by res0o7eb » Wed Jan 23, 2008 3:33 am
Heh-heh. Glad it worked out for you, Matt.
When you get done with Len's car, I've got a real simple frame rail/battery tray area 'swap' that's needed on my 76 Vega. Shouldn't take you but a few minutes.
As I mentioned earlier, the inspection I was referring to was not a safety or emission inspection. More like what Josh mentioned.
For those who don't understand, here's my long-winded story(sorry):
In 1988, I bought a 69 Firebird in California and brought it back to Seattle. To get it titled and registered in Washington, I first had to take it to the WA State Patrol office for an inspection. This was not a safety inspection nor an emissions inspection.
The car was driven over to a special place in the WA State Patrol shop and a curtain was drawn all around it so that I and no once else could see what was going on. I was told that they were checking the car to verify that it wasn't stolen, etc. The car passed and I got a signed inspection report. I was then able to take that piece of paper along with the existing CA title/pink slip and the BOS and go down to a WA DOL office and get a WA title.
Who will know if you swap the VIN tags? No one unless you sell that car to someone in WA state and the buyer tries to title it. Other states, including the entire Midwest may be different. If a buyer intends to keep the car in the same state as the current title or you never sell it AND you never lose the title, I think you are OK.
I will have to go through the same thing with my Sunbird and Monza even though both appear to be life-long residents of WA. Neither seller had a title to the cars. So, a Lost Title Affidavit has to be filled out because the last registered owner of the vehicle is not the name of the person on the BOS that I obtained when I bought these cars. The cars cost me $300 for the Subird and $100 for the Monza - not much money. Luckily, in both instances, the sellers provided me the name of the previous owner and those names matched the WA DOL database records. So, the process of obtaining a title in my name is slightly easier.
I still need to take the cars WA State Patrol office. Hmmm... sounds familiar. If the cars were drivable, I would have done it a long time ago.