[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by Ram4king

Those stamps are nothing more than quality control. Cars are picked at random and checked and stamped. The number is probably the one assigned to that person. Nothing more nothing less.

Nnnnnyyeaahhh.....respectfully, I don't think that's it, either.

Random quality checks are done after the total vehicle is completed. These are the vehicles that are pulled off to the "audit area", for a full vehicle audit. We wouldn't mark the vehicle itself (particularly by marking a completed vehicle on the data tag), other than to maybe throw a preprinted note in the glovebox indicating why the vehicle has more miles on it than normal (if a vehicle drive was done as part of the quality audit).

Similarly, body checks would be done on every vehicle, on the line, in the trim shop. Again, there would be no need to mark the vehicle as done, particularly with something as permanent as a stamp on the data tag, when each and every vehicle would pass through that point. The buy off indicating the vehicle had been inspected would be done on the traveling work ticket, usually with a specific hole punch.

The only, only (only!) time I can think of that a body would be pulled off the line, for a unique test, is if it was pulled after the body shop but before trim (ie, not a trimmed out body) to be checked dimensionally (on a surface plate). Today we would do that with a CMM; I'm not sure they even did that back then (it would be quite labor intensive) and even if they did it would be much more infrequently than what we are seeing here.

If we ever do figure this out we may be disappointed in what these digits were actually used for. I'll keep quiet now and in the meantime keep my eyes peeled for more clues.

K

Disclaimer: I should mention that my interest and "expertise" focus primarily on the Pontiac facility; I really don't know as much about the other assembly plants, so I'm speculating just like everybody else.