whats wrong w/ my Firewall VIN?
 

Ive never seen something like this before... this is the GTUs i picked up in West palm beach. were all the GTUs' like this? or was it from 1990 only? and what do the "new" stampings mean?

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...postid=2291297

it looks like the vin might have been wrong and they just corrected it....or at least thats what i would assume

lol... thats not something ive ever seen or heard of or even expect to happen, especially on a japanese car...

you know when an assembly-line worker or engineer for honda realizes that something they built/assembled has a recall or fault in it, they damn-near commit suicide cuz they take so much pride in their work.

lol thats funny haha, sorry i had little to much to drink...

Strange stuff. I would assume that m in the diamond is basically Mazda's initials verifying that they did the VIN change and that it's not the product of some chop shop. I wonder if there's any other 7's out there with this affliction?

hhahahaha.....this looks like a collector's item.....never have i seen or heard of anything like this before

Run a carfax on both numbers. See what you get.

James

you should hook up your ground

good eyes

-Markus

"Looks like they mis-stamped the vin.. than corrected themselves and put alittle star with an "M" (oldschool mazda emblem)"

yea that does look like the old school mazda emblem. strange though, you would have thought they would have just pressed a new VIN.

Do the other VINs on the car match the correction as well?

What about the Vin plate at the left front top of the dash? What numbers are stamped there?

well the vin plate on the dash and the door jamb sticker both match the corrected vin... but the plate on the dash looks like its held in w/ normal pop rivits... not the kind that are stamped in w/ a press... you know what i mean?

could imagine its chop job, your local mazda dealer should be able to tell you whats going on (they should have any change like this in their database....)

The original VIN strip on the dash is held on with rivits. Seems to me you do indeed have a Mazda corrected firewall VIN. I agree wit Higgi, bring to a dealer and ask them what the factory procedure for the correction is. If that fails, contact Mazda USA , provide details in writting and hope for a reply.

I can't imagine it would be a chop shop job. The old VIN is plainly visible. A chop shop would have cut the whole VIN out and welded a new one in.

Mazda can't just "stamp a new one out". The piece that the VIN is attached to is rather big and hard to replace.

well my GF worked at a mazda dealer so we have access to the Mazdastate.com site, which is the dealer site where you go to get certified, trained, tested, order cars, check VIN's etc... just havent been able to get on at a reasonble time. i think their servers shut down after 10pm. I cant really drive the car down to the dealer cuz its 15 min away and i have no plate yet. we still have friends there, one specifically was probably Working at the dealer when this car was NEW... so he should be able to give me some good background an interesting tid bits...

I dont recall what the dashboard VIN plate rivits are supposed to look like, but the ones on mine look just like run of the mill pop rivits that you get at a hardware store... not the stamp-press rivits like i have seen before on VIN plates, such as my supra. maybe i can get a pic of the rivits that i normally see so i can show you guys a comparison shot.

I just dont really understand how you can make an error like that on an automated assembly line... i dont think there is a little japanese guy that rotates a number wheel on the stamping die after each body gets stamped.... and possibly forgot to change the new number cuz another coworker played some sort of JDM prank on him...

the dash board rivets are simply pop rivets like any hardware store would have.

They only pop rivet the vin plate onto the plastic for the vent. If you need to ever replace the plastic you pop the panel out, and then drill the rivets on the bench, move the plate over to the new panel, pop the rivets in, and snap the whole panel back onto the dash.

oh... so they ARE supposed to be normal Pop rivits. no way to tell if they had the wrong VIN plate then, since they would use the same process to Change the VIN plate as they would to initially install it. hmm... guess i could try to log onto Mazdastate.com and try to find out something about the car.

i already got a Carfax on it, nothing out of the ordinary, but i dont think Carfax is really comprehensive or detailed i guess.

anywho, Thanks Mark. btw, have you ever come across dealer literature that talks about the GTUs?

Only a special GTUs only 2 page brochure for 89 and car mag ads.

What was the production date on your car. I suspect that it was a re-numbered 89 since Mazda only made just under 10K total RX-7s for 90, and your VIN would be very late in the model year.

check digit and year code

possibly a firewall that was initially intended for one year, but ended up being used the next

checked the door sticker: Born On Date says 7/89... i would expect it to be maybe a 11 or 12 of 89... not no damn JULY. Must have been one of the first 90's to roll off the line.... possibly the first if they had to change the VIN

Yeah, then I would say it was built as a 89, but not sold or shipped from Mazda until 90. Then they had to re-number it to sell it as a 90.

I wonder how many other of the 90 GTUs models are stamped like that?

maybe this isnt even limited to the GTUs... maybe there are some other FC's that have this same thing...

so... it seems as if that even some of the 90 GTUs' werent technically 90's but still 89's, re-numbered. But if this car counts as a 90 model year, it would still account for one of the 100 units of GTUs' in the 90 model year, roight?

upon closer inspection, the 2 digits that are X'd out are "5K"... any idea what that would mean if the original VIN had the 5K in it instead?

anywho, the Service manager and Internet sales manager (in charge of all internet leads and ordering new inventory) both say that "its illegal" and impossible and that the VIN just shows a "Black GTU"... the other guy who's been there forever, joseph; i have yet to find out what he says. I just wrote an email to Mazda USA basically stating that every detail and feature on the car points to it being a GTUs, not a GTU. I gave them both the "new" VIN and the "old" VIN including the "5K" as well as links to THIS thread and the CARFAX thread when in the carfax forum. Im also going to request a Carfax on the "Old/Original" VIN using the "5K"

Everyone i show this to pulls one of these deals: :eek: hopefully, i can get some resolution soon.

Well, im on the phone w/ MazdaUSA right now... they just said these RX7 production numbers:

89- 16249
90- 9743

but they didnt have a breakdown of how many were GTUs, Vert, T2 or GTU. They also said they couldnt associate a specific trim level w/ any given VIN. i asked about getting a copy of the build/order sheet, but it would have to come from the Original Dealer, which was King Mazda. Apparantly they are no longer in business, MazdaUSA doesnt have them in their database anymore.

The car rolled off the Production line in July of 1989, and shipped to the US in December of 1989 and Sold to the dealer in may of 1990, and then sold to the first owner on 9-9-1990.

the only feasible story i can think of... was that it was stamped as an 89 model year car... late 89 model year, but must have been the change-over point to the 1990 model year... so after they changed from 89 to 90, the car was still sittin in japan or even on the assembly line. If this was the case, then maybe they retooled the dies and stamped a 1990 check digit into it so it could be sold, titled and registered as a 1990 model year RX7.

anyone else have any idea where i can get a copy of the original build sheet or who i can contact?