[firstgenaddict]

No I am not willing to bet 15 years... I am playing Devil's advocate here... as the law facinates me.

Steve you said that a guy got arrested and charged, but also said that he was involved in Stolen cars. He did not meet any of the exemptions as he was altering, swapping, removing VINS to "further the theft" (I would be willing to bet that the stolen vehicles are what set the authorites in motion) I really do not think that the authorities could give a damn about a guy who owns two cars legitimatley and he decided to swap the vins from one to the other because one is irrepairable. I believe that the law was written in order to push widespread car theft and dismantling into Federal jurisdiction. I could be wrong here as well... but the statute is called
"Motor Vehicle Theft Prevention Act"

I am not a lawyer but the way I interpreted the statute is that VIN tampering is only illegal if it is done to conceal a previous crime (Theft).

I did notice the Repair/restoration statutory exemption clause, but the subsections appeared to be independent of one another, thus the reason I cited only the subheading I did.

I agree that there is no reason to "swap VIN's" from one vehicle to another.

I also see that it could be very difficult to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that a VIN was swapped and not just removed and re-installed... If the restorer... errr BUTCHER cited the Repair / restoration exemption and said that the firewall, dash, etc was damaged beyond repair and in order to fix it a section had to be cut from another car and welded in then the VIN had to re-installed in the Replaced section.

Now to take a different road to the same destination...
What if the car was clipped through the door posts and across the floor board and welded into another body.(basically using the bare minimum of the car with the VIN's)? Would this be considered VIN swapping or would it be considered a "repair"?
Half and Half piece togethers used to be common place in the 70's...

NOW 1 more...
Would decking an old VIN off and stamping a different VIN back on an Engine or Transmission fall under this? It appears as though it would if using your explanation of the law, because any obliteration or alteration of any VIN would be illegal whether someone was the legal owner of the part/ car etc.

Am I correct with this reasoning?