Dealer fined €500 for sale of 'clocked' used car

HelterSkelter

€500 is a tiny fine but here's hoping his business loses a lot more as a result of the bad publicity....

THE first conviction for selling a 'clocked' car has been secured by a State agency against a Longford car dealer.

The BMW car - a UK import - with a reading of 41,000 miles on the odometer had, in fact, travelled 80,000 miles, according to service records obtained from Britain.

John Joseph Reilly, of Reilly's Garage, Abbeyshrule, Co Longford, was convicted of selling a clocked car and fined €500 at the District Court.

Costs of €1,210 plus VAT and witness expenses of €710 were also awarded against Mr Reilly.

Acting chief executive of the National Consumer Agency, Ann Fitzgerald, has warned that further cases were likely to come before the courts in the coming months.

"Buying a car is a major investment for most consumers. They should not be cheated by unscrupulous or careless dealers. "This deceptive action would drastically reduce the value of their investment and could give rise to safety issues."

Ms Fitzgerald, commenting on the outcome of the first conviction, said: "While the car was not clocked in his garage, he and every car dealer are obliged to act with due diligence in their dealings with consumers. They must take steps to ensure that the odometer readings are accurate."

The decision to prosecute Mr Reilly was made following an investigation into a complaint from a consumer.

The customer said when the UK import car was purchased the odometer reading was 41,000 miles.

Service records subsequently obtained from the UK showed the mileage to be in excess of 80,000 miles.

The offence happened in June 2005. The maximum fine for this type of offence has since been increased to €3,000. Ms Fitzgerald has urged all car dealers to take all necessary steps to ensure that any cars they purchase either from the UK or elsewhere have not been clocked.

"This is important to safeguard their integrity and to avoid the risk of prosecution for engaging in deceptive practices."

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The NCA chief pointed out that the new Consumer Act had given the agency wide powers to stamp out such practices and it was their policy "to concentrate resources on areas which are causing the greatest detriment to consumers".

She said car clocking had been identified as a target area. The NCA had recently launched an information booklet on car buying which could be got by Tel: 1890 432 432 or logging onto www.consumerconnect.ie.

Henry Ford III

This kind of thing is sadly commonplace. A simple HPI check will reveal all.

Dealers are themselves either mugs, or stupid, or perhaps even corrupt if they do not get this done themselves.

bazz26

Considering that shaving mileage off a car can result in a difference of over €1000 to the price of each altered car, a €500 fine maybe an acceptable risk to some cowboy dealers out there.

I'd say main or big franchised dealers will be more careful as the bad publicity could simply be fatal.

smash

he should have been fined more... probably made 5k on the car

ambro25

bazz26 wrote:

Considering that shaving mileage off a car can result in a difference of over €1000 to the price of each altered car, a €500 fine maybe an acceptable risk to some cowboy dealers out there.

Can you multiply that a bit, please? Otherwise, in full agreement with your point

The fine should at the very least reflect the difference in actual market value (OMSP-calculated?) based on 'clock' vs 'recorded' mileage, because that is by how much the consumer is being factually cheated, but it should also (i) be of an amount punitive enough to act as a deterrent (so, up a level: at least the above plus the dealer margin) and (ii) factor in the much higher maintenance costs such an older (in miles) car is likely to require much sooner than anticipated by the customer (i.e. timing belt etc.).

... Just giving a bit of a Salomon-type justice point-of-view here

gyppo

a quick look on carzone will show that this dealers main stock, apart from his Kia dealership, is in higher end uk imports, audi A4's being a particular favourite.

Methinks its quite probable the offence he was convicted on was not his first time ...ahem.."correcting mileage".

Galway_guy_33

I’m not too far from this particular dealer so it comes as no great shock. Wont name names but theres lots more in the county doing the same. I know of more than one case where people were sold ex taxis from dublin without knowing it a few years back… lord only knows what mileage they actually had!!!

Buy new I say… change every few years for new if you can afford it other wise drive it into the ground and buy new again… only way to avoid these cowboys.

Henry Ford III

Those people involved in "mileage correction" services are incredibly busy I heard.

workaccount

Henry Ford III wrote:

This kind of thing is sadly commonplace. A simple HPI check will reveal all.

Dealers are themselves either mugs, or stupid, or perhaps even corrupt if they do not get this done themselves.

Is there a check you can do for irish cars?

OKenora

irish version of HPI is at http://www.carcheck.ie/

Have to say though that i thought they were VERY VERY expensive. UK HPI offers 5 checks for £25 (36) if you shop about, carcheck want €150 per car Why am i not too surprised though?

EDIT sorry that price includes a visual inspection, like the AA/RAC checks so not too bad I suppose.

barryfitz

www.cartell.ie is another one.

smash

but cartell doesn't give you a mileage report

daedalus2097

If you don't get a service history with it, don't buy it. It's simple, if there was a history up to 40k miles and nothing after that it stick out a mile as being suspect. Unfortunately a lot of people don't know enough about these things, go to buy a car based on size and colour rather than more important details. Maybe a nice big ad campaign about these things would be an idea?

omega man

500 euro aint much of a fine but would you now buy a car of him? Loss of business will be the real penalty.

cantdecide

we all know car clocking is rampant. it has a good home in Ireland because no one gives proper regard to serrvice history.

if there is no service history to verify mileage, I think dealers should be obliged to offer a fixed percentage discount on the book value of the car and sell 'as is'. Equally, if you can't provide service history when trading in, you should be obliged to accept a similar pecentage penalty. Eventually, we'll have to mind our service histories or suffer the consequences.

Henry Ford III

steve06 wrote:

but cartell doesn't give you a mileage report

Yep and unlike HPI they won't give you a warranty against incomplete/innaccurate information.

I cannot see the point tbh.

ambro25

Henry Ford III wrote:

Yep and unlike HPI they won't give you a warranty against incomplete/innaccurate information.

I cannot see the point tbh.

No point to it other than to be able to say that/market as 'doing the HPI thing in Ireland'.

However, unlike HPI, which gets its data from Swansea (UK VRO), which itself compiles it from dealers and MOT centres. No such equivalent 'central records' in IE, AFAIK, so no data - endof.

jonno23

I actually went to look at a car he was selling 2 months ago, an '05 UK Import with 57K miles. Mileage was "guaranteed", however when I asked for the service history was told that it wasn't with the car, but that he could get the service print out from the leasing company in the UK. Thought that very strange. Also, the plates were already removed, so I couldn't do a HPI check myself. He did offer to do a HPI check though as part of the sale, and he would give it to me when I bought the car.
Car was in great nick though, i was very tempted, but he wasn't offering much on a trade in. Glad I walked away!
Incidentally, although he has flags up advertising Kia, he is not listed as a Kia Dealer on their website, nor were there any Kia cars there. All he appeared to be selling were UK imports! He doesn't have a shomroom as such, just a portacabin. So I did think he was kind of selling himself as a legit dealer, when in fact he was really just selling off UK cars.

Henry Ford III

You should have insisted on knowing the UK reg beforehand, and gotten HPI check from that.

On a leased car a FSH might well be computerised.

JHMEG

Anyone know if said dealer is a SIMI member?

Also, anyone know if Madden Car Sales, The Grotto, Lucan, is a SIMI member?

unkel

Did anyone take the last 3 zeros off the amount of the fine? €500 is shockingly low...

gyppo wrote:

a quick look on carzone will show that this dealers main stock, apart from his Kia dealership, is in higher end uk imports, audi A4's being a particular favourite

We might as well do a bit more nameing / shameing, unless we are talking about another person with the name John Joseph Reilly from Abbeyshurle Village in Co. Longford

Main KIA dealer who is indeed a SIMI member. He's been in business for over 25 years!

Here are his 45 cars for sale on carzone.ie. BEWARE!!!

JHMEG wrote:

Anyone know if said dealer is a SIMI member?

Yes he is. See the big SIMI sign on his website. Anyone know what SIMI policy is if a member has a criminal conviction for something associated with their trade? What is KIA's policy?

peasant

JJReilly Cars is a member of the SIMI and is committed to providing all our customers with the highest standards of business ethics and integrity.

quoted from the website

zuutroy

My mate bought 01 318 Ci off him, with quite high mileage.Wonder if the real figure was even higher!?

peasant

To be fair though ...the article said that he didn't "clock" the car himself.

So it could "just" be a case of sloppy research ..or rather no research, as opposed to sheer criminal intent.

Still, you'd expect better from a "reputable" garage.

mike65

A lot of round numbers in that list unkel!

Mike.

unkel

peasant wrote:

So it could "just" be a case of sloppy research ..or rather no research, as opposed to sheer criminal intent

For a private person, maybe. For someone in the trade who buys cars in the UK in order to resell them here, that can never be an excuse imho

unkel

Although it is quite likely that he's cleaned up his act by now. The offence is from June 2005. Looking at some of his higher end cars on carzone.ie, most of them mention one owner from new / full manufacturers' service history. I.e. most likely kosher

JHMEG

unkel wrote:

Although it is quite likely that he's cleaned up his act by now.

Jebus Unkel, you're too optimistic. A 500 euro fine is an incentive to keep selling clocked cars.

What really really p!sses me off about this is that SIMI's submission to the govt on the reform of VRT is all about people importing their own cars from the UK, and how bad it is, damaging the environment and the exchequer.

It would appear now that a SIMI member not only is willing to damage the environment and the exchequer by selling 2nd hand imports, but they're also willing to sell clocked cars.

They really have stones. Brass stones.

http://www.simi.ie/admin/files/The%20Society%20of%20the%20Irish%20Motor%20Industry%20Final%20Budget%20Sub%202007.pdf

jonno23

I did check the SIMI website before I went to see the car, and he is indeed registered.
From his site, it does appear that he's a Kia dealer, and he did have several Kia's listed in stock. However, when I went to view the car I was interested in, there was not a Kia to be seen. I found this strange, and checked the Kia website, but he's not listed as an official dealer. Made me suspicious.
He does not have a shomroom, just a portacabin.
The car was advertised as having a fsh and guaranteed mileage, but when I asked to see it, he told me he'd have to send off to the UK for it. Didn't inspire confidence.
Btw, it was his son I dealt with.

bazz26

peasant wrote:

To be fair though ...the article said that he didn't "clock" the car himself.

So it could "just" be a case of sloppy research ..or rather no research, as opposed to sheer criminal intent.

Still, you'd expect better from a "reputable" garage.

Alot of these dodgy cars are bought cheap in the UK where they find their way to auction houses. These guys know exactly what they are buying at the right price imo.

siochain

My wife was stung by Terenure Motors about a year ago, bought a BMW off them what a pile if rubbish it turned out to be.