Engine number missing from Registration document
 

About a month ago as I entered Northern Cyprus and the official at the the cruise ship agency wanted to write down my engine number. I didn't understand what he ment so I simply pointed at the vin number on my registration documents. Later on I saw that he has put my Vin as both the Vin and engine number on to the documents.

This is incorrect information, as my engine number is not the same as the VIN. Also the engine number is not written anywhere on the registration documents. I don't know if this is a new thing but there is not even a field for it.

So what should I do when I go back? Should I tell the official the real engine number that is not on document? Or should I simply write the engine number on to the registration in the "extra info" field? Or should I just do like I did when I entered N Cyprus the first time? Any thoughts?

That's a tough one!
First to be clear - normally the VIN is the FRAME number, some countries care about the engine number, some don't. BUT YOU want to be sure that where the engine number is requested, it's correct. This is CRITICAL for a Carnet, for instance into Egypt, where they take a RUBBING of all the numbers and compare them to the document. If anything is different, the vehicle is impounded and you could go to jail as a smuggler.
Get it RIGHT.
As for what to do now - play dumb would be my tactic, but you need to do what works for you. The "extra info" field sounds like it might be a good place to add the engine number, perhaps without any identification as to what is IS - JUST the number. All part of playing dumb - and blame it on the other guy :)
Good luck!

Thanks for responding.

Yeah I am leaning towards the extra info field. The instructions on the backside says to use this field, if something has changed/ is inaccurate.

I like the idea of just writing the engine number and playing dumb. But I am not sure if that is the cleanest way to do it, since the field already has some text.

https://i.imgur.com/tpUmSoN.jpeg

I'm leaning towards writing "MN: XXXXXXXXX" MN standing for "moottorin numero" (engine number) Or maybe I should spell out the "moottorin numero" part. This would be in line with the other texts in the field. I think I will sleep on it and then make a decision. Any additional thoughts are welcome, even tho I am not sure there is a perfect solution.

Update to what I did:

I emailed the Finnish authorities and it turns out that engine numbers are no longer recorded for vehicles in Finland. So it makes sense that there would be no info about it on my registration.

But since many borders will ask for the engine number. I wrote it down into the "extra info" section.