What to do if the car’s VIN does not match the title?

What to do if the number on the engine and in the title do not match

From the previous section, I think you understood that there was a huge confusion with the engine numbers. But, unfortunately, the matter is not limited to this: now many motorists with mismatched license plates are simply afraid of any registration actions, where they may be required to present the car for inspection.

And indeed, through mass sales of inexpensive contract internal combustion engines without any documents at “showdowns”, many people got a crime as a power plant, which, as they say, will ring the first time its number is “punched” in the traffic police.

And then what? And then the impound lot until clarification. Naturally, there is a fee and the time frame for clarification in this case is, of course, indefinite. That is, you can easily say goodbye to the entire car, and not just the stolen engine.

Many particularly optimistic motorists hope that inspectors do not have the right to demand reconciliation of license plates, or to refuse registration if the numbers do not match. It is a myth. It was fueled in part by a number of actual cases where inspectors actually succumbed to such pressure due to their own superficial familiarity with the Regulations.

And there are even official responses from some MREOs to requests from car owners about the illegality of refusing registration due to the “fault” of any inspector.

But you should know that:

There was no such law, regulation or order according to which the traffic police inspector was prohibited from inspecting the unit number, checking it and “punching it” against the database;
There was no law, decree or order according to which it would be permissible to install an internal combustion engine on a car, which completely lacks documentation.

I think you know that you cannot unauthorizedly install a unit other than the model one, even with all the documents. And if not, then keep that in mind too.

And one more thing: despite the fact that, according to the new rules, the number of the internal combustion engine is no longer written down in the registration certificate (STS), it must be indicated in the PTS and is duplicated in the traffic police registration system along with the body number, for example. Therefore, there can be no talk of any cancellation of unit numbers and transferring them to the status of “simple spare parts”!

If you do not have documents for the engine

If you have an engine without any documents, then today the best options are:

If you are not selling your car, then there are no special problems here - you can drive quite calmly and even restore some documentation on the car.
If you decide to sell the car, there may be problems. The new owner may face registration refusals due to mismatched internal combustion engine numbers and may successfully cancel the purchase and sale agreement in court;
If you bought a similar car and were faced with registration refusals, then as an option to terminate the transaction, you can try to register it in some small locality - today there is information that in such MREOs they still register cars almost without looking;
Some advise drawing up a fictitious DCT, but this can only work reliably for domestic models, and for foreign ones, in addition to the contract, the MREO may require a cargo customs declaration (CCD). Buying it for the desired model will not be difficult, but here you will need to customize the numbers or declarations, or the engine itself.

Regarding the last point, let me clarify that there are a lot of cases when a purchased car was registered without problems, but a few months later, when sold, it no longer passed re-registration in the same MREO due to a mismatch of engine numbers.

Attention! If you decide to take another path to “solving” the problem and falsify the number on the unit by “interpolating” it to match the purchased documents, then you may be convicted under Article 326 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Changing the marking”). Should a person risk his freedom for a car engine? Don't think!

In the MREO itself, in departments that adhere to the new Regulations, they now officially offer two options to those who do not have documents for the unit:

Install the engine on which they are;
Find documents for the one that is worth it.

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A very sad choice, you will agree.

If you have documents for the engine

If you have documents for the unit, there will be no problems during re-registration. The only condition: the internal combustion engine must correspond to the original model. Then you can easily pass any registration simply by recording in the PTS by a traffic police inspector.

A similar correspondence is determined by the VIN code, more precisely encrypted in it with the following data:

Body number;
Year of issue;
Engine parameters;
Vehicle type;
Manufacturer and exporting country.

How to register a car with a different engine number

To do this, you must collect the following package of documents, which is not much different from the standard set of papers for regular car registration after its correct purchase:

Passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation or other acceptable identification document (form P 2 with photo) – required;
PTS (vehicle passport) – required;
STS (registration certificate) – required;
MTPL insurance policy;
A document confirming the purchase of the engine (DCP or other) is required;
CCD (cargo customs declaration) – mandatory for export internal combustion engines;
Receipt for payment of state duty (RUB 1,300) – required;
Certificate from the service center for engine installation;
A photocopy of the service center certification for these categories of work;
Photocopy of PTS;
Photocopy of civil passport.

You must bring all these documents to the MREO at the place of registration, adding to them a statement regarding the fact of changing the internal combustion engine. An inspector will inspect your car, make a note on the application, and you can hand it all over to the collection window. They will tell you when everything will be ready: it could be several hours or several days.

After you get your PTS back, you will need to adjust the MTPL policy data in accordance with the updated data.

Is the engine a numbered unit or not? This is a spare part and when you need the engine number

On July 10, 2021, with the introduction of a new edition of Order No. 1001 on the procedure for vehicle registration, in paragraph 3 the engine indicated that registration data is not produced if there is a discrepancy between the numbers of the license units presented in the documents; at the same time, the motor was listed as such;
On October 7, 2021, the above document lost force and was replaced by a new one - Order No. 399, where a new clause appeared where the engine was no longer listed in the list of numbered units.

paragraph 2 of paragraph 17 states that traffic police officers do not have the right to demand documents for an engine if it has been replaced with a similar one in type and model,
paragraphs 14-17 prescribe that the engine number does not relate to the registration data of the vehicle, and this means that, as before, it is no longer necessary to make changes to the PTS when replacing it; inspectors only need to enter information with the new one into the database when carrying out registration actions number, just as there is no need to register/re-register a car with a replaced engine.

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✅ Under no circumstances should you use mechanical cleaning of the engine number, sandpaper, sandblasting, etc. Thus, you will destroy this number with your own hands and the traffic police will have all the legal grounds to refuse to register your car without replacing the engine with a new one. ✅ If the car has a factory engine with the volume specified in the PTS and there are no traces of mechanical impact on the engine number, then you need to demand to register the car, or demand an official document refusing to register the car. As you understand, usually at this moment the inspector loses all questions about your car and it is successfully registered with the traffic police. ✅ If the car is old and the engine number is really poorly preserved and wiping with a regular damp cloth did not help. In this case, the inspector has the right to refer you to a criminologist for examination. There is no need to be afraid of this procedure; if the engine is original and not stolen, then a criminologist will easily determine this and the car will be easily registered. It’s just that the procedure itself will take some time. ✅ There is another option to easily solve this problem. You can go to register at the Moscow traffic police department. In Moscow it has always been easier to register a car, here inspectors don’t find fault and don’t look at the car’s engine number.

Hello again! Not long ago I wrote an article on how to check mileage on a Chevrolet Cruze 1.8 MT. We selected this car for our customer. The purchase and sale agreement was drawn up at the dealer, the money was paid and the new owner of the car, in a joyful mood, went to his hometown of Podolsk to register the car with the traffic police.

Actions if the deal is completed

According to order number 28 of January 20, 2011, it is considered mandatory to document vehicle engine numbers, as well as further verification of the unit with the information in the relevant papers.

This order served as the basis for introducing certain changes to the regulations of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation.

In cases where the engine numbers do not match the information specified in the vehicle’s passport, traffic police officers have the right to refuse to register the vehicle.

In this case, they can refer to the order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs No. 605 of August 7, 2013.

If a car owner is faced with a situation that implies a discrepancy between the engine number and the information specified in the passport, then the procedure for further actions will depend on the availability of the appropriate documents for the unit itself.

There are documents for the engine

If the car was nevertheless purchased, and the engine number does not match the information included in the vehicle passport, you should change the information specified in the document.

The easiest situation is considered to be in which a unit that is considered an acceptable model was installed in the car. In this case, the traffic police officer makes a corresponding note in the vehicle passport.

Moreover, you don’t have to change the document; a note about changing the engine number will be enough. However, if it means registering such a vehicle, then you will still have to change the passport for the vehicle.

There are no documents for the engine

In the case where the car was purchased, but the documents for the installed engine were not transferred by the seller, or a discrepancy was discovered after the purchase/sale transaction was completed, the buyer must contact the previous owner of the vehicle and find out about the availability of the necessary papers.

If the seller does not have the documents, then the seller has only one option for further action, which is to purchase a new engine, install it and directly register it with the traffic police department.

Only in this case will it be possible to provide papers for the installed part and subsequently register the vehicle.

Is it necessary to verify the engine number when registering in 2021?

Appendix No. 1 to the order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation dated November 24, 2008. ? 1001 “On the procedure for registering vehicles” Rules for registering vehicles and trailers with them in the state road safety inspection of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation Vehicles are not subject to registration with the State Traffic Inspectorate and are not accepted for registration actions: “Rules for registering motor vehicles.

“a) control over the safety of the design of the registered vehicle in accordance with the regulatory legal acts of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia regulating the safety requirements for the design of vehicles; The results of the vehicle inspection are noted in the application (section: “Service marks of the State Traffic Inspectorate”

But the most important innovation, which comes into force on July 10, 2019, is the expansion of the list of reasons for which vehicle registration/re-registration cannot be carried out.

Thus, according to the new order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation No. 139, paragraph 3 of the rules for registering vehicles with the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate includes more precise grounds on which registration of a car may be refused.

their complete list: if a foreigner needs to register a car, he must attach his passport. Another innovation in the traffic police regulations is much more interesting. From now on it became possible to “reinstate” a car that had previously been scrapped according to documents.

for example, after an accident. or once sold “by proxy”.

Now, if the car was not actually scrapped, its registration with the traffic police can be restored

“based on confirmation of credentials at the place of last registration of vehicles”

The search results were impressive. As we all (probably) know, a few years ago, the engine became a spare part.

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a lot of enthusiastic reviews from the simplification of this introduction, I hope everyone remembers?

and now attention (in the voice of Voroshilov-Kolmanovich), the correct answer: for some reason no one wrote or advertised about this. I think everyone is used to the dirty tricks from the state system, but I don’t remember such cynicism for a long time. but it's not as difficult as you thought!

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this means that the replacement of the engine must be registered with the traffic police. How to register an engine replacement at the traffic police? but when replacing the motor, you can obtain permission for such a replacement.

2021 missing engine number how to register

If the traffic police inspector discovers a discrepancy between the engine data, the corresponding penalty will be imposed on the car owner (Article 12.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation).

Is it necessary to register an engine replacement with the traffic police in 2021?

However, there is one important point here: you need to insure yourself that the purchased engine does not turn out to be a spare part from a stolen car. If this fact is revealed, and the owner of the car has not taken any measures in advance, then he will then have to explain for a long time to the traffic police officers under what circumstances he came into possession of the stolen spare part.

However, this does not mean that this happens always and everywhere. On many cars, checking the engine number is a matter of minutes, so it all depends on the desire of the inspector to strictly follow the established inspection procedure. Thus, if somewhere someone managed to register a car without inspecting the engine, then this can be considered luck or a sign of corruption.

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One of the negative consequences of this step was that car enthusiasts understood the meaning of the innovation literally. Since they don’t check, it means there is no need to register the engine replacement. As a result, over the course of several years, a mass of cars with unregistered engines have accumulated, the numbers on the units do not match the entry in the title.

Penalty for mismatching engine numbers

In 2021, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation issued order No. 28, which abolished the need to verify the engine number when registering a car with the traffic police. This was done to simplify the process of buying and selling vehicles. But, you win in one thing, you lose in another.

If the engine number does not match the number in the PTS

In this case, whether or not you should worry depends on whether the original and new motors are the same:

engine's type,
model (name and beginning of number),
characteristics,
Is the new engine on the wanted list in the traffic police database?

If the engine is replaced with a similar one

If the unit was replaced with a similar one in type and model, then there should be no questions for the driver.

The car will be registered, and MREO employees will make the necessary changes to the title and data banks. Moreover, no one will ask where the new engine came from? This is by law.

In practice, there are cases of refusal, but they are not based on the law, and the requirement of a written refusal for video recording, as a rule, removes the issue.

The motor was replaced with another model

If, in addition to mismatching numbers, the engine is of a different type, higher or lower power or model, then changes to the design must be registered.

The procedure is not that complicated and has been described many times on our website. Briefly the order is as follows:

Before starting work: Pass a preliminary technical examination. The examination is carried out only by accredited organizations, a list of which is presented on the website https://www.eurasiancommission.org/ru
Obtain permission from the traffic police to make changes.

After completing the work:

Pass inspection.

Pass a re-examination.

Receive a “Certificate of changes to the design” from the State Traffic Inspectorate.

Until the changes made to the design of the vehicle are registered, registration of the vehicle itself will be denied.

Alternatively, the driver can prove that the new engine is being marketed as a spare part for his vehicle.

To confirm, as mentioned above, it is necessary to submit a certificate or declaration that confirms that the engine has been tested as part of this vehicle in accordance with the requirements of the technical regulations on vehicle safety. If the motor was purchased from an official dealer, then there will be no problems with the certificate or declaration. At the driver's request, the seller must provide a certificate or declaration for the purchased engine.

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When to register a replacement

the new owner of the car comes to the MREO to register the car;
passes the inspection area;
the inspector checks the engine number and sees a discrepancy with the number indicated in the PTS.
the inspector checks the documents for the engine and enters the new engine number into the inspection report
the new owner of the car receives a title with a different engine number (indicated in the Special Notes).

Replacement with another model

If the owner of a car voluntarily decides to improve the car (for example, replace the engine with a more powerful one), then it is necessary to register these changes. Such manipulation will be considered a change in design, so you must provide documents to register the engine replacement with the traffic police. In 2021-2021, permission to carry out such a replacement will also be required.

It is necessary to submit an application to the traffic police about the desire to make changes to the configuration of the vehicle. The application is filled out in the prescribed form.
Use the services of an expert organization. Experts must check and evaluate the safety of installing a new auto part on the provided vehicle. After the assessment, the experts sign a conclusion in which they authorize the modification and also describe the procedure for installing the new motor.
Having submitted the application and conclusion, wait for a resolution from the traffic police authorizing the conversion of the vehicle in 2021.
Contact a specialized service center that has a license to perform such manipulations for replacement. Often these actions are also performed by expert organizations. If you wish, you can perform the replacement yourself.
After completing the work, the owner receives copies of the license, auto service certificate, as well as a declaration statement. In case of independent replacement, the car owner will fill out the declaration himself.
At any technical inspection department, you must undergo a performance check of all units and components of the machine and obtain a diagnostic card for the vehicle. These services are also often performed by expert organizations.
Bring the necessary documents to the traffic police and provide your vehicle for control by state technical supervision officers.

Otherwise, this procedure is completely identical to the algorithms described above for registering an engine replacement at the traffic police. With similar characteristics of the new unit, you will need a minimum of time and paperwork. When installing a new engine with car parameters different from the factory characteristics, you will have to stock up on time and patience.

Application to the traffic police for engine replacement

The main share of costs when replacing a car engine will be occupied by the service itself to replace it. You can save money if you change the unit yourself. But even this will not save you from paying the state duty, which has the following amounts:

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Note. The Law “On Vehicle Registration” does not provide more detailed information about in which cases license plates can be obtained from the traffic police, and in which cases you will have to contact the manufacturer. At first glance, it seems that the car owner himself will be able to choose the option that is convenient for him. However, it is possible that additional documents regulating this issue will be issued.

Mismatch of internal combustion engine numbers - the roots of the problem

I’ll say right away that in order to convey the essence of this complex issue, I had to write a rather large first section, after reading which, I hope, no one will have any questions about the emergence of contradictions with internal combustion engine numbers.

As of today, 2021, discrepancy between unit numbers is one of the most pressing legal problems in the automotive industry. This is understandable: since 2011, a huge mass of cars with problems in this regard has accumulated, with very upset owners who do not know what to do. And this problem arose out of the blue: on the basis of the study and implementation of advanced foreign experience.

Of course, advanced experience itself has nothing to do with it, but in this case the matter was aggravated by two ancient legal scourges of our society:

The tendency of the executive branch, especially the peripheral ones, to diverge and interpret in its own way new legislation, decrees, rules and amendments to them, aggravated by the tendency of the authors of innovations to vague, ambiguous, confusing, and even completely contradictory lawmaking;
The tendency of the masses, and in particular motorists, to interpret innovations advertised in the media in their own way, with a strong exaggeration of permitted and prohibited provisions.

People, naturally, will not read the standards themselves because it is so difficult that even those who are obliged to read and delve into all the provisions as part of their duty are massively neglecting it. Which also added drive to the spinning of the flywheel of speculation.

In the case of unit numbers, the harm from the above inclinations turned out to be enormous, and today there is an established opinion among motorists that the state, no less, deceived them, and not just like that, but on purpose! Automotive conspiracy theorists even voiced the very reason for such treachery: to send a third of the Russian car fleet to scrap, to stimulate the domestic automobile industry.

So what really happened in the distant and happy 2011?

As I already mentioned, the best practices of developed countries were adopted in terms of the mandatory recording and verification of license plates when registering cars.

It is unknown who adopted the experience and how, but the order dated January 20. 2011 (No. 28) General Nurgaliev R. signed amendments to the relevant regulatory framework of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, and Vladimir Shevtsov (then Acting Head of the Road Safety Department) sent new standards to all divisions of the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate. I wrote this for those who today on auto forums are asking who to say “thank you” for all the legal pandemonium that has arisen.

But before blaming anyone, let's take a closer look at everything.

The root of the problem here has been around for a long time: on many cars, the unit numbers were unreadable due to corrosion, no matter how you cleaned them (Shevtsov publicly assured that this share was 95%!, although I personally don’t believe it). In the EU, such verification has long been abandoned due to its inexpediency. So our department decided to introduce similar rules, which further simplified the registration procedure for the people.

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Namely:

Thus, by order No. 28, clause 3.3.16.4.1 was put into effect, which initiated changes to clause 35.4 of the Administrative Regulations (Appendix 2) of order No. 1001 of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation (dated November 24, 2008).
The result was the abolition of the mandatory reconciliation of unit numbers during registration actions. And everything was right here - this really solved a serious problem for car owners with unreadable serial numbers, who had previously had to worry a lot about this.
And here there was a mistake, which caused all the subsequent troubles: since these changes really solved a complex problem for many motorists, and simplified registration for everyone else, the authorities of the Ministry of Internal Affairs could not resist the temptation and attracted the media to popularize the innovations.
The innovations concerned not only numbers, but something bad happened to them: people misunderstood the new provisions. And on a massive scale - this is understandable, because everyone wants to believe in good things.

What exactly happened:

They announced the cancellation of number matching. The State Traffic Safety Inspectorate has received updated standards, but they don’t read and understand them very quickly, to put it mildly.
Motorists, for their part, were imbued with the good literally right away and very soon they completely put an end to unit numbers as a concept, equating the internal combustion engine with ordinary consumables, like brake pads.
In many departments of the MREO they directly informed motorists that documents for units were unnecessary and that work on reconciling license plates had been completely stopped. This pernicious myth grew like a snowball, spreading through stories about successful car registrations when “the hood is not opened at all.”
As a result of a large mass of inspectors who did not understand the essence of the changes and an even larger mass of optimistic motorists who began installing units on cars without any documents at all, since 2011 a huge array of cars with mismatched unit numbers has formed. Which have now become problematic!
Naturally, with such a development of events, shadow and fraudulent schemes for the sale of motor units intensified. This was also greatly facilitated by the fact that for the vast majority of cars with serious internal combustion engine problems, regardless of the brand, the only cost-effective option was to replace the unit with a contract unit (bought second-hand), and not with a new one.
Well, the reaction of the authorities to such bad deeds, although very late, nevertheless followed: on August 7, 2013, the next order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (No. 605) canceled the previous wording about the unnecessaryness of reconciling license plate units (clause 1, appendix No. 2). In paragraph 24 of the updated Regulations, clear wording was introduced on the full justification of the refusal to register if there is a discrepancy between the numbers on the internal combustion engine and in the documents (PTS).
And here another mistake was made: the update of the 2013 Regulations was not popularized in the media (and this absolutely had to be done) and at the moment, many motorists still firmly believe that the internal combustion engine is a simple consumable and cannot be verified. Some even file lawsuits on this basis.
But the most surprising thing is that many MREOs are still confident in the same thing and continue to register cars with problem engines.

Advice for car buyers

Each vehicle buyer must take special responsibility when purchasing the desired vehicle.

There are several tips that will help the seller avoid unnecessary troubles:

When purchasing a vehicle, demand from the seller all available documents for the car, including the title. Before purchasing, you should compare all the data in the papers with the indicated indicators on the vehicle itself.
If any discrepancies are found in the car passport data, ask for paperwork for the installed unit. You should also find out in which service center the engine was installed. The seller must provide the buyer with a certificate from this organization regarding the provision of services for installing the engine on the vehicle.
If discrepancies are found in the documents for the car, it would be more advisable to ask the seller to correct the violations before purchasing the vehicle.
In order to avoid unnecessary problems with paperwork and vehicle registration, it would be more advisable to refuse to purchase a vehicle with obvious discrepancies in the relevant papers.