- Fri Dec 08, 2017 12:34 pm
#72733
Hi
This issue was not necessarily of the DVLA’s making.
Depending upon the age of the vehicle and its country of origin a VIN number is not necessarily unique. Agricultural and industrial machines which require road registration for insurance purposes often have chassis (VIN) numbers made up by the manufacturer – they used not to be obliged to follow the standard coded VIN system. (I think this may have changed now).
I discovered this when I bought my 1965 RE Continental GT and it initially failed the HPI check telling me that over £50K was owed to a finance company!
Cut a long story short it turns out my bike shares the same VIN/chassis number as a McCloskey R70 Tracked Vehicle which is used to strip the tarmac off roads!
The finance company involved (who specialise in the financing of industrial and agricultural equipment) were very helpful and told me they get about 1 query a month from people whose old car or bike has failed a HPI check for exactly the same reason – duplicate chassis numbers.
I was surprised by this but in subsequent conversations with the DVLA they confirmed that they do have non-unique VIN’s on their database but that the incidence of this will decrease over time as older vehicles get scrapped and adherance by certain manufactures to VIN coding standards becomes stricter.
Regards
This issue was not necessarily of the DVLA’s making.
Depending upon the age of the vehicle and its country of origin a VIN number is not necessarily unique. Agricultural and industrial machines which require road registration for insurance purposes often have chassis (VIN) numbers made up by the manufacturer – they used not to be obliged to follow the standard coded VIN system. (I think this may have changed now).
I discovered this when I bought my 1965 RE Continental GT and it initially failed the HPI check telling me that over £50K was owed to a finance company!
Cut a long story short it turns out my bike shares the same VIN/chassis number as a McCloskey R70 Tracked Vehicle which is used to strip the tarmac off roads!
The finance company involved (who specialise in the financing of industrial and agricultural equipment) were very helpful and told me they get about 1 query a month from people whose old car or bike has failed a HPI check for exactly the same reason – duplicate chassis numbers.
I was surprised by this but in subsequent conversations with the DVLA they confirmed that they do have non-unique VIN’s on their database but that the incidence of this will decrease over time as older vehicles get scrapped and adherance by certain manufactures to VIN coding standards becomes stricter.
Regards
2 x 250cc RE Continental GT
