See it with from a different point of view: Independent used car dealers often are ... aehm ... aeh... oh yes: a very special kind of folk. And many of them in Germany are non-Germans so the majority of the criticism simply goes to foreigners here.
AND: There is the same percentage of German-nationality used car dealers from the same sort of folk - as well as there are some very good independent used car dealers of German- and non-German nationality.
thanks for the warning - I wondered if Germany was a haven of fair play in an anarchic s/h market but sadly no. I wonder if they are any more honest up in scandinavia with all their social consciousness??????????? Or anywhere???????
The point in Germany is: It is legal to set the mileage to any figure the owner wants - it is only unlawful to sell the car without stating the mileage had been changed.
IMHO this is a gap in the law which should be closed immediately.
In the old days a drilling machine was attached to the speedometer cable and then off it went...
Nowadays it is the age of computer laptops which are connected to the car's electronics and within seconds the wanted mileage is set.
Odometer fraud is a very lucrative business: Set the odometer of a 150.000 km three year old W220 S-Class to 58.739 and you have earned a nice sum.
Another point with odometer fraud is that some people will never detect they have been cheaten: Done in the right way it is nearly impossible for an amateur to detect the fraud.
Same with lots of _accident free_ cars which indeed had one (or more)...
Oh and yes, in the very old days horse dealers sometimes _coloured_ horses to make them looking better - yes, once happened to one of my grandfathers...
As for the turkish "Germans", I remember when we came from Poland in the 80's and my father bought a car from a turk, who told him (my father) that he should go back to where he came from. I agree with the sentiment but not coming from some turk in Germany to a European.
With normal passenger cars TUEV for the first time is after three years, than every two years.
Taxis have to have TUEV every 12 months from the beginning as well as rental cars.
They write down only ca. mileage and they write down whatever the odometer shows. It is on the potential car buyer to have a look through all the paperwork of past TUEVS - but noone is obliged to file old TUEV papers. Also there is several organizations who are allowed to make TUEV, that is TUEV, Dekra and GTUE as well as independent, TUEV certified car experts so it may be impossible to see odometer fraud from such paperwork (if it exists).
Well, that is a wide field... What is always interesting to me is when e.g. Turks (e.g., use any nationality here) who live in Germany for - say - twenty years complain that lately too many Turks (use any nationality here, but the same as above) have moved to their part of the city and so there is too many strangers now...
That's funny. What's not is when turks in Berlin complain that the East Berliners are taking away their jobs. I don't mean to sound racial but you Germans should start having more babies :-) or there will be nothing left of your people a century from now. European countries are too small and culturally distinct that they should let themselves be flooded by immigrants, especially outside of Europe. We lived in Germany for two years in the 80's great country, never had any problems, my parents were both well educated and we had no trouble staying but decided that Germany is for Germans, Canada's bigger and everyone is an immigrant here :-) Though England and France, who've had extensive colonies around the world have no argument against accepting immigrants, it's payback time, they got filthy rich exploiting their colonies (of course there were some benefits for some colonies) and now the people from the colonies should share in what's rightfully theirs.
I don't know. Never tried it before. Will never try it!
I guess, it is as common as in other countries! I bought a used motorcycle from a German motorcycle dealer and I trusted him! My parent bought several times used cars from German car dealers and we trusted them! My parents sold several times our used cars (even one time to a teacher of my school). The buyers trusted us! And they did right!
What I want to say is: I think you can trust German non-commercial sellers! You can even trust German commercial car dealers. But be carefully. In any case, trust on your mind! See the year of construction, see abrasion, see the seller, etc...
IMHO it is never a good idea to buy a car via internet! Visit the car, do a test drive, etc...
You want to buy a German used MB? Why don't you read German newspapers? Try to buy it from a German non-commercial seller like "the old woman who wants to sell the used car of her husband died a couple of month ago". Do you think she set back the clock?
I wonder whether she can trust you? ;-))
So far, Roland - who bought a used motorcycle from a foreigner. In fact the mileage was true, the rest wasn't! ^^^^^^
As the car is your personal property you can change the mileage on the odometer every day if you like - that is up to you, and TUV and other organizations may notice that the mileage shown dows not agree with the general condition of the car, but they can not do a thing about it.
The only point where U have to be careful is when an ad (or an ebay auction) says "... miles on the odometer" as opposed to "... miles run" - there is no law forbidding tinkering with the odometer, the only thing you must not do is tell others the "lower" number is the real mileage the car has done. So be careful about the exact wording...
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