Vehicle Identification

[nearly had a prado]

I recently bought a 97 Landcruiser Prado TX which I spent a whole weekend cleaning inside and out. When I went to tax it, to allow me to use on the road, things started to go wrong. It became apparent that the registration document had incorrect information on it, this was confirmed by the DVLA who advised me to contact the Police, who came out looked at the car and the paperwork then had it impounded. They have since confirmed that it is a ringer, but so far have been unable to confirm the cars true identity. The registration document is a forgery using stolen DVLA watermarked paper, the aluminium plate on the bulkhead is fake, and the numbers on the chassis & engine have been removed.

I have been advised that the police have noted the bar code numbers off the airbags and such like, and have contacted Toyota GB to see if they can identify the vehicle from them. Does anyone know if this will tie the parts to an individual car or just to a batch. Is there any other way of identifying a car when the obvious identification marks have been removed. Has anyone else had similar experience with cars that turned out to be a ringer and what was the outcome.

Rob

[+Steve]

thats bad news.. sorry to hear this..

Tell me do you stand to lose your money?

[nearly had a prado]

Not too sure how it's going to turn out, but not looking to good. I did have a HPI check done on the car before I bought it. The check came up clear with a match between the Reg No and the VIN No on both the car and the registration document. HPI advised that I will probably not be able to claim off them as they did not give me any incorrect information. The check they did was on the car that it has been cloned off, until the police have established it's true identity I am in a state of limbo.

Rob

[alanbradley]

That's bad! I hope that it gets sorted soon and you can take some sort of action to get any money back...

Commiserations,

Alan