Not something I’ve had to think about since I was buying Capri’s and Manta’s for beer money and I was usually more concerned with the size of the holes in the bodywork than the accuracy of the odometer. I was never buying nice examples anyway, just stuff that would do skids and jumps.

But, I’m trying to move up in the world and I just spotted a discrepancy on a potential purchase. I was hoping to go and see this car at the weekend- http://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202106173908233

I have acquired the reg number (DF65EHJ) and done an MOT history check. The first MOT was on 30/11/2018 when the mileage was 13,979 and the second MOT was less than 2 months later on 14/01/2019 and the mileage was apparently 13,978.

So it’s had 2 MOT’s in quick succession and travelled -1 miles between them. I can’t imagine how or why this would happen accidentally. It’s been sold by a major dealer so I’m all ears if there’s an honest explanation. I’ve never had a VAG before, will the real mileage be logged in the VAGCOM brain somewhere, or can you use that to rewind the mileage if you were inclined to do so? I didn’t think people would bother these days given how easy it is to check the history.

Still worth a look, or run a mile?
This one is the other option- http://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202106234140163

Yes, I know of people who clock van mileage locally.

Could have been sold so they got an MoT done, then the buyer pulled out. Sold it again 2 months later and the new buyer wanted a full 12 months MoT so had to get it done again.

Yes, but I doubt its worth the hassle of doing it by 1 mile. I know a lad who had around 40000 miles clocked off a ford transit connect a few years ago, he had no problem boasting about it in the local bar and had already sold it

I think most clocking is done to avoid excess mileage charges on leased cars

milage correction still a massive market for *legit* reasons of course……

not too hard to find on the back pages of facebook and gumtree usually tied in with remapping(read loading up a generic over fueling map)

nobody would clock a car back just one mile would they?
what robbo says ^^ up there ^^ plus whoever recorded the mileage at the time was not taking much notice of 8s and 9s
either that or it must’ve been reversed one mile to the garage for the second MOT!!!

I’ve done it, sort of.
Instrument panel died on my old Transit, much easier and cheaper just to swap it for another from a scrappy than fix it.
My MOT read something like 79, 91, 101, 112, 93, 102.
I declared the true mileage when trying to sell it but it would have looked odd to anyone checking the MOT history.
MOT inspector never questioned it (other than saying I do need a working speedo, the one on the satnav doesn’t count so it needs fixed), just wrote down what it said.
No mileage at all on current van as that disappeared when I took the tachograph out, last two MOTs juat say ‘mileage not recorded’
.
So yes, but might be legit.

My mate had a van that was underclocked by 100k miles. You can spot it on the MOT certificates.

I think thats just a recording error. The scenario for clocking would be if it was on a low mileage (e.g. 5000 miles pa) lease so they needed to get it under 15000 at return. But that would be the first MOT recorded mileage not the second.

My bet is the first one transposed the 7 and 9 (i.e. 13799 became 13979) and it did 179 miles in the next two months whilst being transported between forecourts plus test drives. It would never have been noticed if it had been the usual twelve months between MOTs.

Yes – I put my car on bike rollers every night and stick it in reverse.

Guy at work clocked his car just before selling it, he had forgotten to get it MOTed it for a year or two so thought it would be a good idea as increase of mileage wouldn’t show up but could easily claim it was SORN because of covid etc

My uncle told a story years ago.

He wanted to sell his car, so took apart the dash. Upon doing so he found a piece of paper stuck to the tacho. “oh no, not again” was written on it.

I didn’t realise it was still so easy or so common to do this. Being able to check the MOT history is one of the best developments in car buying ever. It’s put my off a lot of cars before I’ve gone to the trouble of travelling to them.

I think with that Octavia it’s probably a slip of the finger on the testers part. I didn’t realise a dealer can have a new MOT whenever they want which explains the short gap between them.

I just remembered I started my own official Octavia thread a few weeks ago as well. We had our first child a couple of Sundays ago and my brain has been mush ever since. I promise if I buy one I’ll post some details and bring closure to it.

My uncle told a story years ago.

He wanted to sell his car, so took apart the dash. Upon doing so he found a piece of paper stuck to the tacho. “oh no, not again” was written on it.

I love stories like that. The stuff you used to find in old cars when they were cheap and plentiful was sometimes beyond belief. My mate once pulled up the carpet on a Chevette and found a baking tray riveted over a huge hole in the passenger foot well. I know someone who bought an Opel Manta and had to do an emergency stop on the way home and the brake pedal went through the bulkhead.

I’m lead to believe it’s very easy and you’re right to check the MOT history. In this case it sounds like an error rather than anything too malicious though. Fingers crossed.

My mate once pulled up the carpet on a Chevette and found a baking tray riveted over a huge hole in the passenger foot well.

I know someone who scraped back the underseal on his Land Rover and found a road sign underneath. Not that long ago either.

Yeah it happens a lot.

Usually taxis who knock a bunch of miles off just before MOT

I did it to my Audi TT once, the clocks failed, so I bought some used ones. Used some software to crack the PIN keycode, then I could sync it with the other modules on the car and set the mileage to whatever I wanted (of course being honest I set to the same as the old), and add keys to it.

Mate bought a clocked focus at 3 years old just after it’s first MOT. Was sold with a faked service invoice, when he rang Ford to book in its next service they had a true record of the mileage and servicing.

Back street dealer had clearly bought it from lease company at auction, clocked it and then gone for an MOT.

He wanted to sell his car, so took apart the dash. Upon doing so he found a piece of paper stuck to the tacho. “oh no, not again” was written on it.

Does he get all his story’s from urban legend……

Road sign in land rover battery box was me 🙂

If the baking tray in the Chevette was pop rivetted and not welded and it was a baby blue hatchback that was probably mine. I could afford welding back then. Carpet held down with Evostick to stop your mate pulling it up.

he found a piece of paper stuck to the tacho. “oh no, not again” was written on it.

Was there a bowl of petunias back there also?

Does he get all his story’s from urban legend……

This practice must surely be more trouble than it’s worth. Does anyone give a toss about mileage any more? Back in pre-electronic odometer days where you could shove a dial around with a screwdriver, a car with 100k on it was Donald Ducked. These days it’s just about broken in.

if i remember correctly, its not illegal to clock the mileage, its illegal to do it for financial gain.

Ask Quentin Wilson, he knows all about the illegality of doing this!

This practice must surely be more trouble than it’s worth. Does anyone give a toss about mileage any more?

Still makes a fair difference to price and it depends on the mileage. My sister bought what was a nice enough looking Golf – had around 48k on the clock (this was just before MOT online checking thingy days).

When she was driving home from the dealers it broke down and on investigation the car had actually done over 250k. And yes, I would very much give a toss if I had bought a car that had allegedly done a shade under 50k when it fact it had done quarter of a million…

@cougar

“This practice must surely be more trouble than it’s worth. Does anyone give a toss about mileage any more?”

it can change the value of your trade in also.

If the baking tray in the Chevette was pop rivetted and not welded and it was a baby blue hatchback that was probably mine.

It was brown 2 door saloon with a wide gold stripe and it was £250. A very rare thing nowadays. The baking tray was definitely riveted in as I remember him raging about how hard the steel rivets were.

The plan was to fit an XE from an Astra but it was driven into by a 4×4 before he started it.

This practice must surely be more trouble than it’s worth. Does anyone give a toss about mileage any more? 

I know a few people who know absolutely nothing about cars and they ONLY care about the mileage. It’s the only thing they know to look at.

I bought a 2005 Passat with 64K on (allegedly) even the mot history backed it up. It was only when I tried to take the engine cover off to change the oil & filter & could get the poxy little 6mm nuts off that I thought ‘hmm’. A few weeks later the alternator went west only to find it was the wrong one for that motor. I thought ‘hmm’ again. Not long after it started kicking blue smoke out & I thought to myself, ‘either this has been clocked or it’s had a bloody hard life’. My previous 2001 Passat had over 235k on when I traded it for that pile of crap.
So yes, I believe people still do clock motors!

Yes.

A colleague has just done so on a PCP leased vehicle to avoid an additional payment.

My mechanic tells me that it’s easier than ever to clock a car with a digital odometer with a fairly basic device, and it’s untraceable by dealers.

A mate of mine who lives in NZ told me that drivers of diesel trucks have to pay tax based on odometer readings when they get the annual Warrant of Fitness done for the vehicle. Apparently it is extremely common to get the mileage adjusted before the WoF.

@core not sure about all makes but on VAG stuff it’s very easy to trace/check. Clock display mileage is one thing, the true mileage is contained in the ecu (in kms).

@NewRetroTom – Road user charges, due to be paid in advance of any use (it’s basically an extra tax on diesel fuel, charged per km), checked at WOF/MOT time but you are also in trouble if you get pulled by the police for anything and they’re not up to date.

My mechanic tells me that it’s easier than ever to clock a car with a digital odometer with a fairly basic device, and it’s untraceable by dealers.

Depends on the car, BMW (and presumably others) record it to the keyfob as well.

I guess it depends whether “untraceable by dealers” is the same as “untraced by dealers” because there’s no incentive for them to knock value off the car on their forecourt.

I would very much give a toss if I had bought a car that had allegedly done a shade under 50k when it fact it had done quarter of a million…

Oh, sure, that’s not what I meant, of course you’d care if you’d been deceived.

How can you not notice that though? That’s a huge discrepancy, it must’ve been some patch-up job.

Google
Digital mileage correction

I had a VW T4 that I bought with 90k miles on the dash, which had actually done over 400k, it had had a new dash and the mileage not corrected, the seller was honest so I knew luckily. I also sold it on honestly.

A couple of years ago I saw it for sale having lost about 300k miles.

Messaged the seller and reported to eBay and never seen any sign of it since.

Just checked and it’s still on the road, does very few miles these days by the looks of it.

https://www.gov.uk/check-mot-history

With long service intervals, limited mileage leases and rollback services easy to find it is definitely still an issue.

Say you have a lease BMW/Audi with 20k service intervals on a lease for 3 years at 6k miles per year. What is to stop you ragging it silly for 20k a year, then rolling the mileage back before handover time and it’s first MOT? Nothing. I know of people (mainly young men with their first lease car) who do this, one even does a home oil change just to keep the car reliable. His first car was an Audi A1 and that did well over 30k in it’s first year on a 1 year 6k miles lease, handed back after being clocked and was no doubt on a forecourt as a low miles 1 owner car.

I know a few people who know absolutely nothing about cars and they ONLY care about the mileage. It’s the only thing they know to look at.

I have friends and family who tell me I should get rid of my 8 year old car as it’s got 120k on the clock. Apart from regular servicing and a dodgy connection on one of the Lambda sensors it’s been faultless and has easily double that left to give but no, mileage says time to change according to them.

My dad hired a car when we were in Corfu about 1980. The hire company owner told him it was priced per mile with a nominal weekly fee. He drove all over the island for a week then parked up round the corner telling me and my mum to go for a wee walk. He returned it having done about 20 miles ssaying he had been on the beer all week.
Tight git. 😀

My Fiesta is connected to the FordPass app but it’s the only modern car I’ve ever had so I’m not sure where it pulls the info from. The app shows mileage, tyre pressure, fuel level, even estimated oil life. I wonder if doing a ‘digital mileage correction’ would change what shows up in the app.

Not that I’d consider it having only done 3k miles in the first year.

If I do end up buying a VAG I’ll see if the dealer is willing to plug it in and check for codes, true mileage etc.

On many cars the mileage is stored on many ecus across the car so it is possible to detect just the engine ecu being updated