<VV> Assistance with DMV registration

[Larry Forman]

Today we made progress getting a classic vehicle registered with the 
PROPER VIN number where the DMV was not helpful in CA at ALL!

Rosie Walker and I drove to Iowa from CA to haul back a nice 1954 Nash 
Metropolitan convertible.   Back in CA we find that in Iowa about 20 
years ago they used the engine serial number rather than the correct VIN 
number which was "4040" for this vehicle, since was nearly the 4000th 
vehicle produced.   At the DMV the VIN inspector correctly found the VIN 
number easily visible on the engine firewall.   HOWEVER the supervisor 
discounted that and said that since there is an issue with the VIN 
number they would require me to take the vehicle to the CHP to verify 
the correct VIN.   The DMV clerk actually told me that since they did 
not have the correct VIN, how would they even know that it really is a 
1954 vehicle!   Note that both plates were correct and easily visible, 
only Iowa chose to use the engine serial number instead of the correct 
VIN number.

So I called to talk with the CHP person and things got even worse. The 
CHP officer wants to make life easy for the CHP officers so he decided 
that he "needed" to blue tag the vehicle.   Not knowing what that meant, 
he explained that they would need to place a blue tag on the inside of 
the door post with the VIN number.   He did not "like" using 4040 as a 
VIN number so he decided that the engine serial number should be used.   
I said I did not like that since I might want to change the engine in 
the future.   He said that I would need to retain documentation on the 
engine purchase.   Things were going from bad to worse.  If we wanted to 
show the car as factory restored, having a blue tag would count points 
against the car for every showing.

As it happened, we drove a Corvair club member, Ron Eversdon, to his car 
after the club meeting and we told him what we were going through with 
the DMV.   He explained that there is a woman in downtown Sacramento, 
near the DMV, that could solve this issue for us and only charges $55 to 
verify the VIN number.   I was shocked as I had never heard of this.

We called her and explained the situation.   She said she could help id 
the VIN.   I asked if she could make the CHP referral go away and she 
said YES.

Today we went there and while she was not able to do this in her office, 
she promised to take care of it tomorrow and we could pick up the plates 
in her office then.

The company is called "All Vehicle Registration Services" and the owner 
is Kerrie Stouffer in Sacramento.   Her phone number is 916-739-8088.

While there we asked about getting two personalized license plates: 
"1954 Met" for the Nash Metropolitan and "70 Ultra" for the 1970 
Ultravan.   We paid $45 for each of these plates and we should get them 
in about 8 weeks.   We felt fortunate to get both of our first choices 
as there are several 1954 Metropolitans in CA but only one 1970 Ultravan 
(to our knowledge) in CA.

We also learned that California will eventually make these in the period 
correct colors and there are three colors they are waiting for 
sufficient orders of ALL three colors before they will start making 
those plates.  So once we have the white plates personalized as we want, 
we will later be able to swap them to the period correct colors.

The moral of the story is not to let the DMV ruin your registration and 
definitely find private parties to make things right. Fortunately the 
private parties are very customer oriented, unlike some government entities.

Larry

---
This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active.
http://www.avast.com