Just curious.

To be technically correct, I believe that you wil find that there is no Federal or State law that mandates that a motor vehicle VIN is stamped into the frame. These VIN stamping have been voluntary (by vehicle manufacturers) since the concept started.

The applicable Federal laws about VIN placements are 49 CFR Part 565 and 567. With the laws about tampering with VINs are at 18 U.S.C. 511.

Unfortunately, many specially constructed (homemade) motorcycles have been seized by law enforcement because their frames did not bear a “stamped in” VIN.

The rationale for banning the VIN stamping, is that a replacement frame is a part like a shock absorber, and bare frames sold for replacement purposes should not be affixed with motor vehicle VINs by frame manufacturers. So homebuilt motorcycles using store bought frames should not have the frame builders VINs, but rather the VINs of the actual assembler (should that be a professional albeit low volume motor vycle manufacturer), or the VIN as assigned by a state DMV under the state’s specially constructed vehicle program.

Review one specially construction application at http://www.state.ks.us and query using “TR91″ to see the application to register a specially constructed motorcycle/car/truck/trailer.

Also go to http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/rules/interps and query “puentes” to see where NHTSA said “do not put a VIN on a bare frame unless you are completing and certifying the motorcycle for sale within the U.S. economy and you have registered with NHTSA as a motorcycle manufacturer.”

Federal law mandates that the cycle’s VIN appear on its certification label, required to be affixed by its manufacturer at time of production, on the cycle’s frame near (as possible) the intersection of the frame and fork, visible by turning the handlebars. Harley-Davidson certification labels quite often appear far down the downtubes as fairings and wind/leg shields may occlude the visibility of the frame/fork intersection.

To decipher a scooter’s VIN (and recent other type vehicles), one may access two more of the DOT Internet sites.

(1) ftp://ftp.nhtsa.dot.gov/manufacturer and click on the newest (right click to determine the newest) version of the “directory 565,” which is an alphabetical directory encompassing the last five years or so of the scanned VIN submissions received by NHTSA. Record all the ORG### and FAX### file names associated with the manufacturer of interest’s name.

(2) ftp://ftp.nhtsa.dot.gov/mfrmail and search out the files name discovered in the previous ftp site. i.e.: ORG### and FAX###

These sites may be too difficult for non-computer literate persons to surf, but their use will uncover complete VIN deciphers for recent VIN codings, received by the government.

And, rather than gave your spouse grief, over the breakfast table, about how useless the government is, by not blocking the importation of such obviously dangerous “whatever type vehicle you are crusading against today,” go to http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/problems and see how many actual complaints (by scooter name) the good citizens have shared with NHTSA, about actual death and/or injury observed by them, and attribitable to a given make/model/brand of motor vehicle or motor vehicle equipment.

Citizens should not complain unless those citizens do their part in forwarding VOQ complaints to NHTSA, with valid information.

Every motor vehicle owner’s manual has the governmnent’s contact information for sending these VOQs, plus http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/problems has a link to electronic VOQs for instant transmission and inclusion ito the governments database.

If the government does not receive legitimate complaints about potential (with reasonable documentation) death or injury, the assumption has to be that the product is acceptable, and thus there is no reason for the government to hammer foreign or domestic manufacturers.

http://www.analogx.com/cgi-bin/cgivin.exe?Mode=Decode&VIN=SCCFE33C9VHF65358&Submit=Decode

http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/rules/manufacture/