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I previously wrote a blog on an issue that had recently been a major problem for VIN verifiers and registration services that were verifying & registering pre-1970 vehicles. That blog post is here: Important news on California’s new rules for VIN verifiers. The issue was that we were essentially prohibited from doing VIN verifications on pre-1970 vehicles because of VIN Memo VIN 2017-08. This memo caused major confusion because it conflicted with the new version of the VIN verification form (REG31). The new form implied that we can actually do VIN verifications on pre-1970 vehicles – but the memo’s language itself was vague that it made it so DMV offices were rejecting our VIN verifications because the vehicles we were verifying did not have a US Federal Certification Label. Keep in mind, most older vehicles did not have that label, it was not a standard at that time. This all had to do with the secondary VIN, and how private VIN verifiers were NOT trained to locate the secondary VIN. However, most of the older cars didn’t have a secondary VIN, and if they did, it would be a partial VIN & not a full VIN.

Here’s a picture of a US Federal Certification Label:

So what’s the good news now? Now, local DMVs are now accepting VIN verifications from us private VIN verifiers again, so long as we can locate that secondary VIN. So if your vehicle does NOT have a secondary VIN, you will have to go to the CHP. For everyone else, we can both do your VIN verification & process your pre-1970 vehicle’s registration & titling in our office. This is good news for business for us, and good news for the client that doesn’t have to wait months for an appointment at the CHP and will get their titles a lot faster.