ULPT: Replace dented panels on your relatively new car for CHEAP!

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karateninjazombie@reddit

I've heard of Americans renting something with a bigger and compatible V8 for a weekend and swapping the larger rental engine into their personal vehicle over then weekend then returning the rental. Running. But with the smaller engine.

How true that is I don't know. Coz they're off the internet. But it's certainly doable.

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nickolazx@reddit

I mean at that point the VIN would just give it away

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sharkbait-oo-haha@reddit

Nobody checks the vin/engine matches between hire's. By the time it's picked up it's untraceable.

I have heard of people also doing transmission swaps for their faulty one. Then calling the rental agency as if it broke down.

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ThisIsMeHearMeRAWR@reddit

I mean, it wouldn’t be “untraceable” no matter how long it take to discover right? The vin on the swapped engine is always gonna lead back to the swapper as long as the car is tied to them, unless I’m missing something.

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karateninjazombie@reddit

You're missing that the staff at the rental place know what type of engine or care about the engine. As long as it runs.

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ThisIsMeHearMeRAWR@reddit

I’m not saying you’d definitely get caught. I’m sure stuff like this could easily go unnoticed. I’m just replying to a comment that said the swap would be untraceable if discovered.

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meowtiger@reddit

you could acid etch the vin stamp off the engine you put back into the rental the same way you can acid etch the vin plate off a chassis

not that i'm recommending it, but this is ULPT

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sharkbait-oo-haha@reddit

Sure. But the real trick is to hire a THIRD rental. Then the vin leads back to a 2nd rental company who then has to trace it back again to you. It's a game of 3 card V8 Monte.

But for real, when I heard of things like this being done was pre-internet and vin tracking days. Prior to like the 80s whole concept of vins was sketchy as hell. If you were doing it today, you'd take a die grinder to the engine numbers or swap everything except the blocks.

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dinosandbees@reddit

I rented a Shelby back when Hertz had their special edition GT-H (mid-2000s). All the high performance parts had steel cables attaching them to the car, and they checked that all the parts were intact when I returned the car.

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meowtiger@reddit

they actually have GT-Hs again!

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Oliver_Closeof@reddit

Was a huge issue in the 60’s with hertz. They had a special edition Shelby gt350h, with a special gold and black paint job. They were fast and pretty damn awesome. So Ppeople were renting them for the weekend, and swapping the motors with a stock mustang. They started putting serialized tags on then that couldn’t be swapped.

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ericisatwork@reddit

This absolutely is/was a thing. It was a common scam for Uhaul vans because they had a highly desired V8 LS motor. It became such a thing that Uhaul now verifies the VIN of the motor when receiving the vehicle back from the customer.

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What_Reddit_Thinks@reddit

You have no idea what you’re talking about lmfao nowhere on any of those motors is there a vin stamp.

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Dannyz@reddit

Here it is…

https://lateral-g.net/forums/showthread.php4?p=606199

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bnjman@reddit

Fuck yeah! It's sock eating time, @whatredditthinks

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KamikazeKarl_@reddit

Deliver or delete your account coward

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echobelly1@reddit

A crusty one?

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marray98@reddit

??? Plenty of motors have a vin attached

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rab10000@reddit

Having a vin attached on a motorway is completely different to it being stamped on the engine.

My vin number is on the windscreen

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marray98@reddit

No... vehicles have multiple vin locations including the engine block. They have multiples in order to prevent vin fraud, it also helps insure that everything is original on a given car. Don't want to tear you down but its the way things are done happy cake day

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ericisatwork@reddit

uhhh, okay, whatever you wanna believe. have you heard of a" numbers matching" car? what numbers do you think they're talking about?

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What_Reddit_Thinks@reddit

That means, for example, if a 70s Camaro came with for example an LT1, the casting code on the block would reflect that the engine is an LT1. It is not stamped with a vin, it comes with a casting code.

On the LS engines there is a stamp behind the water pump that says 4.8/5.3 or 6.0, designating engine size, and a casting on the rear of the block. Not a vin, but an engine code. They are indistinguishable from each other so long as they were made within the same time frame. They stamp times on them to refer to defects if they have any.

As a matter of fact I happen to be standing next to a 5.3 at work right now. Can you please tell me where to find this VIN stamp you’re talking about that I’ve somehow missed in the years I’ve worked on these?

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Smyley12345@reddit

I've heard of doing it with tires and well. With those you aren't even handcuffed to your specific make of car.

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SquidProBono@reddit

I worked for enterprise rent a car for some years a long time ago and tire swaps were super common. Spare tires got stolen a lot too.

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Alternative-Golf8281@reddit

People swap their worn out tires for the rental's new ones

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Puzzleheaded_Sun7356@reddit

I've done it with interior door panels.

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Dougally@reddit

Worn out tyres and damaged wheels - I suspect a regular occurance.

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ericisatwork@reddit

This is a great way to get some "new to you tires" as well, as long as you have the same factory wheels as your rental car. Ask me how I know.

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Peppa-Piggie@reddit

How do you know? 👀

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rab10000@reddit

I've done this and just swapped the wheels. Went from 16s to 18s. Guy never even noticed a thing and they weren't even the same style of alloys

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TehToningMink@reddit

Or get yourself a fresh new set of tires and put your worn out tires back on the rental.

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Content-Rabbit-9865@reddit

Rent a vehicle with the same tire/rim size and swap the tires out. A one day rental with new tires cost. All set and done

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FrankClymber@reddit

Truck drivers who pull the big car haulers do the same thing. They'll have a list of parts people are looking for, and when they get a new car on their car hauler that has that part, they'll contact the person who needs it, swap the faulty part for the new one, and make a little side money.

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Strongbow_Wolfrider@reddit

You'd be surprised how many parts in cars have etched serial numbers. Panels probably aren't, but glass, cat, and major parts definitely are.

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dekeffinated@reddit

I'm off to search my cats for etched serial numbers.

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Strongbow_Wolfrider@reddit

I'm too lazy to type out catalytic blah blah blah

Also my cats have chips, so even if the little assholes decide to run away, some well meaning person is going to bring them back

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dekeffinated@reddit

Mine are too scared of the big wide world to run off.

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JohnHazardWandering@reddit

Probably on the ears

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dekeffinated@reddit

This guy cats. My DSH does. The Bengal doesn't.

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cjw7x@reddit

Apparently there are hidden serial numbers that manufacturers only reveal to law enforcement in stolen vehicle cases.

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Tyrannosapien@reddit

I wanna know what cars even have "panels" anymore. Every car I've seen for 30+ years is unibody. Even if there some, I bet the overlap with rentals is non-existent.

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Subject_Turn3941@reddit

You might as well go full tilt, and crash it into your own car. Hit it hard enough, and write off your personal car. The rental insurance will replace the whole thing.

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Dannyz@reddit

Pshhhh. I accidentally hit a neighbor in a rental having full coverage and insurance didn’t cover. There was an exclusion for neighbors

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Fitz911@reddit

A friend of mine works at fraud prevention for a European insurance company.

Two things: 1. Insurance fraud works pretty well. 2. Don't fuck it up.

Their motto is: we do the stupid first

When you commit insurance fraud and they contact you about a thing or two they don't understand - you are so fuckefd.

Not sure how it's elsewhere, but companies in Europe have very strict rules regarding personal data protection. The law is tight and you can trust European companies. Especially insurance companies because they handle data with a special protection. Your data is good there. You are even protected when you commited fraud. Company A can't inform company B about what you did.

I wouldn't count on that. He said a lot of people fall for that.

You can totally get a few bucks out of your insurance. But they have people who deal with people like you for a living.

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AnnoyedHaddock@reddit

Company A may not be able to directly tell company B what you did but they certainly can, and will upload details to national databases. Yes there are very strong GDPR laws but there are also exceptions allowing insurers to share data pertaining to fraud, cancelled policies and risk management.

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Fitz911@reddit

Company A may not be able to directly tell company B what you did but they certainly can, and will upload details to national databases.

Do you have a source for that?

He told me that it's definitely not allowed to share this information. He spoke about "secret lists". To be clear. I'm not talking about cases where people were convicted of fraud. I'm talking about cases where someone produced a ton of "accidents".

In theory they could switch to another insureance company. If they do and produce an accident, the company will send out my friend. In theory this should be impossible and I don't see any basis for your claim

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AnnoyedHaddock@reddit

There’s a whole host of shared databases amongst insurers and law enforcement such as Cifas NFD, IFB, MFB in the UK, HIS in Germany, Stichting CIS in the Netherlands. Insurance companies regularly update them with details of confirmed and suspected fraudsters and in certain instances they can even be checked internationally.

Now he is kind of correct in that insurers need your permission to check your details on these databases due to gdpr laws, however you can’t get insurance without giving them that permission.

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cjw7x@reddit

Probably something like LexisNexis

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Fitz911@reddit

>LexisNexis is an American data analytics company

probably not.

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cjw7x@reddit

That's why I said something like it. LexisNexis is used to analyze fraud risk.

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5c044@reddit

Slightly related - I went to a Ford R&D engineering centre in the UK many years ago and they told me that when a competitor released a new car they would hire one and strip it down to see what innovations it had. Then they would reassemble it and return it to the hire company minus a few screws and bolts that they always had left over.

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karateninjazombie@reddit

Pretty sure I've heard the big German manufacturers all just send each other a couple of the newest models when released in the past. As they know they're going to go buy them anyway to strip and test. Kind of a gentleman joke.

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EbolaNinja@reddit

Yeah, we do.

I work for a car manufacturer, sometimes we swap cars with another one (especially for the ones who have their HQs close to ours) for a week or so, sometimes we rent cars. There are companies whose whole business model is renting freshly released cars to other manufacturers.

By the time the car's on the market there's nothing to hide, so why not make our life easier?

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notthattmack@reddit

Some people do that with wives, too.

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karateninjazombie@reddit

Thanks for that. I spat my coffee laughing reading this.

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JohnnySchoolman@reddit

Why not rob a bank too?

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First_Shes_Sweet@reddit

You wouldn't download a bear!

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_robmillion_@reddit

Because that's riskier. Most bank robberies are unsuccessful, but even successful robberies generally don't even net the robber more than several hundred or a couple thousand bucks at most. The risk just isn't worth it.

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nayrwolf@reddit

If you want to be really unethical you could disable its gps, strip the car of all its parts then leave it somewhere and claim it’s stolen. Each vehicle is worth five times its value in parts alone.

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BowlMaster83@reddit

Sometimes police do their job and sometimes they get lucky. This is insurance fraud and theft.

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Nephroidofdoom@reddit

This entire thread is insurance fraud

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Short-Read4830@reddit

Said the co-defendant

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cropguru357@reddit

That’s part of the fun.

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One_Tumbleweed_1@reddit

The have their own investigators. They dont leave this shit up to the cops lol.

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eldelshell@reddit

You'd know you're getting a specific car, from a specific year and in a specific color.

May as well play some scratches with those $200.

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incpen@reddit

Battery swap seems like a thing… they cost like $300 on some cars

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silentstorm2008@reddit

Desk agents are not insurance agents nor legal representatives. Whatever you signed is bulletproof against you and you will not be covered for returning a car without a door

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JohnHazardWandering@reddit

That's why you get the insurance upcharge

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LazyAssLeader@reddit

This might not work for all makes and parts though. I know VW/Audi/Porsche/Lambo code many parts through the canbus to the appropriate module in the recipient car. So you can install that door, or headlight, but they won't work and will throw error codes.

They say it's to ensure compatibility. I'd bet money is to kill the illegal/used/3rd party parts market and drive business to the parts counter.

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