Car Clocking

Bitterboy

Anyone ever bought a car and found out later it was clocked, i bought a 03 Avensis last year, just found out there's 48000 more miles on it

alias no.9

That's tough. Where did you buy it? Can you contact previous owners to pinpoint where the car was clocked? If it was traded in, there's a record of the mileage on the SIMI reciept. The worst thing about this is that if you're trying to sell it and the potential buyer asks, you must tell them now that you know, you'd be better off never having found out.

Bitterboy

Bought it off a SIMI garage, better not say too much, made an appointment to see my solicitor, not looking to sell it for a while, probably have to drive it till it stops unless i can get the garage to take it back and refund the money

maidhc

Bitterboy wrote:

Bought it off a SIMI garage, better not say too much, made an appointment to see my solicitor, not looking to sell it for a while, probably have to drive it till it stops unless i can get the garage to take it back and refund the money

How did you find out?

You should be entitled to have at least the contract of sale rescinded, although you may be expected to pay one year's depreciation/wear and tear.

Bitterboy

had trouble with the lights so my macanic tried to get toyota to replace them, toyota replied that they had already changed them when there was 59000 on the clock, i bought it with 38000. Rang the garage they said they would replace it but thats over a month ago, rang them every few days but they were just messing me around, telling me they had a car coming in the next day, got mad yesterday and told them to stick their car

alias no.9

Bitterboy wrote:

Bought it off a SIMI garage, better not say too much, made an appointment to see my solicitor, not looking to sell it for a while, probably have to drive it till it stops unless i can get the garage to take it back and refund the money

So much for the peace of mind of buying from a garage. It's good that you have a paper trail. The SIMI reciept states that 'the mileage is correct to the best of the sellers knowledge' so it gives you a comeback even if you didn't ask the question, ruling out the defence of ignorance. Assuming the car only had one previous owner, given it's a 03, it's the previous owner or the garage who'll be liable. Make sure to get the SIMI involved if it's the garage.

maidhc

Bitterboy wrote:

toyota replied that they had already changed them when there was 59000 on the clock

Interesting... so Toyota are claiming the car is out of the 60k warranty?

It really sounds like the car was traded into a main dealer, sold on the trade becasue of high miles, and clocked before being sold to you!

You have to go to a solicitor, but considering the garage you bought it from is still trading you should have a very strong case.

Bitterboy

hope so, im really out for revenge now, try to stop them doing it to someone else, they had a chnce to sort it out and they started to mess again, traded in a mondeo with 88000 on it, going to find out the owner of that now and write to him to check it

mloc123

Had it service history with it or anything? Its meant to be very easy to clock newer cars with digi display.

Bitterboy

it probably had but they binned it, ya two minutes work with a laptop i believe.

mloc123

I bought a car about 2 months back, I was well paranoid about getting a clocked one. My one has a fully stamped service history and dates/millage all add up but sometimes I still think that wouldn't be too hard to fake either.

Bitterboy

ya apparently 1 in a 5 cars are clocked, just to add to your paranoid state

mloc123

Ignorance is bliss I guess. Good luck with your case anyway.

Bitterboy

Cheers, will keep ye posted

corco2000

As said, I wuldnt buy a car without service histroy and make sure to check it and id contact previous owners.I bought car that wasnt clocked BUT speedo cable broken which meant millage wasnt recording. Found out when I went to do NCT wat miles were on it 2 years prior.
Learn from your mistakes though.Probably always best to buy car from family member or someone you can trust etc.

cantdecide

Bitterboy wrote:

apparently 1 in a 5 cars are clocked

this is such a big problem. i had one that was clocked as well and it doesn't feel nice and mine wasn't anything like '03. the manufacturers should figure something out this shouldn't be allowed to happen in this day and age.

overdriver

Sister-in-law's car has 94k on the clock, but the timing belt was done at 120k, as indictaed on the cambelt cover.

Go figure...

Bitterboy

its too common, there must be some way to stop it. i was thinking of going to the press, probably wont be interested

Capt'n Midnight

out of curiousity can they clock a car by using the clock from a wreck ?

Bitterboy

dont know, think its all done by laptop, mine was a digital clock on it

corco2000

Nah, I know for the model of my BMW u can reset the miles by tweeking with the dials while shorting the Digi with an insulated cable. As easy as that found it on google! Or else as suggested do it by computer and programme. Where theres a will there will always be a way.
At least you bought from garage and have legal fall back..Hopefully. I mean if I sold it to you I can say 'eh I didnt know, now f'off'. As I said I got burnt b4 and wuldnt buy a car without a service histroy. I called all garages and they could verify miles and what was done. It all added up.

Bitterboy

ill be learning from this, hope its not going to be an expensive lesson

smash

I bought a clocked car once... it was a pain in the ass but I did get my money back. Go straight to the SIMI and they'll deal with it for you.

What garage was it?

darkbeatz

Bitterboy wrote:

ya apparently 1 in a 5 cars are clocked, just to add to your paranoid state

:eek:

Moanin

I rem seeing Prime Time a couple of months ago about clocking cars, and apparently its ok to clock a car once you don't intend selling it on.Now that doesn't make sense to me?

smash

1 in 5 is a rubbish figure, I work in the industry and that figure is way way to high! And it is unbelievably extremley rare for a franchise dealer to clock a car because if found out they'll loose the franchise and get blacklisted by the SIMI.

Bitterboy

We'll see what happens with the SIMI, I'll name the garage when its over, a dublin garage, near the red cow....

milltown

Bitterboy wrote:

We'll see what happens with the SIMI, I'll name the garage when its over, a dublin garage, near the red cow....

Please, please let it be who I think it is!

On a lighter note, could be urban legend but if it is, it's a good one! Friend in work swears it was a guy he was in college with.
Student decides to sell his old Opel Kadett but not before giving it a "haircut". He carefully strips out the dash and instrument binacle to get at the speedo. When he gets the speedo out there's a sticker on the back of it saying "Oh no! Not again!"

I've also heard rumours of a dealer in Dublin (the one with hundreds of cars on carzone with no prices, all POA) who imports by the boatload from Singapore. Apparently theres a mechanic on every boat with a laptop who spends the whole trip erm adjusting the mileage on the cars.

R.O.R

Bitterboy wrote:

We'll see what happens with the SIMI, I'll name the garage when its over, a dublin garage, near the red cow....

Hmmmm......not something to do with [edited by mike65]


If it is then I feel sorry for you. The same guy used to run another dealers before the SIMI got on to him for clocking cars so he ran away. I provided a lot of information to the SIMI for one particular vehicle that a driver had been stung on.


For anything around that size/age it's always worth checking if it's an ex. fleet car. If there is no service history with the vehicle it's probably on file with the fleet company who will be more than happy to tell you when, where and at what mileage it was serviced.

Bitterboy

Ya have all the details now, 25 Aug 2005 it had 86000, i bought it 15 sept 2005 with 38000. dont think its who your thinking of. not sure of other garages out there

mloc123

50000 knocked off, thats a fair chunk. :eek:

Bitterboy

for sure, he made a fair profit on it id say. ill do my best to get it back off him, if not ill just ruin his name.

Fey!

It isn't a father and son operation by any chance, all the way up from Kerry?

pa daly

I was in a similar situation myself. Bought a car private and later found out it was clocked. I was more than happy with the car and had no intention of getting a refund so instead I demanded a chunk of money back.

I had the documentary evidence like yourself so you are in a win win situation.

EDIT : BTW how much did you pay for the car

Bitterboy

€23000.

Bitterboy

dont know where they are from

scargill

its a few years ago now (maybe 5?) but a friend bought a second hand Toyota less than two years old).

A few months after he bought it a girl went missing from the town and as part of Garda investigations all owners of a particular reg and colour of this Toyota model (cant remember if it was a Carina ?) were asked to present themselves for interview at their local Garda station. My mates car matched this so he duly went to the Gardai and gave them all his details, etc.

It turned out that his car had been stolen in the UK and brought over here, reregistered and put up for sale by a garage in the Naas/Newbridge area!! The Gardai kept the car and my mate got nothing. He tried to pursue the garage but they folded before he got anywhere with them. lost a good few quid. he tends to buy new now !!

colm_mcm

Where did they get this 1 in 5 figure?

dubtom

A friend of mine knows a guy who will come to your home/work etc and clock your car for €100 with a laptop, no questions asked.Can car makers not put password protected software or something to stop the clocks being tampered with.I know they probably couldn't be bothered but it certainly wouldn't be difficult. At least with the reverse drill method it was fairly easy to spot on normal clocks, God knows how many people are being fleesed now.

pa daly

A better solution would be to have some sort of national database where your cars milage is logged at every service

unkel

maidhc wrote:

sounds like the car was traded into a main dealer, sold on the trade becasue of high miles, and clocked before being sold to you!

I agree, the most likely scenario

Bitterboy wrote:

€23000.

I know you bought it last year, so it was only 2 years old at the time, but that seems extremely expensive :eek:

A brand new base Avensis can be had for about that in cash

Anyway, best of luck with your case and let us know how you're getting on. And please DO name and shame whenever you are ready

pa daly

Bitterboy wrote:

€23000.

Just so you have some sort of guideline should you be looking for compensation...

The general rule in the trade is that a car depreciates 100 euro for every 1000 miles. Therefore you were overcharged/conned approx 5,000 euro if the speedo was put back by 50,000 miles....

bazz26

Bitterboy wrote:

€23000.

That was very expensive for a two year old Avensis at the time. What model Avensis was it? Base Aura or Luna model?

The thing with most modern cars these days is that they endure mileage rather well so it is difficult to tell if the mileage is genuine or not. I have a 2003 Avensis also and have almost 100k miles on it now since new. I look after it well and have it serviced on time every time. If you were to look at the car inside and out without looking at the odometer you would think it only had a fraction of that mileage on it. And just for the record I wouldn't know where to get the mileage "corrected" nor would I have any interest in doing so.

My guess is that your car was either an ex-taxi/hackney or company car. Any signs of drill holes in the dash were a meter or cb radio may have existed at one time? Also look at the paintwork on the roof for scratches or fade marks where a taxi plate may have been or on the boot where the cb aeriel may have been. Also look closely at the bumpers for filled in holes where the yellow hackney licence may have been.

BTW I hope it works out for you in the end.

damo605

A word of warning - never trust the mileage on an NCT cert....
Some years ago I took a Corolla with 178k miles on the clock to the NCT and it failed, I took it back 2 weeks later, it passed, with 146k miles showing (Had fitted upgraded instrument cluster from a scrapped Sprinter in the meantime) and even though the fail sheet showed 178k the NCT cert showed 146k :eek:
And before anyone asks, yes - When I sold it I told the buyer that it had 30odd k miles more than what was showing on the clock and the NCT cert.... I think he bought the car more out of shock at my honesty than on the condition of the car

C_Breeze

hah, i kno somebody who bought a car last yr at 93000 miles and two months later I was reading the car manual and on 1 of the back pages from one of the earlier owners it had hand wrriten "4 new bridgestone tires @ 98,000miles dated july 2003".

the car is in ver good nick though so i've come to accept that almost every 2nd hand car is clocked so its best to just look at the overall condition of it .

Darragh29

Bitterboy wrote:

had trouble with the lights so my macanic tried to get toyota to replace them, toyota replied that they had already changed them when there was 59000 on the clock, i bought it with 38000. Rang the garage they said they would replace it but thats over a month ago, rang them every few days but they were just messing me around, telling me they had a car coming in the next day, got mad yesterday and told them to stick their car

The SIMI have a complaints procedure (www.simi.ie), something like this would be open and shut.

Darragh29

milltown wrote:

Please, please let it be who I think it is!

On a lighter note, could be urban legend but if it is, it's a good one! Friend in work swears it was a guy he was in college with.
Student decides to sell his old Opel Kadett but not before giving it a "haircut". He carefully strips out the dash and instrument binacle to get at the speedo. When he gets the speedo out there's a sticker on the back of it saying "Oh no! Not again!"

I've also heard rumours of a dealer in Dublin (the one with hundreds of cars on carzone with no prices, all POA) who imports by the boatload from Singapore. Apparently theres a mechanic on every boat with a laptop who spends the whole trip erm adjusting the mileage on the cars.

I work in the trade and this is well known. Not only does each car coming in get clocked but also any cars with light bodywork problems are fixed on the boat on the way over. Got done myself once by a garage near the airport.

Rudolph Claus

I work in the trade and this is well known. Not only does each car coming in get clocked but also any cars with light bodywork problems are fixed on the boat on the way over. Got done myself once by a garage near the airport.

Are you referring to japanese imports or all imports such as Uk ones too?

JohnBoy

doubt there's enough time to do much bodywork on the way over from england

yeah, its rife, even more so with uk imports, reason being there roads are so much better than ours a 100k mile uk car will easily pass for a 50k mile irish one.

sucks for the original poster, stick it to em dude

paf

sorry to hear you were caught, contact me on my hotmail address paf10000 and i will tell you exackly how to go about getting your money back without the exspence of a soliciter, the fact the garage is a simi member will make it easier, also with this fact i could probably tell you who the garage is.

If anyone else has been caught you can contact me at the above address and i will try and help, im also trying to see if there is garages that are particularly prevelent at this kind of activities.

mike65

paf read this

Mike.