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Anyone want to get a FREE VIN check?


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Exceeding mechanicanical limits should be ona 5 digit odometer. Not sure why they claimed it on your legacy, unless they put in a new gauge package when they repaired it and just checked the over mechanical limit box.

 

thats possible....i was thinkn maybe they put a new engine in it cuz it was definitly a front end collision and never 0'ed up the mileage on it? so the engine has 16000 less miles than the body and tranny? i dunno lol but i can say it runs like a top and drives great and for $1k cant beat it for only 113000 miles now.

 

i say epic win.

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do you guys get a line for every time the registration was re-newed? Because I have a big hole between 89 and 95, it would be weird of someone bought a brand new car and took it off the road for 6 years.

 

Yep, all of mine have a line for every renewal...

 

 

Exceeding mechanicanical limits should be ona 5 digit odometer. Not sure why they claimed it on your legacy, unless they put in a new gauge package when they repaired it and just checked the over mechanical limit box.

 

That would be my guess. Like they needed a way to say that the mileage might not be accurate.. but for a car which wasn't old enough to be exempt from reporting the mileage.

 

 

Plus its not 100% accurate. My brat which is in a junkard now shows up as still 100% legit. Seems something really should be said on there when it was checked into the junkyard.

 

Someone at the junkyard forgot to file the paperwork? :D

Either that, or they had plans to fix/resell it and never got around to it?

 

 

my 94 legacy GT vin 4S3BF6338R7990190

 

shows dealer record 2/12/2004 miles 451

 

451 miles in 10 years?? :confused: Even little old ladies in small towns put more mileage on 'em than that! Heck, you could go most of that distance on a single tank of gas! :D Assuming it didn't go bad in that length of time...

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Just saw this and tried it on my Lego.

 

Mostly clean, although I find it funny that it has been stolen and recovered TWICE.

 

Originally registered in Alaska, it moved to WA somewhere around '95. And except for a period of time between '97 and '99, the regular odometer checks indicate that most of the time, it has been driven about 4k miles/year.

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  • 1 month later...

Gentlemen... may I suggest we don't abuse the system, so it lasts a bit more? It's just a matter of time before someone finds -and patches- the hole, and having a bunch of requests from subarus may call some undeserved attention...

 

(Note to self: not reviving the thread may do the trick as well :banghead: )

Edited by jarl
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Did it on my car, and discovered 3 things. One, the records for my car only go back to '95 (my car is '87). Two, it moved to Colorado some time before that (have to original dealer business card somewhere). Three, whatever caused the bondo on the driver's C pillar and the welded left rear quarter panel either happened before this, or was a DIY, as it's record is completely clean. Not sure if that's a good thing or not....

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Looks like this is done. :dead:

 

Sorry, the VIN passed into this page doesn't appear in this dealers current inventory.

 

Invalid vin. The vin must match a vehicle currently offered for sale at the Dealership selected.

 

Report Not Found VIN is not valid for this dealer.
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^^ agreed.

Even if the software releases a software update that only allows searching vehicles currently in their lot, the place will take three years to update.

Most IT depts say "It's working, don't mess with it!"

 

Why do you think so many businesses and people still use windows XP. That came out in what, 2001?

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Even if the software releases a software update that only allows searching vehicles currently in their lot, the place will take three years to update.

Most IT depts say "It's working, don't mess with it!"

 

That's not how this works though.

 

It isn't a software package, it is access to a service. The service provider can change the service at any point and lock out whoever they want.

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The service provider can change the service at any point and lock out whoever they want.

 

The only way that would work is if each and every dealer in the US was set up with access permissions.

 

That isnt going to happen. There are FAR too many dealers for that to be even worthwhile, or even care to worry about it.

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That isnt going to happen. There are FAR too many dealers for that to be even worthwhile, or even care to worry about it.

 

It depends on who pays the bills. At the $30/pop they used to cost for an individual, there's a lot of potential there.

 

I'm sure the dealers get a discounted rate of some sort... but if the dealers foot the bill for every VIN check through their site, then the dealers have an incentive to sign up for the inventory system. If Autocheck (who sells these separately) feels they are losing too much by letting people have them for free, then they could just as easily require dealers to do the inventory list.

 

 

Either way, it's not really worth arguing about, so I'll bow out here. :popcorn: All I'm saying is that I had my VIN rejected by the first dozen or so sites that I tried, so they are starting to tighten up the holes.

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All I'm saying is that I had my VIN rejected by the first dozen or so sites that I tried, so they are starting to tighten up the holes.

 

Operator error.

 

It is still working great for me. I JUST checked it.

 

With the only exception being the very first google hit, It worked for 5 consecutive hits.

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Operator error.

 

Yes, because I'm completely incapable of following the simple directions, and copy/pasting my VIN into a URL. :rolleyes:

 

I already posted the error messages from the sites. They're pretty clear about the error.

"Sorry, the VIN passed into this page doesn't appear in this dealers current inventory."

 

If you pass in a genuinely invalid VIN, it tells you. This is different.

 

 

It is still working great for me. I JUST checked it.

 

With the only exception being the very first google hit, It worked for 5 consecutive hits.

 

Google tailors search results to your region. I suspect that my first page of hits was different from your first page. That's the only explanation I have.

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It depends on who pays the bills. At the $30/pop they used to cost for an individual, there's a lot of potential there.

 

I'm sure the dealers get a discounted rate of some sort... but if the dealers foot the bill for every VIN check through their site, then the dealers have an incentive to sign up for the inventory system. If Autocheck (who sells these separately) feels they are losing too much by letting people have them for free, then they could just as easily require dealers to do the inventory list.

 

 

Either way, it's not really worth arguing about, so I'll bow out here. :popcorn: All I'm saying is that I had my VIN rejected by the first dozen or so sites that I tried, so they are starting to tighten up the holes.

 

No way at all it costs autocheck $30 to run a VIN search.

They just charge that much because they can.

Between paying for the price of hard drive space for your vehicle, server query time, and bandwidth to render a text based page. I'd be surprised if it cost them ten cents.

Dealers don't pay per query. They pay a flat rate bill per month. I doubt autocheck keeps track of which, and how many VIN searches are done through each dealer.

As Idasho said, there are so many dealers it's not worth it.

 

The other part of it, and you'll find this with a lot of computer software is the percentage of people who can use a work-around.

I bet autocheck knows there's a little back door to get free VIN checks. But so few people can actually figure it out or use it, it's negligible. They're losing less money to a few thousand people going around the system than they would to re-design the whole thing.

That requires hours of meetings, people yelling at each other.... etc.

 

Work with end users some time in the computer field... It's surprising how many people couldn't copy a VIN into a URL.

Edited by 987687
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"Sorry, the VIN passed into this page doesn't appear in this dealers current inventory."

 

Yeah, READ the error.

 

That isnt an error generated by this program.

 

That error is given when you try to do a VIN check from an isolated dealer inventory. Some dealer sites do not tie to the actual VIN check, they only search within their active inventory. As in, all the cars they currently have on the lot.

 

Like I said, operator error.

 

Just like anything, you have to pay attention and learn a bit to make it work better. Not all dealer pages search the national database. So not every google hit is going to work.

 

 

But to say it is getting over-used, or things are "tightening up" is hogwash.

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