Popular Post keltik Posted January 27, 2016 Popular Post Share Posted January 27, 2016 Hi chaps, I know many are curious about getting a car re-vinnnned, re-complied or re-registered. Theres good info on this site but rules change all the time. So thought i'd share my recent experiences here for all others to enjoy and benefit from. What I did and what i learned - First, the buying I had been keeping an eye on turners end of life for a vehicle with a nice interior so i could tidy up my current daily driver build. My first effort to buy a car was from the Auckland branch of turners and I quickly learned that due to the masses of competition from wreckers, if you know something is worth money, they probably do too. A 1999 Subaru Lancaster wagon, auto with leather interior was listed. Stolen recovered, written off and running / driving fine. It had some reasonable cosmetic damage on the outside. I was expecting to pay up to $700 and it ended up going for a grand. I later found exactly the same model car but manual and in the Wellington/Palmerston North branch auction. Again, stolen recovered, driveable and appeared in reasonable shape. I won this vehicle for $300. Looking at how the other auctions progressed, there really wasnt as much interest from general wreckers. Interesting vehicles were still being snapped up for a healthy sum, but the generally buggered stuff a dismantler would normally go for just wasnt being bid on with the same enthusiasm as the Auckland auctions. Turners Online - TLDR summary - Photos are mostly lies and dont represent the vehicle adequately - The staff arent really used to individuals buying vehicles...or maybe i just got someone new. Anyways they told me the car was in Palmerston North (it wasnt) and i would have to sign papers at their office before collection (i didnt). - You only get 2 days to collect the vehicle before storage charges apply. - The best way to solve the above 3 problems is to contact the towing agency that has the vehicle (usually stated in auction) and they will be happy to make arrangements for collection or fill you in on the condition and location of the car. - You will have to pay auction buyers fees. In my case, this was $280. The minimum fee possible....which nearly doubled the cost of the car. Re-registering First I took the car for a WOF inspection. This was a great way to pay $45 and get a very good idea of what was going to need fixing on the car. I would say a WOF covered all of the mechanical things that are checked as part of the "entry certification" process. Once the mechanicals were sound, i gave the body a quick poke to ensure there was no rust. On the type of vehicle I bought, this is easy. A 1998 Subaru isnt likely to be rusty. Everything looked good except the front radiator support crossmember. So i wire brushed the flaky paint off and slammed some underseal on it. If you had an old car, i can imagine this is going to be the part that ruins your day. The Inspection So to my great annoyance, the only place i could take my car within a 2 hour drive was the local VTNZ. There are no other options. What a shitty monopoly especially given the stellar reputation VTNZ stations have. Anyways, they were lovely to deal with and explained exactly what paperwork i would need. - Statutory declaration to state the vehicle is mine. VTNZ provided an easy to fill out form which had to be verified/sighted by a JP. - Proof of previous registration on NZ roads (I had the previous WOF inspection sheets and the vehicle was only de-registered for 4 weeks) - A declaration from my parts supplier that the brake components i had replaced were acceptable for purpose and intended for this application. BNT printed this for me when i purchased brake pads there. They also asked for the receipts for the brake components. - A declaration from the repairer that fitted the brakes. I filled mine out myself. This form was supplied by VTNZ and was easy to complete. - As i had a bill of sale from Turners, i was not asked to get any sort of declaration from the police. The vehicle was actually de-registered by the insurance company / previous owner as a write off. So i believe this would be different if the rego had just lapsed. The inspection took just over 2 days. I had to book it a month in advance and left the car with them. I was told they would be removing interior parts to check seatbelt anchorages and for hidden structural damage. I asked if I could help by removing anything beforehand and was told it would be appreciated but wouldnt affect the total cost. So i whipped the B pillar lower trims off then got distracted and left it at that. It looks like they removed the rear seats, boot floor panels, side trims and the quarter panel trims around where the rear seatbelt anchorages are. A few clips got broken and a couple of small trim pieces were damaged with one seatbelt escutcheon missing. The front rad supprt was noted and I was told the vehicle should really fail because of it, but because of the dirt and crap on it, If i could clean it up and it looked good - he would be happy. I cleaned up the panel with some new paint, took pictures of it stripped back before painting and showed that the flakyness was just from stonechips and spilled coolant. There was no rust or structural problems. The recheck took 10 mins and the car then had a WOF. The Inspection - TLDR summary - Yeah they broke some bits - Reasonable and good to deal with - Basically a WOF with much greater focus on looking for badly repaired damage and structural defects - Interior trim was removed for inspection, dash was not, floor carpet may have been pulled back but was not removed. - Expect the same sort of varying standards as a WOF inspection. I suspect some people are nazis and some are totally bent. Either way, most of your problems are going to come down to the interpretation of the rules by one inspector. Your mileage may vary. - Brakes and rust are two major pet peeves for these people. Brakes are checked for rotor runout, wear, fluid and pad condition. Its easier and better to just slam new pads, rotors and fluid all round. Hoses and pipes better look great too. - If you have some damage that you're not sure about - go ask the inspector you plan on using to have a quick gawk at it first. A repair cert is $740 and you do not want to go down that road over a silly little problem. The final visit to VTNZ After having the inspection pass, the wof sticker applied, I had to fill out a couple of simple registration forms. Then after 10 mins of typing - I was given new plates and another bill to pay. Paperwork was easy. Since I had already provided all of the declarations needed, there was nothing left to do but type all my info into the system. 12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post keltik Posted January 27, 2016 Author Popular Post Share Posted January 27, 2016 The money The car - $300 Auction Fees - $280 Transport to collect vehicle - $160 WOF inspection - $45 Front bumper - $240 MAF sensor - $70 Fog light brackets - $40 Brake rotors, pads and fluid - $120 Suspension bushes - $90 Entry certification/compliance insection - $485 Registration with 12 months licence - $320 Total: $2150 Bits scavenged from my other Lancaster donor car: ??? (max $600 since thats all i paid for it) What I couldve bought an equivalent model for off trademe: $3,500 - $4,500 Was it worth the effort? NO Was it a satisfying experience building something with my own hands? NO Would i recommend this to a friend? NO, JUST GO BUY ONE READY MADE! 26 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bangbug Posted January 27, 2016 Share Posted January 27, 2016 Good write up Thanks very much for taking the time. I think to your final 3 questions you'd have different answers had it been for something you cannot buy, or cannot afford to buy but can do so this way? So to underline your problem, 1999 Subaru Lancaster wagon. We're all super pleased that the visit to VTNZ went well, I'm pretty sure all of us cringed when we read those dreaded capital letters! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaMpylobacter Posted January 27, 2016 Share Posted January 27, 2016 they didn't give a shit about new brake parts or removing interior (lets face it, in my case there is no interior trim) on me landrover but that's a lot older vehicle - i believe on vehicles that were used imports for last case of registration that the dismantling and brake thing comes up but not so much on older vehicles. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duddley Posted January 27, 2016 Share Posted January 27, 2016 Soooo not looking forward to this when I finally get my 2002 in one piece 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keltik Posted January 27, 2016 Author Share Posted January 27, 2016 I think to your final 3 questions you'd have different answers had it been for something you cannot buy, or cannot afford to buy but can do so this way? Oh yeah, totally right. For anything oddball or old - its probably going to be worthwhile. But unless you're saving more than 2-3k or if you plan on fully pulling the thing to bits and rebuilding it anyways, this is not the way to go. So the moral of the story is: If you want a cheap daily, just no. If you want to revin something reasonable (Mr Duddley), consider repair cert first and prepare to need one...then its a piece of cake 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dell'orto Posted January 27, 2016 Share Posted January 27, 2016 Basically anything pre 92 is a hard WOF, post 92 is where they start stripping stuff out. I had a friend who bought an 86 GA70, and found it was fairly well riddled with rust. Ended up buying a deregistered 91 GA70 shell, swapping everything over and taking it for a revin. I told him to do brakes etc beforehand, and it flew through within a day, easy as. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crustywhip Posted January 27, 2016 Share Posted January 27, 2016 Hopefully mine is going to be ok (1977 toyota). All rust repairs are photographed before, after and certified. I have a carjam report and old plate number and it has a later model engine that will be certified. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yetchh Posted January 27, 2016 Share Posted January 27, 2016 Yeah, my 121 was a piece of cake.. in fact far easier than I imagined. All that worry for nothing.. well, an easy re-vin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuel Posted January 27, 2016 Share Posted January 27, 2016 yeah as above if the car is pre 1991/1992ish it's basically a stricter WOF inspection. just to add my experience, I picked up a '97 Legnum 25ST-R with about 120,000kms on the clock that was repossessed - it had only just been vinned when imported two years prior but that was enough time for the first buyer (who must have ticked it up) to just drive it without spending anything on it - including registration. I paid $1000 for it, but this was in 2010 when they were still worth about $5k for a tidy one. The repo agent had already put it through a re-vin and it came back with a list of failures, however he left it longer than the 28 days and therefore I had to pay for another fresh test. I took it back to the same place the repo guy had taken it to just because they were already familiar with it - though that didn't stop it coming back with a list of other faults that weren't picked up in the first inspection. The inspection was $400 and the first rego was something like $200, and I had spent maybe another $500 on it for replacement parts and tidying it up. Ended up selling for $4250 so made a cool $2000ish profit on it for a couple weeks work. In my case I feel it was worth the hassle. It would definitely be worth it for a pre 1992 vehicle. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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