2003 Camry - Carfax vehicle history - suspicious?

I doubt if Toyota supplies the dealer with equipment designed to fudge the odometer. If a replacement odometer is needed, the correct mileage is usually entered by the PDC prior to shipping it to the dealer.

No, the computer will not show the actual miles.

You're welcome and good luck with the car. I'm generally pretty busy most weeknights and this month, I'm busy on weekends as well, otherwise, I'd go take a peek at the car.

Conventional wisdom says that rental cars lead a hard life, but in my experience, they are well maintained.

People I know who have bought rental cars from the big companies like Hertz and Avis have all had good experiences.

From long experience renting cars from some of the smaller companies (as a government traveler, we had to take the lowest bid), I would avoid cars from those companies at all cost.

Merritt

I guess it depends on the state, but I wouldn't think it was legal to reset the odometer when you replaced the engine. I just replaced the engine in my 2000 Avalon, and the question never even came up.

I worry as much about things like general condition, suspension, steering, etc., as I do about the engine. Engines can be repaired or replaced, but when the body wears out, you can't do much about it.

I think the purchaser deserves to know the actual total mileage on the vehicle, not just on the engine.

Merritt

I think you're right. Me, I wouldn't reset the odo, I'd just make a note in my car file or on a sticker in the engine bay that I changed the engine at X miles. Some people consider it legitimate to reset the odo, though, and in my part of the world after a certain age (I think it's 10 years) the car is exempt from having to show a legitimate figure on the odo, so you could legally change it to whatever you wanted, new engine or not.

I asked a mechanic at my dealer about this yesterday and he told me they did this once for a car whose speed sensor had failed. The owner estimated the mileage he'd driven since the failure and they added it to the odometer reading after replacing the sensor.

That is a new capability I was not aware of. IMO, giving blanket permission to all dealerships to alter odometers is risky business.

There is no reason to list this vehicle as "dealer vehicle" in auction if everything is fine. The dealer vehicles usually mean junk in an auction.

The vehicle is listed as a "dealer vehicle" at auctions to differentiate them from fleet buybacks, factory demos and company cars, rental cars, etc.

The fact that a dealer is selling the vehicle at an auction does not usually mean that it is junk. Dealers usually wholesale junk cars to independent used car dealers becuse they will get more money from them than at an auction by avoiding the auction middleman.

Dealers might sell cars at auction because they have too many of a particular model in their UC inventory, they bought back a bunch of cars from a fleet customer as part of a buyback program, they didn't have success in retailing the car themselves after 90 days, or they took a car in trade that they do not normally have good success at retailing.

Great analysis peabrain. Lots of owners in between...just none of them drove it.

I'm thinking overpriced and under-represented...one of those vehicles in the "more work than it's worth category for the sales-types. Again, if the CARFAX is correct, it wasn't a "salesman's demo" 'cause the mileage has been frozen at 49,39? for the best part of its history.

Too much invested...can't go back on the plan now...unless this thing was in New Orleans or Bloxi and that's what the auction-types were catching on to, it almost appears to have been a bad trade by the dealer.

The dealer-supplied car-fax reports often do not include info on if a vehicle has been wrecked or flood damaged, etc. The reports you buy directly have much more information.

David