Team-BHP (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/)

-   The Indian Car Scene (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian-car-scene/)

-   -   How legal are these Made-to-Order Cars (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian-car-scene/102093-how-legal-these-made-order-cars.html)

Economic Times website have an interesting story about the old/used automobile parts & related industry in Meerut.

Meerut's make your own Car Bazaar - Pictures - Pictures/Videos - News in Pictures | Economic Times

Looks like Meerut is the place for the people looking for parts for their old cars.

- Samdarshi

I don't know about now, but in 90s and early last decade, Meerut also had the reputation of being the "chor bazar" of all things automobile.

A cousin of mine, who blew the header on his Octavia diesel, after the timing belt went kaput, got a replacement from meerut market for 25k. I got to know,these chaps has an assembled engine as well,which was priced at 60k, for the same vehicle.

I was just reading this article on the Economic Times
Make your own car at Meerut auto scrapyard in just four weeks - The Economic Times

It talks about the huge scrapyard of car parts and accessories at Sotiganj, Meerut around 200kms from New Delhi.
The parts and accessories are mostly sourced from the accidental vehicles which are sold off by the Insurance companies to this junk yard.
It also talks about engine transplants, like replacing petrol engine with a diesel engine in Gypsy and also transplanting engines from Nissan and Toyota vehicles for your World War II jeeps.
But how legal all this is?
The dealers at the market there say that the Registration number and Engine numbers are matched in case of Engine transplant and that what they do is completely legal.
But then, this market is also a huge recipient of stolen cars from in and around NCR and other regions too.
The best thing is you can made to order your car and it will be delivered to you in 4 weeks time with your choice of Engine and trim level.
Amazing , ain't it!!:eek:

Even I heard from a non automobile enthusiast about this thing in Meerut

Anyone ever been there? am really curious to know how it fares compared to CST Road, Kurla .

I am completely in awe of that place, pass through it on a daily basis :)

Maybe it is legal after all. Maybe the thing that makes it legal is syncing up the engine ID, transmission ID and the car. reg. number to the new vehicle. But yes, there is a huge risk with stolen parts in being put in your car - the next thing you know, you car is being towed away 'legally' - then you are in for a battle royale' with the authorities.

I would be apprehensive about how the mix-n-match thing would work out w.r.t. the overall build, quality, reliabiliy, robustness, the engine-transmission sync :Frustratietc.; not to mention pricing and warrantylol: !!

I wonder how they manage to do it, as the engine and chassis numbers already were parts of some other car and its RC.

In thrissur there is a similar place called 'pattalam' and its nothing but a chor bazaar in disguise.

even if they can be registered with sufficient bakhshish they must be very very unsafe!

There is no way this is 100% legal. If i am not wrong, we need to record the change in colour and engine in the RC, if we ever get one! How can a car built like a jig saw puzzle be legal then! Ofcourse you may get a "Legal" documents but you will be dreading each day for that day, when the car will be towed away....

Also, not to mention, Relability will be a big question mark on these cars. The only good side, i can see he, for jeepers this may be 'The Place' for parts.

That is what I would also be apprehensive about. If a engine no is matched with a stolen registration number of a car, then what ? But then, I guess that kind of database creation and verification is too far off still in India.
Therefore these people can get away with such a business. And as it has been mentioned in the article, that is why it happens in a place 200 km from New Delhi, where police would not bother much.

The warranty and reliability wouldn't matter much here, because afterall you are getting all this at less than half the price of what you will get from the legitimate dealer showroom. You can always replace the parts cheaply here. And, these guys even though doing illegal jobs, must be honest with their promises for the business to flourish so much.

I am not sure how they can do this for a stolen car, but yes probably they can do it by sourcing parts and engine from a totalled car which has been sold by the Insurance companies to these junkyards.

Bangalore, has a similar market in Shivajinagar. I remember visiting them to source Shogun silencers for my Samurai bike way back in 2000:D

I am pretty sure these vehicles will not meet most safety requirements (bare minimum) laid under the CMVR.

Spike

I believe DC designs is a famous company which modifies vehicles for celebrities, does his work qualify for legal entity i that case. Of course the mfg warranties are nullified, may DC designs will be furnishing their own warranty to their valued customers. Registration maybe original car manufacturers, and engine and other parts of the original may be retained. Only body modification is carried out. In this case i feel it is legitimate and being celebrities they may get sanction too. It is an issue to ponder over, may an RTI to an RTO officer would elicit a better or official response according to me.

Any modification to the body is not legal. We were looking to convert the Skoda Octavia into stretched limo from DC Designs but were specifically told by them as car will not be street legal and it will be owner's responsibility if any issue comes up in future related RTO or in case of accident as modifications to the car body are not approved by RTO.

Hope this explains the question.

We were told about this in 2009 by DC Designs, but don't know if the laws are changed now.

Thanks for the input Nitrous. As Umesh asked and even I was pondering over it. This clarifies the doubt.
Now that these body modifications are not street legal, I wonder how so many modified cars with even transplanted engines are running on the street.
I know for the fact , that changes done to your car are to be notified to the RTO and same is to be incorporated in the RC.
I know that DC is a design company but all through these years they have modified a lot many cars as their design showcase, so how are the legalities taken care of in that case?
And these cars assembled from junkyard spares!!:eek:they for sure are not street legal in that case.

Would you even expect that at the first place for the price that you get them for!!

Well in our case, DC Designs informed us regarding the RTO issues at a very preliminary stage. We were told right away that RTO will not approve the car and it will be owner's responsibility to get the changes marked in RC Book. As soon as we were informed regarding this, we dropped the idea.