Trailer VIN location

Rather than polluting the Stolen AT Trailer thread I thought I'd offer what I was told to do by the CA DMV person in a new thread.

Back-tracking a bit, MISF & I built a utility trailer from the back half of a pick-up. Something for dump runs and the occasional use of hauling motorcycles to the desert etc. As such it had no VIN. After we got the trailer legal to tow we got a temp transport permit & hauled it to the DMV for inspection and titling.

What we didn't know was that as the "manufacturers" of the trailer we could have assigned it our own VIN so long as that VIN did not conflict with a pre-existing one. In other words, we could have given it a 'vanity' VIN had we known. There may or may not be a format that such a VIN has to conform to, our discussion did not go that deep.
Note that companies like AT do have a VIN format that they have to conform to. As a one-off we were treated differently.

Anyway, we were assigned a VIN by the CA DMV and the lady affixed a sticker with that number to the tongue of the trailer. She then told us that we were to stamp that VIN into the tongue near the sticker or an obvious place on the tongue. And that we should also stamp that number in a place where only we know the location of. The idea being that if it were stolen that we could ID it by this second stamping even if the first was ground off.

My husband built a small landscape trailer and he did this from the advise of Ohio BMV. Good Post!

Georgia home built trailer vins

In Georgia they have a vin tag you are issued once it is inspected by at State patrol officer. My trailer was a home "rebuilt" aftert I heavily modified it. The Vin was on the front rail but that was covered so I got a home built VIN. I'm actually going to rebuild it again into a 5x10 cargo.

Took 15 minutes of waiting in line to see the counter person. They called up the state patrol officer that works the door.

7 minutes with the on duty State patrol officer to walk out and look for an existing VIN and go ..."Yep its a trailer" and "it does have a trailer axle" (No dif allowed from a live axle allowed like is common with cutting of the rear of a pickup...they want to see a trailer axle). Yep it looks like in might be road worthy.

Once we went back in the counter person calls you back up without waiting for anybody but the person they we helping while you were outside. They give you a Georgia VIN tag and tell you to go home and Rivet it on.

They did make comment I could create a vin if I had a way to stamp it into the tongue. I declined since I didn't have any of the stamps. I guess I could make it anything that wouldn't offend the counter person.


less then 30 minutes start to finish and it was a satellite office literally across the street from my neighborhood in a strip shopping mall.

It is my understand that now homebuilts in GA you must show proof of where the materials came from in the for of receipts. This is to try to prevent people from changing VINs on stolen trailers.

Grim Reaper said:

snip............
It is my understand that now homebuilts in GA you must show proof of where the materials came from in the for of receipts. This is to try to prevent people from changing VINs on stolen trailers.

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We were told that as well in CA, and were prepared for it. Never happened. Don't know if it was skipped on purpose or by accident/lack of knowledge or follow-thru.