Sorry another long post but if you want to debate law... what can I say.
Last night I was reading a document about modified vehicles when I came across this part of a statement
...re-bodied and re-chassied vehicles are
deemed to consist of two major components, these being the chassis and the body, which are
considered separately" Keep that in mind I will circle back to it later.
Spent some time today chatting with a "Technical identity Officer" from ACT RTA. Went into the conversation under the guise of wanting to change my chassis back to a HZ with RTS (Which I do) to justify my line of questioning. We talked about my rego papers and I was worried if I changed my chassis the identity of my van will be lost to the replacement chassis ID. He could not understand my questioning. I pointed out that it was recognised as a HZ on the papers but it has a HQ chassis and he said "So..... The vehicle was most likely repaired with a HQ chassis". After further prompting from me for more info he said. "A vehicle that has had a replacement chassis and was recognised as a model continues to be recognised as that model."
Straight away this clause entered my mind...
A previously registered vehicle (second hand vehicle) where the chassis/VIN number stamped on the
body does not match the chassis/VIN number on the compliance plate, may be registered at any motor
registry where:
• the vehicle is known to have been manufactured in Australia and known to be of a model that
complies with the Australian Design Rules,
He stated that the id info on my papers was correct and will remain that way if re-registered.
A side note: I eventually fessed up that I also, am looking for info for a debate regarding the identity of a sandman. We chatted a bit and I said the statement "A sandman is no longer a sandman if the chassis has been changed according to law". His reply was What? What has a chassis got to do with the fact its a Sandman. The way i know a Sandman its all to do with the body"
I will now use your "Sinbox" as an example.
You started with 2 vehicles. A WB ute and a WB van. You needed to make a decision that one must die so the other shall live.
You said in your shed that you started with the Ute. What this mean is you killed the identity of the van vehicle and started with the identity of the Ute. The utes vehicle identity along with its chassis has now received a new body from the van. The chassis number is king because it is still part of the identity of the vehicle, unchanged. Hence you have now re-bodied a vehicle and the identity of the old body remains with chassis as you claim. Along with that came the crap with the compliance plates.
Now, If you had have known exactly what the law states you could had done it this way.
Screw the rego papers of the ute up and start with the van. You now use the chassis from the ute to repair the van. You have now repaired the van so the identity of the van continues. Even if you used a HQ chassis the above quoted clause would make your vans identity remain as a WB van on the rego papers with HQ chassis identifier similar to mine.
At the end of the day you have the same thing but a different identity on paper.
To sum that up....
A re-body. the identity of the vehicle stays same as the vehicle started with. A chassis. Making your claim about the identity staying with the chassis Correct!
A re-chassis. The identity of the vehicle stays the same as the vehicle started with. Making your claim about the identity staying with the chassis Wrong!
I understand that is a lot to get your head around in 1 go but you claim you know law so should have no problem with it.
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