>My feeling is this, if you sell a vehicle with an altered
>VIN and do not tell the buyer, it is fraud, whether there
>is damage to hide or not. What is being hidden is the
>original VIN, what is being hidden is the fact that the
>car is not original. OK, I know you don't disagree
>with that.
I think I have to revise my previous comments slightly - to agree with you.
I previously equated the VIN metal plate to the windshield wipers. Let's
say you buy a car that has had the windshield wiper arms changed. Well,
it's not original anymore, is it? Would you sue? No, because (1) the car
is probably worth about the same regardless and (2) unless the seller told
you the car is 100% original from the factory, or you asked if the wipers
were original and the seller said "yes", you don't have a claim.
Ok, so is a small square piece of metal, which by itself is worth less than
the wipers, any different? I think it is, only because the buyer has the
expectation that the VIN is the original so when a title search is done, he
knows the car has not been stolen or totalled. I do believe that might
give you the ability to win at a lawsuit for fraud.
HOWEVER, what are your damages? Let's say you have two relatively exact
Alpines side by side. Let's say you swap the VINS one to the other. Are
the cars worth any less? I think that they will be worth slightly less
money, but not significantly so. I think if they are both relatively worn
out Alpines, the difference will be almost nothing. If they are extremely
original 99 point cars, the difference might be greater, but still not a
huge number. That difference would be what the court would award.
Again, this all leaves out the additional factors of accidents or thefts
being hidden. The only time the court's award will be significant is when
what you got is much less than you thought you were getting - like you got
a stolen car that was totaled even though the VIN showed it to be clean.
There the difference between a stolen totaled car and a clean car does add
up.
I guess I should move from the Alpine world too. What if these were
Ferarris? (which reminds me to visit Tom Yang's site to see how progress
is coming along). My guess is that since the value of the cars are
greater, the simple dollar issue will be greater - and with historically
significant cars, even more so.
Jay
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