After wrecking my truck and the insurance company totalling it, I had it repaired. But before I could legally drive it, I had to get a level-3 MVD inspection here in Arizona. During the inspection, which took place in a small garage at MVD, the inspector asked me to step out while he checked the (i believe the term he used was) confidential number. He then closed the door so I couldn't see what or where he was looking. Have you guys got any idea what number he was looking for and where it is?

I don't, sorry, but I wanted on this thread since I really want to know the answer. Seems to me he's blowing smoke at ya. But I very well could be wrong. I feel he just wanted to make it look like your getting your moneys worth or check your vehicle out for loose change. They go by VIN numbers only that I know of and if you did mods that are considered illegal.

That could be, but he did the same thing to the three vehicles in front of me and two of them were POS. It just made me curious.

I have heard that there is another VIN number stamped somewhere else other than the one on the dash. Maybe that was what he was looking for?

The VIN number appears on several components, door stickers, glove box, etc. The thing is in a repair, some damaged components might have no number or a mismatch. I found this on a stolen vehicle court case: "and on a metal surface inside the vehicle, usually within the engine compartment (the confidential VIN). All vehicles bear the public VIN and the federal certification VIN; ninety-five percent bear a confidential VIN. The confidential VIN, which is stamped into the metal of the vehicle, is the most difficult to locate and alter."

I have an old mazda truck I was making into a lowrider in my teenager days. I was working on the front end stripping off the undercoat spray from the frame rails and it had a VIN stamped into the rails. The VIN is EVERYWHERE.He probably did not want you there so he could check to make sure the vins were not mis-matched and you were commiting fraud.