sorry i dont know where to post this!

ok so longstory short i had my 1997 eclipse stolen 2 years ago and today walking down the street i see it in a parking lot of a body shop. I called the police and they came and looked at the car. After about an hour of them looking at it they tell me its not mine! I KNOW IT IS. SAME BLUECUSTOM PAINT(originally silver)< SAME BODY KIT < SAME DENTS AND SCRATcHES that i put in it. THey told me they checked 3 of the vin numbers and they dont match mine. Nothing worse then to be told by the cops that your stolen car right in front of you is not yours! They told methat this car was a 1999 silver eclipse and registered tothe guy at the bodyshop. so i figured being that its at a body shop they would have no problem swappin vin numbers. so my questions so where are all the vin numbers on a 97 eclipse? is there anyway to tell the difference between a 97 and a 99? is it possible to swap all the vins without someone being able to tell? any thing else that might help..? PLEASE HELP!

 

The dash VIN is usually attached to the dash with rivets through the plastic, the VIN plate on the firewall is fastened with rivets, and so is the plate on the door area. This guy knows how to do it. Do you have pics of the car and the work done to it with receipts? The VIN may not say it's yours but you can give the police a reason to investigate further.
A VIN check is the only way that I know of to discern between years and other info. The VIN itself is made in some sort of sequence, not random numbers.
Here's a link to how to read a Mitsu VIN... http://www.mirage-performance.com/tech/mirageVIN.html here's another http://ezinearticles.com/?Auto-VIN-D...&id=154097
**I forgot this one from the VFAQ... http://www.vfaq.com/mods/VINs.html

Good luck with this bro, I hate for the bad guy to get away while the innocent suffer.

 

According to the VFAQ, check the 2nd, 5th, 8th, and 10th. Those can help with pertinent information and weed out the N/A VINs.

 

yes thanks this may help but ya i dont know what to do. the driver door, front left paneland rear hatch is now stock sliver color but not the original parts. Im sure its the parts they salveged from the car they swaped the vin # with. isnt one of the vins on the driver door? go figure. so it would not be all that hard to swap out the vins at all really? so if he swaped it with a 99 rs or gs im screwed. mine was a rs. and yes im looking for pictures but but i dont realy know of any. and imin hawaii and the police a swear are not the smartest!

 

Haha, funny you mention that you're in Hawaii, since I'm on Oahu. These guys are good at stealing cars, but I thought they were more into Honduhs. You're going to have to go downtown and file a report. Be careful with the shop guys, they can be very shady. What shop is this anyway? Big island, Maui, etc.?

 

your on hawaii too, thats cool. im on maui and so is the shop. its in one of the more shady parts, in wailuku if you know the area. and no i have reported it, i did 2 years ago whenit was stolen and i did yesterday wheni saw it sittin in the back of an auto shop parking lot. then like 3 cop cars come and they look at it and talk to the guy for like a hourwhile i wait out side. then one of them came out and told me its not mine. BS!!!! asked them if i could look at the car cops said yes at first. i started poin out all these little details and the cops kept telling me i was crazy and its not mine no way that it coud be. although i was calling out all these little details about the car! cops where becomin super rude. then i went to open the door to point out a few more things and there where like wow there dont get all crazy andmake us arest you for trying to steal the car! (not to mention the the engine/dash/and seatsare all taken apartlike, but for the most part is still there all there)and thim like wtf its MY car! they told me to leave! i was so pissed. then i went down to the station and told some big shot down there about everything and all he told me if the vins dont match there is nothing u can do. so idk. cops are shady, the bodyshop is shady and this dude is shady! so like now what dose one do? the car is in no running condition and far from it but i dont wanna just drop it cause i know its mine.. i also know how much more shady this could end up so i got to also ask my self is it worth.

 

SO YA I WENT BACK TO THE SHOP TODAY AND GOT A CLOSER LOOK AT THE CAR AND TALKED TO THE LOT OWNER,WHO IS NOT THE GUY THAT CLAIMED MY CAR. HE TOLD ME IF ITS MINE TO GET IT OUT OF THERE BUT I TOLD HIM THAT COULD END UP GETTING ME IN TROUBLE WITH THE VINS BEING CHANGED. WITH MY LOOK ID GET ARESTED FOR STEALING MY OWN CAR!! BUT YA WHEN I WAS LOOKING AT THE THE VINS THERE IS NO Way some one could say that they been tampered with. yet the cops still told me that there is no way thats my car. thats such bs!!! andya the tag thats in the winshield on the dashboard or whatever is gone!!! its really hard for me to belive that that 4 differentcops dont see anything wrod with that. so either the cops are retards or what im really thinking is that they are shady things going on. its like how far do i wanna push this. last thing i wanna do is get some shadycops in trouble when i live on a island and the car is far from running at this point. but ya i got the vin number thats on the car and im doing a carfax check right now this might shine some light on things. imguessin it gonna say that the car was totaled or something. idk

i got pictures on myspace if u wanna look at them. they are to big to post here.

myspace.com/robseclipse

 

and ya there isprettymuchnotthing different fromreading the vins from a rs and a gsother then the serial number, the value of the car from low to high, and the year.

so i was thinking is the serial number maybe in the car in a few other places other then the full vin?