Serious Question...

Carb, I guess those people also don't know it's against the law to cover it.

 

Carbon, you have been spoiled by hanging out with people like Jim Glickenhaus. Sadly, Jim is the exception to the rule. In my experience, most wealthly people are major privacy freaks. They tend to put a moat around their castle and pull up the draw bridge every chance they can get.

As someone who used to do forensic accounting, i.e., I found the money, it is amazing what you can find out with a VIN.

Dale

 

With a VIN, you can track down the owner and the possible location of the car. Do you want your 1.3 m Enzo stolen?

 

They've heard about you and don't want to be stalked

 

Dale's reason is #1 The other is people are getting tired of seeing their car for sale on E-Bay.

 

Anyone who knows how the VIN numbering system works can figure out the first 12 digits on a Ferrari VIN for a car made after 1980. It's only the last five digits that identify a particular, unique automobile.

 

Hi,

From what I heard from other people, with the Vin#, somebody can request for a key
made using the correct Vin number and steal your car when you are not around.
I tried to have a duplicate key made for my other car thru the dealer, all they need
is the registration with the vin number.

Jr

 

and for not entirely irrational reasons.

doody

 

As someone mentioned. If you have the VIN and a connection at a dealer, they can order a key for your car. So, its a safety thing.

 

So true. So true, my friend

 

Ooh wow that is crazy. I had no idea it was that easy. You would think that they would want more proof then that.

 

I had an Acura Integra and i went into the dealer and asked how much a new factory key blank would cost to have made. He handed me a piece of paper and said go write down the VIN and i'll get one made. I could have wrote down the VIN for any car in that lot and he would have gave me the key.

 

The other reason is insurance. If you are tracking your car and it can be identified as having been used at a race track then your insurance may be null and void! Many people tape both license plate and vin to hinder identification.

 

I agree with all the reasons offered thus far. I also believe that a fear of counterfeiting a known VIN for a particular car cld be at issue as well.

Devious minds are rampant.

 

The same thing goes for putting your new pride and joy on the ferrari register. Once a perp finds your address it's onto the road to perdition.

Bob Wassam

 

Good question, Carb. I was wondering the same. I remember Brian Stradale was asking why some people cover their plate before, and posts were interesting.

So some Registry it is managed at this site, like 328, 348 & some other vintages, can be easy target to be stolen by pros??
Isn't it possible to find out how many certain cars are registered at DOV, then view its record?

 

Yes, not just insurance but your manufacturer's warranty. I have heard of cars being blackballed for attending track events. Pretty ****ing unbelievable if you ask me....... advertise a car based on its performance and then punish the owner for using the car for what it was advertised to do. Does that make any damn sense?

 

That is EXACTLY what porsche did, esp. with PCCBs on the gt3 and gt2. Absolutely amazing...

As for VIN - why not respect privacy? While you can't walk in and say hey, I have enzo 146323 (?), you can certainly, as noted below, glean an egregious amount of information.

--Dan

 

Only if you follow the saga of the manufacturer's internal politics.

This is a major complaint among some EVO owners. Apparently one of the Mitsu regional reps has been collecting pictures from track events and using them to deny warranty service. By reports, it's only the one regional rep.

And before the WRX guys get too smug, I've heard that some Scooby dealers have been pulling the same schtick.

Maybe it's the nature of these beasts. The EVO has been wrung out on the rallye circuit, although that hydraulic damper in the clutch line is new ... and EVO's have been losing clutches -- and not just among street racers. But the US STi has a new engine, and has been losing transmissions. The dealers would prefer not to have to pay for the factory's design mistakes.

When you do a major ramp up on the performance of a car -- Lancer to EVO, WRX to STi, 911 to GT3 -- you put a lot of new stress on parts. Without track events to wring out the shortcomings, the consumers ... and warranty work ... get stuck with the failures. Dealers would rather it was just the consumers. (Okay, that's not fair. They probably would rather it was the factory. But it's the consumers they can hang it on, given half an excuse.)

Just remember that the dealers that get stuck doing warranty work aren't the people who wrote the warranty, or advertised the car on its performance. But they're the ones that get the warranty claims after some street racer side-steps the clutch at 8000 rpm.

Car companies are not all of one mind. Mitsu Corporate came over and fired the head of Mitsu US before sending the EVO over. The "old guard" dealer network was content to sell econoboxes to first time buyers. Having to ramp up to doing performance service was an expense they didn't want. Today, I look for dealers that haven't been with Mitsu very long, if I want work on my EVO.

Maybe the best answer is to buy a car designed for performance from the ground up: Which is why we're on a Ferrari site.

 

That's why on my registry (and I'm so far behind, I need to put 300+ records in) I don't have the owners names listed publicly, and usually not even the locations. All I'm really trying to do is keep track of serial numbers and color combos, when the cars are offered for sale, and any notable features (Keonig kit, accident history, etc). I basically do this because I like 328s, and so that we can help buyers of cars.

I'm not about to go to (as an example)JimmyJoe's Ferrari Repair for recon and publish "Bob Snith's 328 was seen at JimmyJoe's Ferrari Repair. Snith lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Forney, TX. The car is Red and Blue, vin 999999, and the passenger side door doesn't lock". What I will say is "VIN 999999, Red/Blue, seen in Texas in 2005", just so people know that the car still exists.

Notable exceptions to the rule above is anything that's been publicly listed for sale with a location and VIN, like on Ebay or Hemmings. I figure that that's fair game, since they published the information.

I know there's another private 328 register in existance that covers 2500+ cars, that one isn't visible to the public and I don't know what data is in it.

If someone tapes over the VIN, they don't want that info published. So be it.

RE: DMV records, it's easy enough if you have access to the records. Just searching for VINs starting with ZFF will give you a bunch of info. More easily, one can search by license plate number

 

Wow. All this is scary. If I ever get a Ferrari, I'm gonna quit talking to everybody here.












not really.

 

I'm not wealthy, but am a privacy freak. Post your name along with "Ferrari" and then do a Google or whatever kind of search, you'll get the picture.

 

Thanks Tillman, for your explanation. I don't really know how VIN & LP works. (I only used them for insurance purpose)

Back in ealy 80's when I was living in Seattle, 1 man came to my apartment claiming I damaged his car. He tracked me down by LP. It turned out the car wasn't no longer mine at that time, and I was surprised to find the buyer of my ex-car still hasn't changed title or registration or whatever, and also some stranger can find owner's address by LP.

If you report LP to Police for some problems, do you get to owner's information so you can contact the owner? I think the rules are different by state, isn't it?