What to do ?

[gilloverland]

Ok so here's my problem, bit long winded but you'll see why...

A few years ago I had a defender 110 300 tdi, it developed a knocking noise and started using a lot of water. A local garage told me it was knackerd and offered me a cheap discovery engine which was fitted and ran fine.

The old 'knackered' engine went to the back corner of my garage and was forgotton about - one of them things for another project one day. Now being quite slack I forgot to notify the DVLA of the engine swap, the V5 still had the origional engine number.

Things were going fine until June 2005 when my beloved 110 was stolen, I never heard anything more from the police other than a crime number and eventually I got paid out from the insurance.

Last week while having a tidy out I 'rediscovered' my origional engine and took the head off, to cut a long story short a quick skim and new head gasket later and there is nothing wrong with it!

The thing is I want to fit this to my new 110 that I have built on a galv' chasis but if I send the V5 with this engine number will it set alarm bells ringing? I obviously don't want to get pulled and have a stolen engine number as with the galv' chassis not been stamped things start to look dodgy.

What is the best way to get this mess sorted out? I suppose stamping the galv' chassis with my VIN would be the first, but what about the engine?

Any ideas?

[NicTheOrange90]

IMHO

If you have the original paperwork from the local garage that shows a new engine was fitted and quotes your registration number then

when you tell (if you tell) DVLA that you have fitted a replacement engine into your new vehicle include paperwork (copies) and a covering letter, that should

be sufficient.

I would not consider removing the number from the engine as that simply looks like something is being hidden.

If you don’t have the paperwork Id consider getting it, as ’technically’ the engine might belong to your insurers as that was listed as being part of

their pay-out to you.

Be up front and you should have no issues, try to be sly and if you get stopped by a VOSA team you might have some explaining to do.

[LandyManLuke]

Do you have an ID for the 110 you're building? You certainly couldn't use your old 110 ID.

I'd echo the above, on something like this especially, which is not the usual chassis swap, the best way forward to me would be to speak to DVLA/VOSA and take it from there, rather than rely on advice from a forum.

[gilloverland]

The new 110 is a genuine rebuild and has been on the road for 18months, I worked out the points at the time and it keeps its id (the one it has now - not the stolen one!). The issue is that I now want to swap the engine to the 300tdi that is in my shed that may have a dodgy number.

[reb78]

Its a difficult one really. I think the only thing to do is follow Lukes advice - explain the issue to the DVLA and see what they say.

[nickwilliams]

I don't believe that DVLA track engine numbers so they won't ever notice that the engine number is stolen. Even if they do, they will surely identify from their records that you were the owner of that engine at the time it was recorded as stolen, so they are hardly likely to try to do anything about it, except possibly give you a minor wrap on the knuckles for failing to notify them of the change of engine number. They certainly can't accuse you of stealing an engine which you clearly owned.

If it were me, I'd swap the engine and send in the V5 with the new number on and not say anything more - it's easily the simplest way of regularising your position even if the route by which you got there is slightly less than perfect.

Nick.

[FridgeFreezer]

I'm with Nick - the DVLA's capacity to misunderstand and b*gger things up for you with the other options is not worth the risk.

Or grind the number off & call it a reconditioned engine.

[Terra Dog]

They (the insurance company) might accuse you of doing an insurance job on the 110 that got stolen, then you would be up in court for fraud. I would tread carefully. Just call the DVLA and explain the situ or pop down the local nick and ask advice.

[gilloverland]

Will speak to the dvla tommorow and see what they say - thanks to all for the advice

[nickwilliams]

They (the insurance company) might accuse you of doing an insurance job on the 110 that got stolen, then you would be up in court for fraud.

Scaremongering nonsense. They'd have no chance of making a case stick even if they wanted to. And how are they ever going to find out?

pop down the local nick and ask advice.

Only someone who has never really needed to know the answer relies on the police for legal advice.

Nick.

[reb78]

Scaremongering nonsense. They'd have no chance of making a case stick even if they wanted to. And how are they ever going to find out?

Only someone who has never really needed to know the answer relies on the police for legal advice.

Nick.

I dont think its scaremongering at all. There is a record of the engine number on the old V5 - related to the stolen vehicle. IF there is a database of these numbers, it may get flagged up at some stage - and noone on the thread definatley knows that there is not a database of these numbers. Its hardly sound advice to tell the OP not to simply worry about it, if it got picked up at a VOSA check and the whole vehicle confiscated, he'd be pretty gutted i'm sure. Better to find out the options before the engine is fitted.

As for the second comment, sometimes the police can be quite helpful. When i was pretty inexperienced with land rovers, I had a problem with the engine number on an engine i bought (it was missing), didnt know what to do and called the police to look at it. I was pretty Mildly miffed off that i might have bought a stolen engine. They came and looked into it, took the sellers details and were actually quite helpful in the end, so contacting them is not such a stupid suggestion after all.

One way out for the OP is to get hold of a kosher block and rebuild that using known good parts from the engine in his garage - lot of work? maybe, but a good learning experience and may even end up with a better, virtually reconditioned engine, then just weigh in the old block.

[M&S]

Firstly check you are not going to get a fine for not informing the DVLA of the engine change, you may drop yourself with a hefty one if you are not careful. I'm not sure if it is a fine worthy offence not to have told them about the engine change and update the logbook when it was done. I suspect it will be.

I guess the problems will come when you eventually sell your vehicle. Buyers may be suspicious, or if they are not, may be involved in an incident in the future which brings all this to the front again.

Tough one, look forward to hearing teh DVLA's advice