Duplicate VIN numbers?

[Randy B]

It didn't spit out the correct VIN for my bike. My 9th is a 3 and it said it should be a 9.

[the Ferret]

It probably got confused because you put a blue tank on it.

[Randy B]

Lol....oh boy. And most people think it's black.

[Cormanus]

My 9 th digit IS an 8.

Wow man, it's magic. The Great Cormanus...very cool! Lol

See I said you were all things VIN

This is very interesting stuff to me.

Kind of you, Ferret. I confess I had to do a fair bit of study over the weekend to figure it out. I think there must be something wrong with me, but I find I quite like it too.

Randy, all I know of your VIN is the last 4 digits—obtained from the register—but I got 3 as your checksum digit.

[Randy B]

Got me.

I really don't care who has the VIN because enough VINs are posted online and I haven't heard anything about fraud regarding them soo...

JH2SC6513DK000015

[Cormanus]

Yep. Input that [url=http://alton-moore.net/vin_calculation.html]here and it will confirm it. Replace the '3' in the 9th position with an 'x' and it will tell you that the correct checksum was '3'. I suspect, God forgive me, that you may have made a mistake when you put it in.

I don't think you need worry too much about publishing the entire VIN. Dealers seem to do it and, with US VINs at least, nearly all the information necessary to work them out is available in the public domain as you can see.

I suspect there's a bit of VIN fraud, but the fact that they're unique and connected in a number of ways with individual vehicles, makes it pretty hard to muck about with them. If someone tried to register another bike with your VIN, I suspect the registration system would immediately throw up an alert. I don't know vehicle registration works in the US; in Australia it's a responsibility of the States and it took them a long time to establish an automated system to check VINs so as to reduce the ease of stealing cars, reinventing them and selling them.

[ClassicVW_imp]

Here in the states there still is VIN fraud especially with salvaged vehicles or when people build a bike out of a couple of trashed ones. There of course, is a national crime database, NCIC, and the insurance database, NICB, where stolen vehicles are entered by VIN. I have seen instances where the stolen vehicle information has sometimes been automatically purged from the system after many years. So, if you play with stolen motorcycles that are over say, 25 years old, you could have quite a business making expensive classic bikes.
It's harder to do with cars because there are a few additional hidden and not easily accessible places where the manufacturer stamps the VIN, but I'd guess not easy to do on an open frame architecture like a motorcycle.

Each state's titling and registration procedures vary unfortunately. A couple of states have reputations of being easy to title a vehicle when someone has no existing paperwork. Others make you go thru a police inspection to make certain you didn't attach a good VIN to a stolen bike, or even welded a frame piece with VIN plate intact onto a stolen bike that has had that frame piece removed.

[daley_imp]

Cormanus, Just sent you a pm with my vin.
I just did the vin check and it said my vin is correct. I inputted gossman's with the diff ninth digit and it said not correct. What the???

[gossman_imp]

The steering tube has the vin number stamped into it as well as the plate. Curiouser and curiouser.
I am going to take a gamble and say the confusion is here:

SC651 for the CB1100
SC655 for the CB1100A

I have an CB1100A, which has ABS, my vin is SC655

Daley has a CB1100, No ABS. I will say his must read SC651

Mystery solved

[Cormanus]

Mystery indeed solved. Thanks Daley and Gossman for your help.

The next question is whether I should try to identify ABS models in the registry so duplicate North American VINs are explicable. I'm not sure it's really an issue now we understand how it can happen.