Heh.
So. I have been offered an Astra. It's a 1.7TD Estate (painfully slow and not particularly economical, but twice as economical as the RX8 - the Sera is being sold).
It's insanely cheap. Below half book. It's got a dent in one door and has a bit of broken trim here and there, having been a decorator's 'van' for a couple of years. The history ends on November 2004 at 52,000 miles with a timing belt change and two glow plugs - and indeed, two glow plugs look younger than the other two.
But...
The instrument panel is showing a row of dashes instead of a mileage, as well as "InSP" when first started. InSP becomes trip mileage, but the odometer remains absent.
My gut feeling is that someone has had a go as clocking the car, despite the fact that if it's done 10,000 miles a year it'll only have done
80,000 miles, it /feels/ like it's done 80,000 miles, etc... and it's worth essentially bugger all...
Anyway, anyone seen this before? Is it clocking protection, can it be fixed? I don't care much myself, but it'd be handy to know if in fact it's something else I might be able to sort, or if I can just award the car 100,000 miles from a mileage correction place and have that come up, or whatever.
Mk IV Astras are so dull, I think my heart actually stops when driving it. Like that of my passengers when I forget I'm driving it, and overtake stuff.
Richard