Dodgey vin plate

[candy]

I recently bought a 4 door saloon and have (Duh) just noticed the details dont match the V5. The vehicle was last on the road in 1992 as thats the last tax disc in the window. It also has a morris minors owners club disc on the window so would it be registered with you lot? What happens now and what if the Vin plate check does not say it,s been nicked , do i just get DVLA to change the V5? Is there an innocent explaination for this or is it garenteed to be stolen?

[paulhumphries]

It could be the details are wrong on the V5 - it's not unknown for DLVA to transpose the information.
Do you have old MOT's - in which case what VIN is shown on them ?
Are the floor pans original - mine has VIN stamped on drivers side. A piece of the tar type soundproofing has been scrapped off so easy to spot.

Paul Humphries

[Willie]

You could check for the chassis number which will usually be stamped
on the bulkhead, in the engine compartment, about one inch to the right
of where the bonnet opening rod protrudes. It will be the numbers only
not the prefixes.

[bmcecosse]

Minors never had VIN plates - introduced long after the Minor had gone out of production. They do however have chassis plates - is the difference major or just a slight error ? The last MOT should show the correct details of the car - the tester is supposed to physically check the details and not just copy from previous paperwork. If it's more than just a silly mistake - take the car back and demand a full refund - with threat of report to Police/DVLA if there is any question of not getting full refund immediately. If it's a silly minor(!) mistake - get DVLA to sort it out on the V5.

[rayofleamington]

Minors never had VIN plates - introduced long after the Minor had gone out of production. They do however have chassis plates

People get picky about the term 'VIN' however they confuse the issue with the global standardised format VIN. On a car that pre-dates this standardisation, VIN and chassis number are 100% the same thing.

VIN = Vehicle Identification Number e.g. the number stamped on the plate on the bulkhead, and as already mentioned, the numeric bit is also stamped in to the shell.

The term chassis plate is used (wrongly) on Minor saloons as many vehicles of that time did have a seperate chassis (but the Minor saloon does not).

If the number on the shell does not match the plate, then some shenanigans has taken place at some point in the car's life.
As for mis matches between the numbers on DVLA paperwork and the car, it was common for '/' and '-' to be added or missed and 's' to be replaced with '5' and vice versa.
This was because the electronic records at DVLA were entered by hand (in the early 70's) based on what was on the paperhand written records. It was all too easy to make small errors.

If the numbers just don't match at all - then it is likely to be a stolen car, or at least a ringer

[candy]

Thanks all . The engine number was the same as the plate but the chassis number IS FAJ11/396848 and on the V5 is FAJ47 296848. I do this this is a transposition error between docs. The details on the original reg doc are smuged(see attached pic)(if its attached) and the plate was corroded. I,ll get it sorted later

[Matt]

I think that could be a transcription error based on the state of the original documentation! Its not all that different!

[alex_holden]

Try to find the number stamped in the body shell and see whether it matches the number on the plate or the V5. I bet it matches the plate. I think the FAJ11 prefix means Morris Minor, 4 door saloon, dark grey, RHD home market, synthetic paint. FAJ41 would be the same but North American export instead of home market.

Unfortunately there seem to be a lot of mistakes like this in the documentation for cars that were originally registered before the DVLA computerised its records.