vin number problem please help

I have been looking high and low to find a late model toyota in good shape. I finally located one but it is three or more hrs drive from me. No big deal really.but I phoned the guy who owns it and ask him the basic ?'s of course. He told me he fixes them to sell them on the side.

1/ he had removed the cat converter,but had one he would throw in.

2/the windshield was cracked,had one of those to

3/he also told me the guy he bought it from had removed the vin number form an 82 and replaced it on the 86 model he had....red flag up

4/I ask him if he had purchased the sellers package from the mto....he said he would get one....I live in Ont.. Canada and it is mandatory to purchase a sellers package before you sell a vehicle privately.

contains the history of the vehicle,mileage and accident history,and a minimum maximum selling price so they can make sure you pay at least the minimum sales tax on the vehicle on transfer

5/ he called me back and said he had purchased it with no problem.

Just wondering what others think here, does this sound like a scam to you?

Is it possible that the mto was issuing the package on the 82 rather than the

86 he is selling even if the pink slip says 86?

I had a friend who bought a ford pu at an auction and when he took it for repairs, the dealer sent the model and vin numbers in with his parts order. The next day the cops showed up at the garage and confiscated the truck and my buddy was out the 5 grand he paid for the truck and was almost charged with buying stolen property.

Reply to
bushdoctor48
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I'd stay clear of any seller who admits to removing VIN numbers. I can't think of any justifiable reason for doing so, unless he's trying to hide something.

Reply to
: )

Stay away from that car! Scott

Reply to
zonie

Back off and don't walk,run away. Too many hang ups. Good Luck.....

Reply to
W.T. MC GLYNN

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Call him back and tell him that your comming down to see him with a good friend thats a cop and see what he says to that.

I bet that he says its sold.

Reply to
Scotty

Agreed. Avoid this vehicle and seller. This smells of the "too good to be true" laptop sale only to find that the notebook is locked with a BIOS password the seller can't provide.

Warm. Potentially very warm.

Stew

Reply to
S.Lewis

RUN, do not walk to the nearest exit.

KEEP RUNNING. Speed up if you can.

Keep running.

Okay, you can walk now, but do not look back.

Reply to
Jeff Strickland

That works if you really do have a friend who is a cop - but if not, you do NOT want to get involved in this deal. And you want to bring him with you to straighten this out if you decide to contact the seller again, and he can get credit for busting them Right There for Grand Theft Auto if he really smells a rat. IIRC, tampering with the VIN is a felony in many places.

Tampering with the VIN is not just a red flag, it's a Screaming Red Banner saying "Danger, Will Robinson! Danger! Danger!!" ;-P

If the car is not stolen, they could be trying to hide something else - like the fact that the car was totaled out from being in a flood, which you'll find out as the computers and other expensive major electrical system parts start failing over the next few months.

If you still want to go through with this deal, get both of the (alleged) VIN numbers for this vehicle, and have the local police run them for being stolen. Then take your cop friend to go look at the car - and check the Hidden VIN's on the chassis, and make sure they match at least one. There's also a build data plate under the hood on Toyota's, and the serial number part on that tag should match (the last 6 or 8 digits).

Every car built has at least one Hidden VIN, as an example the old Volkswagen Beetles had it stamped on top of the back seat base boss, just unlatch and flip the back seat base cushion up and there it is. Newer cars have two or three hidden VIN spots, and on some cars the serial part of the engine number should match, too.

They are stamped right into the steel of the framerails or heavy metal section components of a Unibody chassis (like that Beetle example above), so they can't be removed without it being painfully obvious that someone's welded a new piece of steel there.

And the newest cars have the VIN stamped in several places - Some luxury cars have also been putting VIN stickers on all the major strippable components like doors, trunk lids and hoods...

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Reply to
Bruce L. Bergman

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