Clocking loophole closing

[ringway]

I (along with a few others on MB Club) have upgraded the standard Vito instrument cluster to the High-Line one.

I took the cluster to a Mercedes-Benz Dealership to have the mileage corrected (my original was 68,000 and the replacement second hand cluster showed 44,000).
After 4 hours of trying to increase the mileage on the cluster the dealer gave up.

I then went to a MB Indy, who I was led to believe, might have "more flexibility" than the official MB dealership.
They tried everything they could to increase the mileage, but just couldn't make things work.


Next day, I contacted a mileage correction specialist. Drove to his house, and withing 15 mnutes the mileage was added to the cluster.
He said he earns 80k a year (the majority of which is cash) and didn't start "correcting" until he was 54.
He achieved in 15 minutes what a Dealer and an Indy could not.

He had several pieces of equipment, and the one he used on my cluster, reportedly cost £18,000!

He told me that he had recently wiped 3,000 miles off a Ferrari that had been away for a few weeks driving through Europe.

He also said that he had twice corrected the mileage on a company car for a good friend of his, who worked for Mercedes-Benz.

 

[SavMan]

There is another way which I preferred and the route I took with my car as I have Alps old cluster when he went to a CLS cluster. The cluster was "corrected" to zero while removed from the car, when connected to my car it needed coding with Star to include all available options and then picked up the correct mileage (I think it actually added a mile but this may have been as it is coded in kilometers)

 

[mct_cars]

Getting back to the original point of the first post, at least this is one more way of checking a cars mileage when buying second hand.

It's not fool proof, it doesn't fix everything, but it's better than the old system. It's still buyer beware, but at least the buyer can be a little more easily informed.

Let's face it, things are moving along to combat mileage fraud, and while non is fool proof, and non will ever stop it completely, it's now more tricky than it used to be. That's got to be a good thing!

 

[janner]

Many high value sports car owners (Ferraris, Lambos etc) are also regular customers of mileage correction companies...

...He told me that he had recently wiped 3,000 miles off a Ferrari that had been away for a few weeks driving through Europe.

Very common I'm afraid.

 

[Charles Morgan]

My Allard's odometer has been incorrectly wired up and hence goes backwards. It is one of those things with old cars. When my 02 needed a new speedo all that was needed to change the mileage was to attach to a drill.

I recall looking at secondhand Ferraris from Maranello once and thinking how many had low thousands on the clock yet had multiple owners. It never occurred to me they were being clocked - more that people bought them at bonus time, hated driving them in London and then flogged them on. Shame.

 

[artyman]

I bought a one year old Cavalier Mk1 with 13K on the clock and 400 yards from the dealer the speedo went. Back in and they replaced it with a new unit, at zero! I sold it three years later to a friend and told him that it had covered 13K more than was showing.

 

[219]

Mileage correction does have its place though, forging a cheque does not.

Here's one for you then, the speedo in your car packs up and you buy a second hand one that has 40k on less, do you change it to your mileage or do you leave it as is?

I did exactly that to cure a cruise control fault on one of my W126's . The car now displays a fraction over 100K , even though it has done rather more than double that figure .

I took the view that dismantling the odometer when there is nothing wrong with it only raised the possibility of damaging delicate gears or other parts .
Since I have no intention of selling the car there is no deception . The change could just as easily have gone the other way .

I still have the other instrument and , if I wanted to falsify records , I could do a few miles with the original speedo each year , popping it back in for the MOT , and rack up most of the miles on my spare one .

 

[219]

I've seen adverts where people leave the new odo in place and give the old one with the details on to the new owner.

Main dealers would just fit a new uncorrected odo and make note on the records.

I had that with my 300-24 ; bought it with something like 167K showing , only discovered the true mileage of 400K+ when I got the service history from the dealer , but in there was a note of the speedo being replaced at 380K , only the next entry ran from 123K - go figure ?

I have no idea what the true mileage was , but it must have been at least 380 + ( 167-123 ) , if not more . I was so impressed by the high mileage that I seriously thought about winding it on , but after experimenting with another speedo and an electric drill ( the only way I would do it , since dismantling or forcing the wheels round inevitably causes problems ) , I concluded it would take many hours to wind on so many miles , so I just left it .