Long Time Guys... VIN Question of Car/Engine/Tranny

[btcog82]

Gents,

I may be coming back to the community, I know long time no see and many of you have kept in touch with me over the years. I've finally made it back to DC from abroad and am looking to possibly get into another NSX. With that being said, I have a question:

Do the entire vehicle VINs often differ from the engine and tranny?

Here is what the seller gave me:

"The VIN on the NSX is JH4NA1157NT000648. The transmission number is J4A4-1005092 and the engine number is EC0A1-2300629."

Does that mean the car is a franken-NSX? Oh and any additional specific info you can give me is appreciated :wink:

Brandon

 

[Big_D]

Yes it is normal for each item to have a unique serial number. The vin is for the chassis and the engine and transmission have their own. A "Numbers Matching" car would have the original engine and tranny.

This transmission number is in snap ring range. The snap ring failure is limited to transmission numbers J4A4-1003542 through J4A4-1005978.

Per NSXPrime Wiki
http://www.nsxprime.com/FAQ/Troubleshooting/transmission.htm

The engine number is probably C30A1-2300629.

http://nsxprime.com/forum/showthread.php?t=148378

 

[btcog82]

...So this is not the original transmission and engine is what you are telling me

 

[NSX2398]

Per NSXPrime Wiki
http://www.nsxprime.com/FAQ/Troubleshooting/transmission.htm

Please refrain from pointing to the FAQ as all FAQ content has been migrated to the Wiki and Lud may delete it in the near future. The correct corresponding Wiki page is http://www.nsxprime.com/wiki/Transmission
Tks

 

[scorp965]

...So this is not the original transmission and engine is what you are telling me

Each of the three parts has it's own number, they will not be matching. The chassis has a VIN, while the engine and transmission each have their own unique production serial number - the three numbers will never be the same, since they're in different formats.

It's likely the car you're looking at has it's original transmission, as the transmission falls within snap-ring range. If one were replacing the transmission, they would probably locate one outside of snap-ring range. The owner is perhaps being overly detailed in his response to your question, by providing the unique numbers for all three components.

That's not to say there isn't a concern, if the transmission falls within snap-ring range you will need to make an adjustment for that; how severe the concern is will depend on how many miles the car has. If it's higher miles, there is almost no worry, but if it's a low mileage car, within snap ring range, there is a chance of failure. You can read up on the snap-ring issue in the Wiki.

Good luck :wink:

 

[bud777]

I am not sure I agree with the implied correlation between mileage and freedom from snap ring problems. Other posts here show snap ring failures on cars with 100,000+ miles. At a minimum, open the inspection hole and look at the ring. You should be able to see both horns of it. At any rate, I would budget about 5k for a likely transmission repair. On the other hand, it is a great time to go to the short gears.