VIN Photos

[lazabby]

On www.txdmc.org we have posted over 1,000 VIN photos. If you don't see yours there, send it to me.

[ccurzio]

Why?

I'm genuinely curious. What's the point of collecting VIN pics?

[DMCMW Dave]

Easier fake eBay ads??:facepalm:

[ccurzio]

Please remove the pic for VIN 5311. I wouldn't normally care, but it's a pic of my car that your organization did not photograph with your site's watermark on it. That's not cool for a few different reasons.


Easier fake eBay ads??:facepalm:
Wow. You know, that hadn't even occurred to me. Yikes.

[Dangermouse]

My understanding is that it is a definite proof that a particular VIN actually exists/existed.

I think that it is a great idea.

They add the watermark precisely to try and prevent its use in eBay scam ads.

[ccurzio]

My understanding is that it is a definite proof that a particular VIN actually exists/existed.

Seems like that can be easily done with a "Confirmed" column on the registry, once someone on the maintenance team has seen a pic of the VIN. That I can see.

Saving the pics though and making them a public gallery? I still don't see the point in that.

[justlooking]

Saving the pics though and making them a public gallery? I still don't see the point in that.

No, and I don't understand the habitual "post your VIN"/"tell us your VIN!" query that is endemic to the DeLorean community. I have never experienced such a fascination with any other car group I've belonged to. Neither have I ever been part of a car group that routinely publishes an "Owner's directory" document. It really needs to cease immediately.

Why, you ask?

Let me propose a hypothetical scenario: I want to steal your DeLorean.

1. You post your 5-digit "vin number" online.
2. I use it, in combination with the pictures you've posted, remarks on the forum, and http://www.dmcnews.com/Techsection/vindecoder.html to determine your full VIN #.
3. I then use any of several websites to find out your name (http://www.ehow.com/how_5670113_car_s-owner-vin-number.html; for example).
4. I search your name (Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, etc) and determine what state your live in.
5. I search your name with your state. Hopefully you haven't purchased a home, because if you have, I'll find it in any one of a number of public record databases. In most states (especially Florida), real estate sales are public record, and can be searched electronically by owner name. This will give me your home address. Now I just sit and wait for you to leave.

Scary enough? Ignorance is bliss, indeed.

[Dangermouse]

There are plenty of ways to steal a car if you want to.

Surely you can do that with just the items 4 & 5? many people post their real names and FB accounts right here

Or go to a car show and follow someone home?

Or go to a dealership and take one from there?

But in reality, how many cars have been stolen in the past 10 years. Perhaps None. Because, as much as we like them, they are just not valuable enough, and the market for parts is just not there.

People ask for the VIN for a couple of reasons:
1 - to assist in trouble shooting, early cars may not have had certain upgrades, but you know that, don't you
2- to add to the VIN registry (not the owners directory which is voluntary). Many people are interested in finding so called "missing" cars, ones that were assumed to have been made but have been stored since 198x. If that's not your thing, OK. Many other marques, of low volume cars, track their whereabouts, so I don't see this community as being out of the ordinary.

[justlooking]

Hold up, you think there haven't been any DeLoreans stolen in the last 10 years?
Secondly, are you implying the only way that knowing where a car is located would help a thief is if they're planning to steal the whole car? What about parts? I'll make this educational for you, my naive little friend:

http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/dmcnews/message/83271
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/dmcnews/message/50557
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/dmcnews/message/47332

I'm not disputing the number of possible ways to steal a car. I'm offering that there is at least one way to steal one that is made easier by the unnecessary and habitual behavior of this car community.

I don't see how knowing a VIN reveals anything about troubleshooting. There are early cars with later parts, and later cars with early parts. Knowing the VIN alone adds little, especially after 30 years.

[ccurzio]

As much as I don't see the point of this endeavor, I've gotta agree with Dermot on this one. I'd read your post and the first thing that came to mind was "well that's one hell of a stretch."

Seriously, there are easier ways to steal a DeLorean. That's a whole hell of a lot of effort for a car that has such (relatively) low ROI.

Discussing VINs is one thing (and something with which I have no issue as I've made mine public), but assembling a gallery of VIN plates still seems utterly pointless to me.

[82DMC12]

What about parts? I'll make this educational for you, my naive little friend:

Earl, are you toying with us?

[Dangermouse]

Well, Mr. Justlooking, I stand corrected. And I appreciate the patronizing.

You did a search on the dml and you found 3. But to be fair, only one was actually stolen. But I concede that it does happen.

Did it happen because he posted his vin on the DML, or because he parks his car in front of his house for all to see. I guess we'll never know

I referenced stealing the whole car because you started off your first post with "Let me propose a hypothetical scenario: I want to steal your DeLorean". My mistake for reading it that way.

And as for the VIN being useful, you've been around this car long enough, I believe, to know if a car with VIN 012xx comes on the foum and asks "why is my throttle cable sticking", knowing the VIN would lead a member to ask about the de-ice recall.

Anyway back OT. Mr Just Looking, as you clearly don't wish to share anything with this community (first name, city, state or vin), that's your prerogative. Shannon has asked people to voluntarily share their vin plate photos.

Chris, I appreciate and understand that some may not see the point. I don't see the point of creating yet another BTTF replica. Depends how you are wired, I guess. It's what makes the community entertaining.

[ccurzio]

I don't see the point of creating yet another BTTF replica.

Neither do I. :)

I'd still do it though, if I had a third car.

[mluder]

Wow. You know, that hadn't even occurred to me. Yikes.

Really? That was my first thought...

Cheers
Steve

[sdg3205]

Hold up, you think there haven't been any DeLoreans stolen in the last 10 years?
Secondly, are you implying the only way that knowing where a car is located would help a thief is if they're planning to steal the whole car? What about parts? I'll make this educational for you, my naive little friend:

http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/dmcnews/message/83271
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/dmcnews/message/50557
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/dmcnews/message/47332

I'm not disputing the number of possible ways to steal a car. I'm offering that there is at least one way to steal one that is made easier by the unnecessary and habitual behavior of this car community.

I don't see how knowing a VIN reveals anything about troubleshooting. There are early cars with later parts, and later cars with early parts. Knowing the VIN alone adds little, especially after 30 years.

If someone wants to steal something, they'll do it and it doesn't matter what kind of precautions you take.

You haven't experienced this before with other cars/forums because this community is pretty damn tight when it all boils down. If 3205 was ever stolen I'd hope to have members of this community eyeballing every dashboard vin plate on every random delorean they see in the wild. I know I'd do the same for them. Pretty damn hard to hide a DeLorean.

It's cool to find VINS close to your own, compare, talk it up. Why take that away for paranoias sake? I think we've already got a thread about paranoia somewhere.

Maybe we should ban voluntary VIN disclosure, go back to using aliases/user names, delete our Facebook accounts, ask Dave over at DMCMW to stop giving out years-worth of free tech help and shut down this whole forum and park our cars. Wait, that'd be lame.

No one is forcing you to disclose anything you don't want to. The bottom line is more cars are back on the road now then ever before because of the support network now in place and be it k-jet or carbs, I'll take it at the usual risk of theft.

[Bitsyncmaster]

Not saying car thieves are very smart, but anyone trying to steel a D would be a fool because they draw so much attention.

[Shep]

How often do DeLoreans get stolen, honestly? Is it really that frequent of an occurrence where mass paranoia of taking photos of a VIN plate is called for? I have yet to hear of any cases of theft in the past five years (when I first gained an interest in DeLoreans), and unless there's been over a hundred stolen in those same five years, it's a nonevent really.

Besides, anyone who actually drives their DeLorean runs this same exact risk, tenfold for those that show it off. Anyone who knows anything about VIN plates knows about the windshield location, and can easily take a picture of said VIN with their camera or phone. In fact, when I saw my first DeLorean at a car show with the doors open, one of the first pictures I took was of the VIN plate on the driver's door jamb. Personally, I did it so I would know later what month/year it was built, plus to get all the other verbage on the VIN plate I hadn't come across prior. It's not hard, and for any DeLorean that actually gets driven (and that's the vast majority of them), this information is available to anyone who sees it in person.

When I first got insurance for my DeLorean, it had not yet arrived at my doorstop. I only knew my DeLorean's "number": 559. I didn't know the rest of my VIN, and the insurance company needed it ASAP. Using publicly available information provided by DMCH, I was able to get the full VIN with the exception of the check digit. An online tool provided that check digit for me. Total time spent: less than 10 minutes, ALL reverse engineered from the last three numbers. Anyone who's shared their numeric VIN (e.g. 559) can have their full VINs decoded using the same exact method. You don't even need to know the year, that part's provided by the same info DMCH provides.

And just to put my money where my mouth is, my VIN has been publicly available for at least seven weeks here (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/3xl1xbossfps0x6/yhsqs2IRBH/VIN%20559/car%20information.txt). Just for posterity, my VIN, in its entirety, is SCEDT26T8BD000559. I might be in a minority here, but quite frankly, when it's that easy to grab the VIN from your DeLorean's "number", what difference does it make?

[ccurzio]

I don't recall the thread having the topic of being paranoid about their VINs being made public. Only a single paranoid post about why it's a bad idea, and most people disagreeing with that post.

[Shep]

I don't recall the thread having the topic of being paranoid about their VINs being made public. Only a single paranoid post about why it's a bad idea, and most people disagreeing with that post.It's still a valid point. DeLoreans are rarely stolen, spectators have easy access to VINs, and I successfully decoded mine from "559" sight unseen, which anyone else can do as well. (All padded with more verbage, of course.)

Perceptions notwithstanding, I'm still the only one in this thread so far who's shared their full VIN. Not that no one else here has ever shared it, but strictly reading this thread, I don't see any full VINs. The only reason I didn't post a picture of mine is because I apparently didn't take one when someone was asking about mine. I don't have one on the door jamb, and the windshield one is painted flat black. Above the VIN is the standard DMC wording, but apparently it was too faint underneath the paint to get a picture of that wording, so I neglected to get a picture at all. When I visit 559 next, I'll take a picture of the VIN and both post it here and add it to the list.