it's a felony, and you don't want to get involved with that.

So vehicle VIN number swapping, vehicle VIN number tampering - sometimes people lose their VIN number and they'll have one made up. There's people on eBay that will make you up a VIN tag and they put it on the vehicle thinking, "Oh, it's okay, it's the same VIN number." That's tampering, even if you damage it. We've had some people say, "Well, if I can't get a title for the vehicle, I will destroy the VIN numbers and get a new title based on it being a kit car." It's not going to work. If you destroy the whole car for the purpose of hiding the VIN numbers, that's obliterating - that's the second word: remove, obliterate.

What if you have a vehicle that you can't get a title for because maybe there's a lien on it, and you want to just say, "Well, I'll just sell the parts off of it"? Well, you are now tampering with the VIN numbers because you're removing the VIN numbers from the car on the parts. Again, we're not attorneys, not giving legal advice, but you want to make sure you're not accidentally doing something that's going to get you in trouble because they take this very seriously. It's not something like a slap on the wrist - it's a federal crime.

There are many ways to solve these problems that don't have anything to do with monkeying around with VIN numbers. You've heard us talk about before about the court order title process. This might seem scary because "I don't want to go to court, I don't want to deal with the court." You don't have to go there mostly - it's all administrative. You can solve many title problems with the court order process.

If you do have more questions about these subjects, you can click the link below. You can schedule a live one-on-one consultation with myself or a certified title agent to discuss your vehicle title issues. Thank you for watching. Remember, you can access live one-on-one personal consultations with a licensed private investigator, a licensed commercial insurance broker, licensed certified real estate title examiner, also a certified civil court mediator. So if you have a need to talk to an expert in any of these fields, or even a licensed building general contractor, you can click the link below - actualhuman.com - and arrange a live one-on-one undivided attention with a licensed expert where you can ask any questions, get information about your situation, and we'd be glad to help.