What would you do.....

[steve333]

About twenty years ago I bought a five series BMW from a dodgy dealer, electronic speedo showed 57k miles but turned out real mileage was 157k. What the crafty sod had done was to remove the display and paint out the figure 1, I of course didn't realise that a 0 should have been displayed in front of the 57k. New MOT and service info showed 57k, should have asked for previous MOT's and service history but when you see something you really want (yes even a BMW) your heart can rule your head.

Hope you reported the dealer for this?

 

[kwakdonut]

Sorry to be so uninformed, but what is a STAR? I am a little confused as to how the real mileage was unearthed.

STAR was able to interrogate the car's electronics inc the ASSYST system which had recorded the service intervals and everytime the on board display was reset. Let's just say the mileage on ASSYST was 'somewhat' higher than the odometer mileage!

 

[jaymanek]

You DO know that star stores the mileage in KM not miles?

Divide by 1.62

ive had someone accuse me of selling a clocked car once, he sent all sorts of threatening letters, in the end i asked him for a copy of the report... he wouldnt let me, only as he started court proceedings he had to send me the copy and then I noticed what had happened. He sent me a bottle of scotch a few weeks later.

 

[kwakdonut]

A couple of questions:

1. Did the vendor knowingly mislead you as to the recorded mileage of the vehicle and did that materially influence your decision to purchase at the price you paid?
2. Is the value of the vehicle materially different now that you know the "real" recorded mileage?

If the first statement is true then the vendor may have committed an offence and you may have a rememdy available in law. Whether that's worth pursuing is your decision.

If the second statement is true then it only becomes relevant when you come to sell the vehicle. Clearly you would commit an offence if you were to answer a direct question of "is the recorded mileage correct" in the affirmative as you know that not to be true. However, to answer the same question with "no, it has done more miles than are recorded but I don't know precisely how many more" is truthful.

FWIW, my view is that people get too hung up on recorded mileage and pay too little attention to the general condition of the vehicle. Once a car has done more than (say) 120k miles it all becomes a bit academic as the maintenance regime and vehicle condition has much greater influence on its value than what the odometer says. Personally, I wouldn't waste time and money getting the odo "corrected" to what, by definition, will be another incorrect recorded mileage. Personally, I'd be far more suspicious of someone who told me that they'd had the recorded mileage corrected unless they had some pretty good documentary evidence to support what it had been corrected to than someone who honestly said "it's done at least 10k more miles than recorded, but I don't know precisely how many".

If you're happy with the car then just drive it. If/when you want to sell it, advertise it at a price that its condition and maintenance record suggest is reasonable and don't make any statement you know to be false about the recorded mileage.

To try and answer, I could not be 100% sure that the previous owner clocked the car every so often eg, before MOT's, Services etc The service history appears to be consistent as do the MOT's.

I do buy on condition rather than too many facts and figures and the condition of the car was in keeping with the mileage, eg the drivers seats was not worn excessively, the steering wheel had some wear but nothing out of the ordinary. The car drove beautifully and the engine uses no oil, nor does it smoke or rattle. Anything I've had to replace was not uncommon either - rear springs, track rod ends etc

I normally take the mileage of any car I buy with a pinch of salt, but this one seemed ok and I had no reason to suspect otherwise.

I intend to do some digging and see if I can uncover when it was possibly clocked. I could have done with a printout of the ASSYST data but didn't think of that yesterday!

 

[kwakdonut]

You DO know that star stores the mileage in KM not miles?

Sure do Jay - the guys at Star Motors stood there with a calculator converting it to miles!

 

[jaymanek]

Thats weird then as no one would clock a car before every MOT... I would look for other explanations...

 

[kwakdonut]

If you're doing high mileage, I wouldn't be surprised if someone could turn the mileage back to say, 10k higher than the previous MOT. Wouldn't look out of place....

 

[219]

While it didn't bother me , I appreciate that with a newer and more costly car , the financial ramifications are greater , especially if you plan to sell the car on at some point , which I never do .

I wonder if a bit of detective work can determine when the car was 'clocked' ?

It is easy enough to find out from DVLA the list of previous owners and when the vehicle changed hands . Depending on the age of the vehicle , the electronic MOT history goes back only a few years , but records mileages at each test ( I wonder if VOSA can help with previous MOT history ? ) . The other avenue is that , presumably , the car will have been dealer serviced for at least some of its life - your MB dealer 'ought' to be able to look at the car's service history on his computer and see when it was serviced within the dealer network - this should provide dates of services along with recorded mileages - you should , at least , be able to exonerate earlier owners . If you get lucky , dealer history may show a new speedo head being fitted and solve the puzzle .

If you can find the discrepancy in mileages , you can , from DVLA records , determine under whose ownership this occurred .

Good luck .

 

[kwakdonut]

While it didn't bother me , I appreciate that with a newer and more costly car , the financial ramifications are greater , especially if you plan to sell the car on at some point , which I never do .

I wonder if a bit of detective work can determine when the car was 'clocked' ?

It is easy enough to find out from DVLA the list of previous owners and when the vehicle changed hands . Depending on the age of the vehicle , the electronic MOT history goes back only a few years , but records mileages at each test ( I wonder if VOSA can help with previous MOT history ? ) . The other avenue is that , presumably , the car will have been dealer serviced for at least some of its life - your MB dealer 'ought' to be able to look at the car's service history on his computer and see when it was serviced within the dealer network - this should provide dates of services along with recorded mileages - you should , at least , be able to exonerate earlier owners . If you get lucky , dealer history may show a new speedo head being fitted and solve the puzzle .

If you can find the discrepancy in mileages , you can , from DVLA records , determine under whose ownership this occurred .

Good luck .

Almost to the letter, that is pretty much what I'm going to do!

 

[Frankie]

You've got me wondering about mine now.
The first 3 years VOSA will have no info,so there is nothing stopping it being clocked before that point. When I looked at mine they only had records online from 2001,which is when they went electronic I think.My car is a 96 so from 99 to 2001 I'm unsure.
Personally I'd put it right,at 165k I don't think another few miles is going to make that much difference to resale. I guess another 100k on the clock could be a little off putting though.


Edit:
Made a mistake, just had a look and they only have records for my car from 2006.

 

[kwakdonut]

You've got me wondering about mine now.
The first 3 years VOSA will have no info,so there is nothing stopping it being clocked before that point. When I looked at mine they only had records online from 2001,which is when they went electronic I think.My car is a 96 so from 99 to 2001 I'm unsure.
Personally I'd put it right,at 165k I don't think another few miles is going to make that much difference to resale. I guess another 100k on the clock could be a little off putting though.


Edit:
Made a mistake, just had a look and they only have records for my car from 2006.

 

[timskemp]

Thats weird then as no one would clock a car before every MOT... I would look for other explanations...

I know someone who clocked his annually, was a new car on a 12000 mile per annum lease, would have it clocked before service once a year.

 

[219]

I've known of people , back in the old days of mechanical speedos , who would disconnect the speedo cable ( and just use the rev counter to judge speed ) for so many months of the year , just to hide high annual mileage , whilst making car appear to just do average miles each year .

 

[kusanku]

I've known of people , back in the old days of mechanical speedos , who would disconnect the speedo cable ( and just use the rev counter to judge speed ) for so many months of the year , just to hide high annual mileage , whilst making car appear to just do average miles each year .

I have certainly known people who have done that, and I would not be surprised if some of the early cars I bought had been clocked because it was easy to do, and there was a time when a service history was quite rare (along with a stereo not taken out and sold separately).

 

[MD5]

I know someone that actually used to advance the mileage on his company car to claim the additional fuel costs in the days when receipts were written manually, and afford him an extra day or two off.

A frustrating dilemma you have, and it shows you can never be too careful. For the purpose of your own ease of mind, have you worked out the worst case financial implications this would have at resale time? If you can mentally face the deficit now, and try to write it off, it will help you deal with it more easily. Any possible recompense after that will be a bonus. A horrible poistion to be in though.

 

[smiddyboy1]

I too know someone who takes his car for a haircut annually. The car in question is a leased car and can he's only meant to do x amount of miles per year in it.

 

[kwakdonut]

In some ways, I'm thankful the car is now 8 years old as any financial hit will not be too severe. Still galls me though as I bought what I thought was a 149k car for pretty much market value and of course it wasn't worth that.

As I said, live and learn and yes, it's not a nice position to be in legally or otherwise

 

[dokalj]

I have just been on the National Mileage Register.

What is a NCT? (National Car Test)

Required when a vehicle reaches 4 years old and then every two years after that.

 

[kwakdonut]

...

 

[kwakdonut]

Hi everyone, thought I'd update on what I have found so far.....

Pulled off the MOT history and have found that the previous owner (the one I bought the car off) registered the car on 24/10/2006.

The car's first MOT test was dated 29/6/2006, mileage 88,766 - this is almost four months before he bought the car.

The car was then RE-MOT'd ON THE 27/10/2006, MILEAGE 49,121!!!

Funnily enough, I do not have this certificate but it is definitely on the database.

A service was carried out by MB Cambridge on 4/8/2006, mileage 92,137.

OK, as far as I can now tell, three things (at least) could have happened;

1) The first owner clocked the car before selling it. Unlikely as the MOT/Service History would be way out.
2) Am not sure if the first owner traded the car in or sold to a trader who then clocked it (possible)
3) The guy I bought it from clocked it (most likely at this time)

The 'missing' MOT with the lower mileage was carried out THREE days after the guy I bought it from registered the car (from the V5)

My question to the audience is - what can/do I do now???