Snazy

I was thinking about this the other day, 2 things actually...
Firstly, people are usually victims of car cloning, rather than being the winner, but what if...
If you worked in London during the week and went back to say the Midlands at the weekend, and you needed a car at both ends of the trainline. If you also knew the right people, what is stopping you cloning your OWN legitimate car, and keeping one in one place and one in the other. To the random roadside alll would be fine, it would be owned by you, insured by you etc.

Only ever get the legit car MOT'ed etc so no one would ever look too closely at it....

I guess it would ping up all over the place on ANPR if it was cross references across the forces for any reason etc, but it still makes me wonder, has anyone done it... Im not expecting any "I have" replies by the way lol. Just thinking out loud.

The other one was slightly more amuzing, and messing with SPEC's.
Imagine 2 identical cars travelling down the same stretch of road a couple of minutes apart. MC1 and MC2 for example. At some point, if timed correctly they could pass SPEC's masts second apart, at different points on the road.

So what if....
MC2 briefly changes its appearance to have the same number plate as MC1. Then seconds after MC2 passes a SPEC's mast, MC1 passes a mast 3 miles up the road. Would this fool the SPEC's system into believing it was travelling at 180mph Or would the system write it off as a read error? If so, at what point would the system do this?

You can tell im bored today!

richs2891

The obvious downside to this is that say any speeding tickets or nonpayment of CC would come to you. Isnt the idea of cloaning someone else gets the grief of spped / parking tickets non payment of CC etc ?

I dont think specs for example is that clever it would just send a ticket to the registered owner and then its up to them to prove car wasnt there at the time of said offence.

Richard

Terminator X

iTrader: (7)

What's the benifit of your 1st thought?

TX.

Snazy

I was under the impression there was more than 1 reason to clone cars, i.e selling the same car 3 time for profit etc also.
Like I say, its not a plan, just something im curious about. If would clone a car just to avoid CC and speeding tickets, then surely saving 15k on the purchase price of a second car would be a benefit too, not to mention savings on insurance, MOT etc. Surely someone out there has been motivated in such a way at some point.

As for the SPEC's thing. I would happily receive a speeding ticket for 180mph for a 1.4 Ford Fiesta or similar. I think in that case it would be more for them to prove it WAS you, rather than you prove it was NOT. Surely there must be a fail safe there somewhere, where it becomes impossible or implausable that a car was travelling at in excess of 200mph

hodgy0_2

you only need to MOT one car?

Snazy

Benefit of #1 is, you have a 20k car. You know someone shifty who can provide a stolen and cloned replica of your own for say 5k. You get a second copy of your legit car, that can be used in another location or by another person. All the while you have legit paperwork for the car(s).
Like I say, for someone who travels but needs a car at both ends, or someone with the ***** to use a copy of the same car locally lol

belliott69

iTrader: (3)

travellers do something like this by buying a car that has been in an accident, should be a write off but wasn't claimed on, they then nick a car that is exactly the same change the plates over. i know someone who done this with a range rover sport, paid 6k for the broken car, then got his mates to nick him another one, changed everything over and he had a sport for 6k and can sell it on for lots more. by the way i don't condone this but the police wouldn't do anything anyway as there to scared to drive in the sites round here.

CrisPDuk

At a guess; two cars, one MOT, one insurance policy, and one road fund licence


That's a lot of beer tokens saved



Not that I'd condone such a practice

Snazy

Indeed running costs are the ongoing benefit, but not forgetting the initial purchase price would be a lot lower for a stolen/cloned car too.

Not suggesting its a good idea to use, just wondered if its been done. Given how popular cloning got at one point.

Jimbob

iTrader: (13)

I kind of agree.

But I think we should be allowed to have a personal licence plate that we can put on all our vehicles, then come insurance we should have one policy to cover as many cars as we want (within reason, and based on the highest value/risk car), not as if we can drive them all at once. Then only MOT and Tax we`d get stung for.

But I know of cars having sides welded onto them with a "new" vin number on, and welding brackets for things on the chassis legs etc etc.

22BUK

This is standard practice in Austria.

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

i have identical Saabs in all counties, all one one MOT and insurance policy, its a hollow victory...

dunx

iTrader: (3)

I worked with a lass who had a "his & hers" pair of MK II Cortinas.... (1975 !).

She found out he was playing away in Bristol, so when he got pulled she didn't send him the docs.

And she was being quite friendly to me at the time.... Revenge is sweet.

dunx

madscoob

iTrader: (3)

have thought about this before buy a identical scoob get another set of plates , use 1 for shows etc and the other as a every day car . swap the tax disc over each time used cant see me getting caught can you

clark822

What about getting stopped and they check the vin or engine number at the roadside of the cloned car find out that the original is owned by yourself ?

Terminator X

iTrader: (7)

So you save £45 per year hardly worth it!

TX.

Edit - just seen saving for insurance + car tax too. Mmmmmm ...

Snazy

If its properly cloned, then everything would tally, and there would be no cause for concern from the police to look any further.

lol as well as initial purchase price too
All adds up, in theory.

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Some of the taxis round by me are cloned; Noted by myself when having a nosey in the back yard of the driver's homes and noting some wearing the same reg plates (funny that all the taxi drivers by me live in the same few streets ).

Its not helped when the local council demanded all minicabs to be painted white. So now they all have fleets of white Avensis/Astras and just swap them over when one breaks/fails its safety inspection.

Snazy

Cheers Ali that answers my question then, seems people DO do it for their own gain.

Im sure there are probably a good few hundred cloned cars out there with the owner also owning the original/legit one.