I have a 2002 SCrew which I purchased from a local Ford dealership with 21000 miles on it in 10/2003. It was originally purchased from another local Ford dealer in 9/2002. Yesterday I came home from work to have a business card from the investigator with my city's police automobile theft division (I live in Jackson, TN). I called him today to see why he had left a card thinking maybe there was some stolen vehicles or break-ins in my area. Unfortunatly that was not the case. El Paso, Texas police have notified him that my vehicle matches the VIN number of a vehicle that recently went through an auction there. They have confirmed that the displayed VIN matches on both the engine casting and the transmission of their vehicle, therefore they feel mine must be altered. I am supposed to meet with this investigator and an investigator from the state highway patrol as soon as the HP investigator concludes a vehicular homicide investigation. The investigator is being extremly nice and is saying that he knows that I am not at fault, but he has no explanation to offer me. Neither has my dealer (they have been very nice and have provided me all the info they have on the vehicle). I am looking for advice on how this has happened and what should I do to protect myself before I meet with the investigators. I am sure that this will be taken care of and I am not overly concerned, but am a little anxious to get this taken care of. Please advise.

 

Using my steel trap/photographic memory(and the search engine), I found a thread from three years ago that was similiar. I don't know if you will find any useful information in this thread but, here it is:
https://www.f150online.com/forums/sh...n&pagenumber=1

Interesting that the thread was the birth of Steve's Vin Decoder feature.

Actually, the whole thread is a pretty good read.

Notice on page 3, Don C in his 1999 XLT.
That is Don's Bolt of the Lightning forum.
His 1999 XLT was my favorite truck.

 

Just making sure I understand you (I've only had 1/2 cup of coffee). You purchased a truck, the VIN matches one from a police auction in Texas and the VIN under the window does not match the ones on the engine and tranny. The engine and tranny VIN's match. Does the VIN on the door jam match any of them?

Since I'm not real familier with the case I cannot give exact advise. I my experience VIN numbers are easy to miscopy or transpose numbers. That is a possibility. I would think that if you purchased it from a dealership, they would have done a little checking on the VIN at least to make sure it wasn't stolen or a piece o' crap. The last thing a dealership wants is for the word to get out that someone bought a stolen/questionable vehicle from them. We all know how upstanding and truthful the local salepeople are at the dealerships.

If it turns out the truck was involved in some kind of fraud, I'd be pounding on the dealerships door to get it replaced at the same cost less toruble and headaches.

 

Okay Raoul, you give us this interesting link to a wrong VIN number thread, we read all the posts, and no conclusion. Tedoca never got back to us on the outcome. Did you hear anything? Did he finally put the State VIN replacement plate on his truck, did Ford make it good, what happened?

 

Would the dealership happen to be Golden Circle? If so, I am sure they will take care of their end since they probably would be the last in line for the liability if in fact your vehicle has had the #s altered.......

Let us know what happens in this case.... I have friends and family on the JPD.........

 

Thanks for the replies. I have been out of town and haven't had a chance to provide a clarification for 1depd. I fully expect that all of my VINs match - I have not been able to get it checked due to being out of town. I hope to get it checked out tomorrow and I am meeting with the investigators on Friday when they will check it out themselves. I now have all of the paperwork tracing trhe vehicle all the way back to the original dealer in Covington, TN. I even have a copy of the previous owner's title for the vehicle and his bill of sale from the dealership. I have the paperwork where he transfferred ownership to Lewis-Milligan Ford in Trenton who I purchased the vehicle from. (All of this information was obtained through Lewis-Milligan - they have been extremly helpful and have assured me that they will bring me a new truck to drive should mine be confiscated during the investigation.) Here is where is gets worrisome - El Paso police say that they have a truck exactly like mine which they say is legit - all VINs match. I originally thought that there must have been a mix-up at the factory and the truck was manufactured twice producing "identical twins". I called Ford customer service to ask the possibility that "identical twins" could exist and the lady I spoke with began very nice telling me how sorry she was that I had to go through this and how she would have freaked out, etc. She put me on hold to speak to a supervisor about it, came back to verify my VIN, then put me back on hold. She then came back with a completly different attitude - she become very robotic in her speech and told me that she could not speak to me about this matter due to the "Privacy Act". I informed her that the "Privacy Act" covers individuals, not vehicles and asked to speak to her supervisor. She informed me that I would have to request to speak to a supervisor in writing and that someone would respond within 48 hours of receipt of the written request. This is what really worries me - it seems like someone at Ford knows something and is keeping it from me. The good news is that it appears that the truck in El Paso has never been registered. According to the Jackson investigator, the only two individuals this VIN has ever been registered to in the US is myself and the previous owner who also lives locally. I know this is a long post and I aplogize, but I am strating to get a little distraught and am looking for some advice. I definitly feel the dealership will take care of me should my truck be confiscated, but I don't want to lose this truck. I am totally peeved at Ford customer service, but a quick scan of this board shows that I am not alone. I look forward to your responses.

 

I believe they have the bogus truck, not you. How does a 2002 F150 "never get registered"?

You have a history of 'your' truck and the other truck has none and they or you are concerned that your truck may not be legit?

As far it being a truck 'just like yours' I can rattle off the first 11 positions of your VIN with no problem. Only the sequence number (last 6) are supposedly unique.

Aren't all Supercrews built in Kansas City (11th position 'K') ?

The tenth position of your VIN is a '2'
It is possible but, not likely that there are identical VINs out there to yours except the 10th position is (Y,1,3) representing a 2000, 2001 and 2003 respectively.

If you want to reassure yourself, know that Ford uses 'Just-In-Time' parts at the assembly plants. Find the build date sticker on your engine, it should be within a week of when the truck was built.

Ask whoever contacts you next, what the engine build date is on the Texas truck.

I would ask Ford to provide a copy of the window sticker(they can do this) if you don't have it. This would show what dealership the truck was shipped to.

 

Oooh, oooh, this sounds like some good gossip...

I work for GM, and there was a bit of a scandal a couple years back around here. Turns out that one of the plant managers was mis-reporting the throughput on the assembly line, and the plant was making something like 9 (??) per day/week (??) than they had on paper. The people who were in on it then sold these vehicles on the down low and made some pretty nice cash from it.

I wonder if this is something similar... Maybe that's why Ford seems to be covering it up... I don't work in assembly, so I don't know how this would/could work, but maybe someone high up was making "twin trucks" with identical VINs and all, but only counting one of them and then selling the other on the black market?

Just a thought. I'm sorry that you have to be the one on the bad end of all this. You have to admit though, it could turn out to be a neat story of mystery and intrigue - great story for the grandkids someday .

 

More than likely, Ford instructs it's people on the phones not to say anything to anyone regarding any legal matter, that way it can't come back on them unless they are fully prepared to make a legal statement. That's just smart business.