As you know, we like our old vehicles. I’ve been driving Volvos – old ones – since I first discovered the joys of driving a heavily battered ’65 PV544 while living in Seattle back in 1986. Between then and now, I’ve bought and sold and traded and parted out and sent to the metal recyclers between 65 and 70 of these things. I don’t brag about much, but I know these cars better than most people, including Volvo enthusiast people.
For most people who buy a car, the process is pretty simple – and usually, it’s also pretty simple for people who like old obscure cars too. But once in a while some odd thing happens and those who prefer the relics are faced with adapting our luddite personae as well as our primitive conveyances into a world fraught with digital influence and tidy record keeping. There isn’t any Carfax report on anything in our garage (except maybe the Subaru, which we think of in the same vein as the freezer or the washing machine). There’s also not a Vehicle Identification Number (popularly known as a VIN) stamped on a silver tag riveted to the A pillar just inside the windshield on any of the old Volvos. 50 and 60 year old foreign cars were, alas, often not thusly adorned.
Typically, this isn’t any problem provided the car you buy has its proper documentation and that the documentation is itself proper. The first time I had to submit one of the Volvos for a VIN inspection it was after rebuilding a Volvo 122 that had been totaled. The Department of Motor Vehicles (and, I guess, law enforcement) wanted to be sure that the car I was driving was, in fact, the same car that was represented by my title and registration. I drove to the DMV and the fellow behind the counter walked out to the car, looked at the VIN, and checked the box on some form. There wasn’t any question that the car was the car I said it was, and that it was legitimately mine. And a few weeks later I had a new title emblazoned with the word "SALVAGE" across the top. Badge of honor.
But that’s not why I’m here today.
Fast forward a few years from that 122 VIN inpsection thing to two years ago, when D and I bought another old Volvo: a 1957 PV445, also known as a Duett. We bought this car from my friend Dennis, who had owned it since 1973. Before that, it was owned by someone who worked at the University of Oregon, and before that it had been used by Sheppard Motors, which is the Volvo dealership in Eugene, Oregon. They used it to deliver parts and run errands (which is the same thing we use it for). When Dennis got the car, he drove it around a lot and after a few years decided he’d restore it and make a few upgrades. One thing he did was remove the original engine (a weak little 45 horsepower thing) with the intent of installing a stronger and more current mill in its stead. Then the project stalled and he kept it stored in his garage from 1978 until we bought it in 2011.
Nothing wrong with any of this, but as is the case with many old cars, this one had originally been titled using the engine number in place of the actual VIN. Engines have numbers, and car bodies have numbers, but neither of these is actually the Vehicle Identification Number. The VIN is a unique and distinct number that can (er.. should) be assigned only to that one specific motor vehicle. Now that the original engine wasn’t in the car, the documents for the car didn’t match any of the numbers on the car. Normally this isn’t a problem, but if someone were to steal the car and remove the license plates, we wouldn’t have any legal documents to support our claim of ownership. D and I agreed: we wanted this to be correct.
Old cars titled by their engine numbers might seem like a weird thing. But it’s common enough that there’s a whole set of instructions at the DMV on how their employees are to go about facilitating the correction of this old practice.
When we first bought the car, we took the old title to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), explained the situation and the nice person there explained that it would be best to only transfer the title at that time, and that once we’d established ownership and had the car running, we could take it back to the DMV where they’d inspect the actual VIN, make corrections in their records, and send us a title with the right number on it. Two visits instead of one. One transaction per visit keeps the confusion to a minimum. Clearly, this is a good idea.
A few weeks ago, we got a letter that reminded us that it’s time to renew the registration and I remembered the title-doesn’t-match-the-car thing, so I went to the DMV in person to get the VIN inspection handled. A couple months ago, one of the fellows at the DMV explained the process:
– bring the car and the title to the DMV
– fill out a form
– go outside with a DMV employee and show him or her the VIN
– write a check
– be happy
So last week I went to the DMV. This is exactly what I like to do when I have a free afternoon, especially given that the only time I have a free afternoon is the same time that D can get away from work and tend to our young son. I didn’t want to subject him to the long wait that often accompanies a trip to the DMV, nor did I wish to submit all the other good people who’d be waiting in line to any potential stinky diapers or hungry fussing. And it’s not like we’d want to spend a sunny afternoon as a family together doing something silly like taking a walk in the park. Pff.
I arrived at the DMV and waited in a long line before speaking with the person who filters out all the customers who might not have all their documents in order, then waited in a cue until my number was called. As soon as he found that I had something other than a quick and easy modern-car-owner task to deal with, he was immediately exhausted. Or something. He sighed a lot. I said something about my next visit being quick and easy and he replied "I hope so. These things are a real pain."
We went outside for the VIN inspection. I opened the hood of the car and pointed out the VIN location to him. It’s visible from outside the car, but you have to know where to look. He looked around the inside of the windshield though I’d already told him it wasn’t there, then he looked at the body number, then the build plate that has codes that explain what color the car was and which engine and transmission configuration the factory had seen fit to install as it rolled down the assembly line. I mentioned again that the VIN was "this number right here."
"I can’t do this. You’ll have to talk with a supervisor."
"The number is right here. All you have to do is look at it and stamp the form, right?"
"I can’t do this."
And he walked back inside the DMV. He hadn’t waited for me, but I figured I ought to tag along, so I closed up the car and went back inside, where I found him talking to someone else.
"She’s the supervisor and she’ll help you with this. I’m late for lunch."
The supervisor was friendly and encouraging, and said "this is really simple – we just need to look at the number, then send the forms to Salem, and you’ll get a new title in a few weeks." Cool.
As she looked over the title, she then said "you know, there’s really nothing wrong with this title. This is a perfectly good document. Why do you want to change it?"
I explained the whole thing about wanting the papers to match the car and that I was really just trying to play by the rules. She replied in the same vein "you don’t have to do anything. This title is fine."
"Right, but it has the wrong number on it. I want the numbers to match."
"There are shops around that have number stamps that can put the numbers from your title on the car. I’d just do that."
"I have number punches at home. Are you saying I should stamp the car myself?"
"Well, you’d want to pick an appropriate place on the car, and I’m not sure how the shops that do that know where to stamp them."
"I really think it would be best to go through proper channels and do this the right way."
"Okay. Then you have to fill out this other form. Put the VIN you want to use (emphasis mine) in this space here and fill out that section there." It seemed odd to me that I was being allowed (instructed, really) to fill in the form that says ‘to be filled out by DMV people’ but I went with it.
She went away for a few moments and returned. "We can’t do the inspection here. You have to make an appointment with the State Police and they’ll do it. I’ve already contacted them so they’re expecting to hear from you, and I’ve flagged the title in our system." Then she put a big red stamp on the title I’d brought with me that says something like ‘referred to OSP for VIN inspection.’
I finished filling out the parts of the form as I’d been instructed, and she gave me a "go to the front of the line" pass that I could use on my next visit. She said things about trying to be helpful and wanting me to be able to avoid the long wait when I returned after taking the car to the police.
I felt like I was being sent in circles as a reward for trying to make things right.
One of the papers the nice lady at the DMV had given me had instructions on how to go about making an appointment with the police for this inspection. Not conveniently, the police station is on the outskirts of town on the very opposite end of Portland from where I live. It’s an hour away.
Inspections are only available on Thursdays between 9 and 2:30, which means I’ll likely be crossing town on the busiest streets we have during rush hour. I’m thinking maybe I should take the car out and get pulled over for speeding by a trooper and ask him to do a quick inspection after he finishes writing me a ticket. That would certainly be more convenient.
Anyway, I called the phone number on the form and got a voicemail message that said "this number is no longer used for VIN inspections. If you need to make an appointment for a VIN inspection, call this other number and then dial 0 for an operator." After muttering something about the DMV having outdated forms, I called the number and dialed 0 and found myself speaking to someone employed by the Oregon State Police. Maybe she’s an officer herself, maybe she’s not. But whatever she is, she’s definitely the most competent and helpful person I’ve talked to thus far.
I told her the whole story and she was very interested in knowing which DMV had recommended having the VIN ‘added’ to the car. She asked if I knew the name of the employee (I didn’t – they don’t wear name tags. Probably for good reason.) Then she confirmed that I had the proper forms and asked me to make sure that the people at the DMV had filled in the sections properly. If the form isn’t perfect, she explained, the OSP can’t do the inspection in the first place and I’d have made the trip to the State Police only to be turned away and sent back to the DMV, where the forms could be corrected before going back to the OSP and then returning – again – to the DMV to have the forms processed. I’d think either of them could mail the forms to the office in Salem (of that I could do that part myself) but that’s now how the system [ahem] works.
I explained that the same woman at the DMV who had encouraged me to commit a federal crime had later had me fill out the form myself. The officer called my attention to the section in the middle of the page, which has to be filled out by the DMV employee before the OSP can do their thing. Mine was blank. The DMV employee who had ‘helped’ me had neglected to fill in this critical section of the form.
After thinking about better things over the weekend, on Monday I got the kiddo fed and changed, and piled him into the car so that we could both spend some quality time in the DMV office. The officer had encouraged me to pay a visit to a different DMV location, as she understood that I was less than pleased with how things had gone in my recent visit at the office nearest my home, but I was determined to return to the very same DMV. And so we (my son and I) marched on in. I showed my ‘go to the front of the line’ pass to the guy at the filter-out-the-unfortunate-customer desk, and he announced over the loudspeaker that I was to step in front of the fellow who was already at the very front of the line. Bambino in one hand, diaper bag and documents in the other, I sailed past the 50 or 60 commoners to my place up front, where I made eye contact with everyone nearby and apologized loudly enough that they might think I might not be a big jerk.
A young woman who explained that she was still in training called me up to the counter; I showed her the form and said the police had sent me over to get it filled out. She’d never seen this form and wasn’t sure what to do, so I suggested that she call the police right then and there. The officer I’d spoken with earlier said she’d be available all day long and would be happy to speak to whichever DMV employee might need instruction on how to fill the thing out. Some other employee came over to help, and then the two of them went to speak with another one, then they all came back to explain to me what I’d failed to do. "Oh, no, you’re not allowed to fill this out. We have to do that. You’re not even supposed to have this. I’m going to take this to the supervisor and have her fix it for you."
I noticed, then, that the supervisor that was going to correct my gross error was the same supervisor who had encouraged me to stamp my own VIN into the car, had refused to perform the VIN inspection, had flagged my records with the state, had stamped my title with heavy red ink, and had thoroughly damaged my faith in humanity just a few days ago. I mentioned to the three people that it was she who had counseled me in favore of committing a federal crime. The new employee looked shocked. The other two just kind of looked away, as though they weren’t at all surprised.
While one of them stood next to the supervisor as she was filling in the blanks, the other one said there were notes on file. That the problem was that the VIN is under the car and can’t be seen without getting underneath. I mentioned that this isn’t the case and that the guy who did go outside could see the number without even bending over but opted to cease assistance, and that the supervisor now filling out the form had initially stated that she’d do the inspection before changing her mind and becoming really unhelpful.
The supervisor went ahead and filled in the form for me, which I’m sure will be a very helpful thing. After it was returned to me, I happily noticed that it not only bears an official looking stamp as well as the DMV location that provided this excellent service, but it also bears her name and signature. I’m looking forward to taking this form to the Oregon State Police in order that they can fill in the remaining blanks and get me well on my way to correcting the paperwork on this old car.
The new employee who really did her best to be helpful apologized and gave me another ‘go to the front of the line’ pass for my next visit. Really looking forward to it.
