Duplicate VIN Numbers

Dude, that's not even close to what is occurring here..

As far as I recall, the Land Rovers were being imported illegally here, and owners that bought them knew full well that they were illegal.

A tad different than the service writer inputting the wrong VIN when you go to service - don't you think?

 

My point was only that the mistake -- thinking the last 8 of the VIN is unique -- is common enough that the .gov made it.

 

The last 8 of the VINs had nothing to do with the confiscated Defenders though. The government's case was based on the suspicion that the VINs of the trucks had been swapped with newer trucks.

http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/...rn-seized-land-rover-defenders-to-u-s-buyers/

I stand by my earlier post.

 

Most of them were alleged to be early by a matter of months as customs would let them in on the first of the year and, as I said, there were other issues, but if you look at the complaint they list some as being 2000ish trucks and that happened because of the same issue here. The .gov asked Land Rover "what year is this" and two trucks (one mid-80s, one early 2000s) had the same last 8.

 

For North American VIN's, it is not possible for a truck from the 80's and from the early 2000's to have the same last 8 of the VIN.

When looking at the last 8 of the VIN, the first character is the model year (B = 1981, C = 1982, [...] K = 1989). 2000 used Y, 2001 through 2009 used 1 through 9. 2010 started with A again.

So it is possible for a 1981 and a 2011 to have the same last 8, but it is not possible for any car from 1981-89 to have the same last 8 of the VIN as any car from 2001-09.

All that said though, the rules for the last 8 for Europe and/or wherever else they were importing the Land Rovers from may/likely is different, and so in that case it may be possible for the last 8 to be the same. I am not familiar with European VIN rules.

Jeff