Interpretation ID: nht72-5.20

DATE: 06/20/72

FROM: AUTHOR UNAVAILABLE; Richard B. Dyson; NHTSA

TO: Truck Equipment & Body Distributors Association

TITLE: FMVSR INTERPRETATION

TEXT: This is in response to your letter of May 9, 1972, in which you asked several questions concerning certification of multistage vehicles.

Your first set of questions concerned the "altering distributor" label of @ 567.6. In the course of administering this regulation, we have come to regard this as an "optional" label -- one that is not absolutely required in any situation. If a person altering a completed vehicle does not make changes significant enough to make him a remanufacturer who recertifies the vehicle as a manufacturer, he may satisfy the requirements by allowing the existing label to remain in place. In the four examples that you provided in paragraph 2 of your letter, we would consider the first two examples (bumper and tail gate loader) to be marginal ones in which we would probably accept a good-faith determination either way by the person making the alterations, while the last two (brake fluid and fenders) appear to be minor enough that no recertification would be necessary. This also answers your last question.

(Paragraph 4) You are right in suggesting that once a vehicle purchaser takes possession of the vehicle, the standards and regulations no longer apply.

(Paragraph 5) It is true that if a person manufactures a vehicle and uses it himself, it must still conform when he sells it at a later time. To hold otherwise could create a loophole, whereby a manufacturer could make nominal use of his vehicles before selling them.

(Paragraph 6) The passage of the article on my discussion mentioning "liability" dealt with a question on remanufactured vehicles. I don't have a transcript, but it looks as though he was quoting a couple of sentences out of context (although the article was generally good reporting). I was making the point that there could be a level of "rebuilding" a vehicle where the work done, the parts replaced, are so extensive that we would consider it to be manufacturing. It would be an unusual situation. I was indeed referring to compliance with the standards and regulations, not product liability.

Your discussion of installation of third axles seems to reflect a proper understanding of our rules.

With reference to your question in paragraph 8 about the period of time a vehicle must be held by a customer before he can have non-standard alteranations made in it, there is no set period of time. After he has "purchased" it, he can have done with it what he wants. However, the Vehicle Safety Act @ 108(b)(1), does have one important phrase on that subject: "in good faith." If we found that a dealer or distributor were using the first-purchase clause as a ruse to do things that the standards and regulations would not otherwise allow, we would probably do everything we could to stop it--to show that it was not in good faith.

I am glad to be of help to you and your members. I hope, however, that you will limit your questions to situations that have actually arisen, since we do not have the resources to grapple with hypothetical questions.