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I despise people like that. This is where states need to have consumer protection. When a car gets a smog or safety check the mileage gets recorded. And registrations must be done in person with both buyer and seller present.
That is why I never check the "actual miles" box on the odometer certification when I sell a vehicle. I can not be charged with odometer fraud for saying that the odometer numbers are not the actual miles.
That is also why I seldom believe the odometer certification. The cheats know that being charged for making a false certification or sworn statement is highly unlikely.
Besides, no odometer is 100% accurate. The odometer numbers are merely a representation of the actual miles. The truth is either more or less than the numbers showing, depending on the built in error.
I am more interested in the overall condition of the vehicle than the indicated mileage!
Besides, no odometer is 100% accurate. The odometer numbers are merely a representation of the actual miles. The truth is either more or less than the numbers showing, depending on the built in error.
Huh? No.
The SPEEDOMETER is what is "off" a bit, usually between 2-5%, but that is only at higher speeds. Car and Driver used to include this as part of their road test reviews, measured at 60 mph. Most cars were only 1 mph hour off at that speed, so instead of actually going 60 mph, they'd be going 59. So the difference is negligible.
Most modern cars can have their odometers reprogrammed with different mileage, it just means you need to be careful and get a carfax or autocheck report to verify what mileage was reported each time the car was inspected.
I had my mileage reprogrammed on my car to a lower number... Done at the dealership. I bought a gauge cluster to replace mine (I wanted white faced gauges instead of black) and the cluster I bought came out of a car that had 20k more miles than my car did. Dealer swapped them out, and programmed the new cluster to match the lower miles of my original.
Wouldn't a quick carfax or autocheck fix all that? You run the check and it had 250,000 miles last year and suddenly has 125,000 today....yeah.
People don't want to pay for the checks, but just think of it as a bit of insurance.
Also, I wonder if you could take it to a state inspection station (if your state does inspections), and find what the past mileage was? I know it caught one of my cars that had the speedometer replaced and the old miles weren't put back onto it. Not a big deal because it was a classic car, but still.
Fortunately, Carfax can oftentimes catch it. We sold a car, and the next day it was on CL with 100K miles less than what it had on it when we sold it. My dad pulled the carfax, wich had over 50 records on it, and all showed a progressively higher mileage over the years. Anyone that tries to find it will see that there is a discrepancy.
Unfortunately, those that don't catch it are often those that can least afford to suffer the loss.
Odometers can be off, but not so much as to actually be noticed, like the speedometer and like maybe 1/10 every 10000 miles, but it can be off. Biggest thing now a days that gets them off is the wrong tire size used. It effects the odometer as much as the speedometer.
I've known about this for years. One of the main reasons why I buy new if I can.
I agree. When buying my car last month, I considered buying used, but ultimately decided on buying new. While not the only reason for my decision, fraud like this is a reason why I did buy new.
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