Electronic mileage recorders can still be clocked!

From what little I know, not first hand of course, this is a fairly routine service offered for about £50.

Rob

The new style MOT Certificate is supposed to show the previous recorded mileages when tested, which should come as a bit of a shock to the new owner the next time it is tested! Or can that be fixed as well?

Actually, thinking about it, i was sent a mileage verification letter a few weeks ago by what looked to be a dealer paid for service, relating to a car I had some years back for a couple of weeks. But I can't remember with any accuracy, so the wasted a stamp there.

Rob

Clocking cars is (nearly) as old as cars themselves, and the low penalties (and small chance of prosecution) means it will carry on. Trading Standards etc haven't got the time to deal with individual cases.

Basically, when buying a second hand car, it is more likely to have been clocked than not.

I suppose that part of the problem is that modern cars don't show their age and mileage as much as they used to. My 6 year old/

Oh, and by the way, I did try to complain to eBay about this car and the advert, but there is nothing to cover clocked motors on their website (as long as they are not stolen) and a representative I spoke to on the telephone didn't want to know.

Yes - those bought at auction for re-sale are prime candidates for clocking. I'd hope a recent model bought from a main dealer unlikely to have been messed with.

If a relatively recent car bought from a used car dealer has no service - or incomplete - history. you can be 100% certain it has been clocked. As opposed to just 99%. ;-)

If you'd bought it and paid by Paypal you could have got a refund - not as described. However, I can't see them being interested in a complaint from someone just browsing. ;-)

I was just trying to be public spirited and to stop some poor punter being ripped off. I note that the car rapidly disappeared off eBay, so hopefully Trading Standards have been round and felt the trader's collar!

Nice to think so - but I doubt it. There are far more clocked cars than they can deal with. Unless they have lots of complaints about one dealer.

Unlikely, since all it does is show the details recorded by VOSA on the previous tests - to change it would require VOSA's computers to be hacked...

They are more difficult. You now need to plug them in to computer equipment rather than fiddle about with a small screwdriver for five minutes.

But since when did "more difficult" mean "impossible"?

And it'll continue until punters start to get their head around the fact that "low mileage" does not automatically equal "better".

I wonder if DPFs will contribute towards this, finally...?

Indeed.

I really don't worry about the mileage these days - my B5 Passat was bought at 130k miles and sold at 180k and was still going strong, my 155 was bought on 140k miles and sold to someone in another NG on about 170k miles, who then did another 10k+ on it, before selling it to someone he knew, who, I believe, took it over 200k miles... my MX5 is now on 138k miles, my Alfa 75 on 135k miles and our last Alfa 156 was on 108k when bought and sold on 140k+.

It doesn't, but obviously if two cars are both identical other than the mileage, the low mileage one will be better.

And it's that opinion which makes higher mileage cars such outrageous bargains.

It`s easy to check the mileage on a car now.Admittedly you need info off the mot or registration certificate to do it but any honest person would let you see one of them before you buy.

Nevertheless cars do wear out and become less safe and reliable, so the price should drop as the mileage goes up. I once ran a Peugeot 405 diesel from new to 160k over 5 years (I had a long commute to work at the time) at which point the turbo charger failed. very expensively. I would have been a bit upset if I had just bought it thinking it had only done average mileage of 60k and paid the appropriate price for that. Clocking a car is fraud and that is that as far as I am concerned. You should know what you are paying for!

It's a fact, not an opinion. Unless you believe nothing on a car ever wears out.

It's also why clocking a car is so profitable.