Buying an unregoed car

[Murray_Calavera]

3 hours ago, silviaz said:

Also note, the seller doesn't have proof how the car came into their possession

So the car is stolen?

[Duncan]

well, that is one reason

but if a vehicle is not registered recently, and is not a log booked race car, it is pretty easy to end up with a vehicle without papers; I have a tractor and a paddock basher like that.

best you can do to cover yourself there is get the current owner to provide the blue slip (includes identity check) and a written receipt as part of the sale. the blue slip is valid for a 3 months (I think, please check!)

[silviaz]

7 hours ago, Murray_Calavera said:

So the car is stolen?

Nope, clear ppsr.

[silviaz]

1 hour ago, Duncan said:

well, that is one reason

but if a vehicle is not registered recently, and is not a log booked race car, it is pretty easy to end up with a vehicle without papers; I have a tractor and a paddock basher like that.

best you can do to cover yourself there is get the current owner to provide the blue slip (includes identity check) and a written receipt as part of the sale. the blue slip is valid for a 3 months (I think, please check!)

Yep will do, I'll get them to do rego will save me the headache.

[Murray_Calavera]

12 minutes ago, silviaz said:

Nope, clear ppsr.

Remember, clear ppsr does not 100% guarantee the car is not stolen. Just because a car isn't reported stolen now, it may be reported stolen in the future. There are many scenarios why a vehicle may be reported stolen in a future date, and you are left holding the hot potato. 

We went over this in another one of your threads. I'll link it here to save my typing the same story all over again. 

 

[silviaz]

1 minute ago, Murray_Calavera said:

Remember, clear ppsr does not 100% guarantee the car is not stolen. Just because a car isn't reported stolen now, it may be reported stolen in the future. There are many scenarios why a vehicle may be reported stolen in a future date, and you are left holding the hot potato. 

We went over this in another one of your threads. I'll link it here to save my typing the same story all over again. 

 

Ah yep, will check that out again.

[silviaz]

On 6/13/2023 at 8:41 AM, Murray_Calavera said:

I thought so. 

If I could see the car in person this would be a lot more simple, as I can't let me tell you a story. 

This is the scenario. You have a lovely S15 silvia, looks amazing, pretty typical mods, exhaust, front mount. But the workshop that installed your front mount thought nothing of cutting a bunch of holes in the body to run the intercooler piping. You don't know anything about the engineering process and really, don't know what the workshop did to install the front mount. 

The next day you are frolicking through the fields in your S15, playing with the other woodland creatures when out of no where a wild highway patrol monster appears. 

You are stopped for a random defect check. Oh I mean, random breath test, and the highway patrol monster finds some holes cut in the cars body. Your car is defected and written on the defect is something to the effect of, "holes cut in structural component of vehicle chassis". 

No big deal you think, a workshop did the modification, surely the way they did it is fine. You start speaking with blue slip workshops and engineers. 

Turns out that your car has air bags and other sensors that are tuned to the factory chassis and the way it responds in a collision and now the chassis has been modified/weakened. Now all the engineers you speak with don't want to touch the car with a 10 foot pole, it just isn't worth their time/they don't want to risk losing their engineering licence.

So now the beautiful S15 is unregistered. What are you to do? 

It gets sold to someone interstate who thinks they can easily get around the defect situation. I mean the defect is in another state right? Wrong. The car stays unregistered. 

And now the car is sold to the next person and the cycle continues. 

Maybe this story isn't relevant to your situation. I haven't seen the car. It's something to think about in any case. 

i read this again. I can relate to this actually, In a similar scenario!

[silviaz]

9 hours ago, Murray_Calavera said:

Remember, clear ppsr does not 100% guarantee the car is not stolen. Just because a car isn't reported stolen now, it may be reported stolen in the future. There are many scenarios why a vehicle may be reported stolen in a future date, and you are left holding the hot potato. 

We went over this in another one of your threads. I'll link it here to save my typing the same story all over again. 

 

Do you think i should completely avoid buying a car where there is a hole in the structural component of the car because of the intercooler install?, I understand welding it up won't bring it back to factory strength. i thought if an engineer signs off on it the cops can't do anything

Edited June 14, 2023 by silviaz

[Murray_Calavera]

6 hours ago, silviaz said:

Do you think i should completely avoid buying a car where there is a hole in the structural component of the car because of the intercooler install?, I understand welding it up won't bring it back to factory strength. i thought if an engineer signs off on it the cops can't do anything

There are a few things to cover off here. 

Firstly, cops can defect you even if your car is not defective. You could drive a brand new car off the show room floor and be defected as you drive out of the driveway if the cop believes the car does not meat ADRs. Keep in mind that cops are not mechanics or engineers, they just have to believe the car is defective for them to defect it. (This is obviously hypothetical, so in this instance lets say the car has an exposed pod air filter from factory. Obviously its fine, the OEM put it there, but the cop thinks pod = defect, so now you have to get the car cleared to be put back on the road. Obviously this will not be an issue, the car is stock and it's just a slight inconvenience). 

So yes, even if your car is engineered, you can be defected. 

You have to use a bit of common sense here, say your car is "engineered" for the aftermarket exhaust however at idle you can't even hear that the cop is saying, it makes sense that you will be defected. In this scenario it is likely that you changed the exhaust after the car was engineered and the car is obviously defective. 

It would be very strange for a cop to defect your roadworthy car that is engineered, even though yes it is technically possible. 

Back to the hole in the chassis question. Has the car been certified by an engineer saying there are no issues with the body being cut up? If it's on the engineers certificate saying it's fine, yeah you should be ok to buy the car. (provided you're happy with the potential future issues and limitations you may find)

There is one big thing to keep in mind though. Never ever let the car go unregistered and only buy the car if you never plan to register it in another state. 

If the car ever needs a blue slip in future, it is highly likely that the engineers certificate that you have won't be worth $hit and you'll need to get the car engineered again. You may not be able to find another engineer willing to sign off on your cut up car. 

If you transfer the car interstate it will require inspection, it is highly likely that the engineers certificate won't be recognised in that state and you may find you can't find anyone willing to sign off on the cut up car. 

Having said all that, I wouldn't buy the car (I've already transferred my R33 from NSW to QLD rego, it could happen again etc). Should you buy it? You're call, I don't know what your circumstances are. 

[trel]

22 hours ago, silviaz said:

Do you think i should completely avoid buying a car where there is a hole in the structural component of the car because of the intercooler install?, I understand welding it up won't bring it back to factory strength. i thought if an engineer signs off on it the cops can't do anything

 

I would avoid it. I was in a similar situation years ago where a hole was cut for an intercooler and an RWC could not be obtained until it passed engineers. This is in Vic, so not sure about the laws in your state.

You could be dodgy and try to cover the hole up, prime paint and seal and hope the mechanic doing the rwc doesn't pick it up, but I wouldn't want a car that's structurally compromised personally.

Keep looking mate, the right one will pop up it just takes time and persistence.

[GTSBoy]

2 hours ago, trel said:

but I wouldn't want a car that's structurally compromised personally.

Bah! The reality is that punching a hole in a piece of sheet metal, and then putting a piece of pipe in it, does not "structurally compromise" the car. Sure, putting a hole through a chassis rail is not clever, but an inner guard is nothing. Yes, it will alter the crash behaviour. It will either be ever so slightly more crushy or ever so slightly less crushy, but really, expecting it to change the way that the car folds in an impact, by more than a poofteenth, is completely unrealistic.

The problem is that the rego/roadworthiness authorities have no option but to say "no such mods" to completely eliminate the prospect of someone doing it to a chassis rail. And the effect on airbags, etc, is ever so slightly larger than my dismissal of the effect on the real strength of the car. So they have to be conservative.

If you had a hole in an inner guard, welded it up, I would never complain.

My car went through Regency with a >100mm hole in the horizontal surface of the inner guard between the headlight and the airbox. Has stormwater pipe passed through it. No-one cared. God bless America South Australia.

[silviaz]

23 hours ago, Murray_Calavera said:

There are a few things to cover off here. 

Firstly, cops can defect you even if your car is not defective. You could drive a brand new car off the show room floor and be defected as you drive out of the driveway if the cop believes the car does not meat ADRs. Keep in mind that cops are not mechanics or engineers, they just have to believe the car is defective for them to defect it. (This is obviously hypothetical, so in this instance lets say the car has an exposed pod air filter from factory. Obviously its fine, the OEM put it there, but the cop thinks pod = defect, so now you have to get the car cleared to be put back on the road. Obviously this will not be an issue, the car is stock and it's just a slight inconvenience). 

So yes, even if your car is engineered, you can be defected. 

You have to use a bit of common sense here, say your car is "engineered" for the aftermarket exhaust however at idle you can't even hear that the cop is saying, it makes sense that you will be defected. In this scenario it is likely that you changed the exhaust after the car was engineered and the car is obviously defective. 

It would be very strange for a cop to defect your roadworthy car that is engineered, even though yes it is technically possible. 

Back to the hole in the chassis question. Has the car been certified by an engineer saying there are no issues with the body being cut up? If it's on the engineers certificate saying it's fine, yeah you should be ok to buy the car. (provided you're happy with the potential future issues and limitations you may find)

There is one big thing to keep in mind though. Never ever let the car go unregistered and only buy the car if you never plan to register it in another state. 

If the car ever needs a blue slip in future, it is highly likely that the engineers certificate that you have won't be worth $hit and you'll need to get the car engineered again. You may not be able to find another engineer willing to sign off on your cut up car. 

If you transfer the car interstate it will require inspection, it is highly likely that the engineers certificate won't be recognised in that state and you may find you can't find anyone willing to sign off on the cut up car. 

Having said all that, I wouldn't buy the car (I've already transferred my R33 from NSW to QLD rego, it could happen again etc). Should you buy it? You're call, I don't know what your circumstances are. 

A lot of good info here, thanks a bunch. I guess in the case of cops defecting me, best i could do is take it to court worst case scenario

[MBS206]

You guys need to read VSI06 I think it is.

 

It specifically states how you can actually cut things like the inner guards/wheel well, and it's a non structural issue. This document from Services NSW also stipulates, this is an OWNER certifiable job, and doesn't require engineering.

[Murray_Calavera]

5 hours ago, silviaz said:

A lot of good info here, thanks a bunch. I guess in the case of cops defecting me, best i could do is take it to court worst case scenario

If all they have done is defected you, it can't be contested at court. If they have defected you and given you a ticket, you can contest the ticket at court. Suppose you could think of the 'court' for the defect is the blue slip workshop. 

5 hours ago, MBS206 said:

You guys need to read VSI06 I think it is.

 

It specifically states how you can actually cut things like the inner guards/wheel well, and it's a non structural issue. This document from Services NSW also stipulates, this is an OWNER certifiable job, and doesn't require engineering.

Unfortunately what the regulations say and what happens in practice is not always the same thing. Take for example exposed pod air filters, my interpretation of the regulations is that it's fine. However I've only ever met 3 engineers that agree with me. Every other engineer I've spoken to has very strongly sat in the "put it in a box" camp. 

I know people in NSW that have been defected for the holes cut to run cooler piping and were unable to clear the defect and the car was then off the road. 

I would not want to buy a cut up car then run the gauntlet of trying to find an engineer that agrees with me.

[silviaz]

11 hours ago, Murray_Calavera said:

If all they have done is defected you, it can't be contested at court. If they have defected you and given you a ticket, you can contest the ticket at court. Suppose you could think of the 'court' for the defect is the blue slip workshop. 

Unfortunately what the regulations say and what happens in practice is not always the same thing. Take for example exposed pod air filters, my interpretation of the regulations is that it's fine. However I've only ever met 3 engineers that agree with me. Every other engineer I've spoken to has very strongly sat in the "put it in a box" camp. 

I know people in NSW that have been defected for the holes cut to run cooler piping and were unable to clear the defect and the car was then off the road. 

I would not want to buy a cut up car then run the gauntlet of trying to find an engineer that agrees with me.

oh that's strange.

[silviaz]

@Murray_Calavera A dealer is selling the car and there is no contract of sale just an invoice and receipt, this doesn't sound right to me. What are your thoughts on it?

[Murray_Calavera]

3 hours ago, silviaz said:

@Murray_Calavera A dealer is selling the car and there is no contract of sale just an invoice and receipt, this doesn't sound right to me. What are your thoughts on it?

Can you expand a bit more on this?

[Duncan]

from a dealer..... I think that sounds dodgy as f**k

[silviaz]

1 hour ago, Murray_Calavera said:

Can you expand a bit more on this?

Sure so they gave me the invoice for the full payment of the vehicle and said that, that is the legal contract and that's it. 

Edited June 16, 2023 by silviaz

[silviaz]

42 minutes ago, Duncan said:

from a dealer..... I think that sounds dodgy as f**k

Yeah that's what I'm thinking I got in touch with some dealers, and one of them laughed because even they said it's dodgy lol.