Tempered Odometers

[KingSasanka]

What are the Tell Tale signs (not so obvious even) of tampered / altered odometers?

Thanks in advance.

Edited August 8, 2015 by KingSasanka

[Mike Page]

im not sure of what you mean by "tempered", i think what u meant was tampered?
It is normally extremely difficult to find out if the odometer has been altered. If the car shows a lot of wear and tear on the steering wheel, the seats and other parts of the car with a very low mileage reading, the odometer may have been tampered with. This is definitely not a fool proof way of finding out if the odometer has been tampered with. My recommendation would be to put the car into place like C*R CH*E*KS or the agent of the car, e.g.: if it is a toyota, T*YOTA L*N*A. It will cost around 7000 rupees or so and it may be cheaper or more depending on the agent. They will inspect the car for any damages, accident repairs and other things you should know about the car and provide you with a report,

I hope i was of some help to you

Cheers

[PreseaLover]

im not sure of what you mean by "tempered", i think what u meant was tampered?

It is normally extremely difficult to find out if the odometer has been altered. If the car shows a lot of wear and tear on the steering wheel, the seats and other parts of the car with a very low mileage reading, the odometer may have been tampered with.

Adding a small note to Mike's answer.... If you check the accelerator, if it seem to be considerably worn out in comparison to the mileage, you can just come to a conclusion that it might be tampered with...

However, in those vehicle smoke emission testing places, they note down the previous year's mileage... so if you have an inside connection there you might get the previous year's mileage of that vehicle and compare it.... (I went for a smoke test today and asked the dude there if we can get the info and he was like, yeah we have all records and can be checked)... It's just a matter of running a simple query in the system if you know someone there....

However I guess, if the car is like 15 years old, you cannot expect it to be less than 150k right... (unless the vehicle was used as a secondary vehicle)

[luckey007]

This was heard from a buyer who came to buy my car.[ actually he did not buy my car]

According to him there is even little bit of dirt[majan] or/and finger marks inside the meter cluster[in manual type-rolling counter type- odometers.]

[Magnum]

Adding a small note to Mike's answer.... If you check the accelerator, if it seem to be considerably worn out in comparison to the mileage, you can just come to a conclusion that it might be tampered with...

However, in those vehicle smoke emission testing places, they note down the previous year's mileage... so if you have an inside connection there you might get the previous year's mileage of that vehicle and compare it.... (I went for a smoke test today and asked the dude there if we can get the info and he was like, yeah we have all records and can be checked)... It's just a matter of running a simple query in the system if you know someone there....

However I guess, if the car is like 15 years old, you cannot expect it to be less than 150k right... (unless the vehicle was used as a secondary vehicle)

Yeah I do that and also you can see wear and tear on armrests and door handles. These are small parts which people dont usually replace

[hrm]

I heard that they're some electrical components, event recorders in different systems of modern cars record mileage. If some one can take all readings and do a cross reference then it might be able to figure out something. This need some special work and not so practical to do in a normal sense.

Edited August 8, 2015 by hrm

[KingSasanka]

Thanks everyone & the typo was corrected now.

I was interested in one of the Hybrids and they have electronic odometers.

Therefore, I think it is better to get the vehicle tested and get a report from the Agents before buying.

Thanks once more.

[Strikeee]

Do a google search, you can find some great tips and info regarding how to avoid odometer frauds. This is not only common to Sri Lanka.

[NRX]

This was heard from a buyer who came to buy my car.[ actually he did not buy my car]

According to him there is even little bit of dirt[majan] or/and finger marks inside the meter cluster[in manual type-rolling counter type- odometers.]

There are times people open up the meter cluster to fix or replace bulbs and stuff. So dirt/finger marks can get inside.

I made a habit of checking the previous emission test reports of the cars I checked when I was car hunting. Once I found a car in somewhat good condition, had about 110k on the ODO, but when I checked the documents folder the owner presented me with, I found an old emission test report with an ODO around 300k.

While I wanted to blast the guy for cheating, I calmly left the place because if I made a scene, the seller would remove the test report from the file when the next buyer comes.

Edited August 11, 2015 by NRX

[PreseaLover]

There are times people opens up the meter cluster to fix or replace bulbs and stuff. So dirt/finger marks can get inside.

I made a habit of checking the previous emission test reports of the cars I checked when I was car hunting. Once I found a car in somewhat good condition, had about 110k on the ODO, but when I checked the documents folder the owner presented me with, I found an old emission test report with an ODO around 300k.

While I wanted to blast the guy for cheating, I calmly left the place because if I made a scene, the seller would remove the test report from the file when the next buyer comes.

That is very nice of you to do so... but people seldom check the vehicle emission report, do they.... Even I didn't check while I bought mine as my car has quite a high mileage and if it would have been tampered with, it would have been pretty clear comparing to the present one...

However, I believe all the car selling sites should have a "Comment" area for each car ad, so that people who have checked the car can comment on it... Once I went to Galle to check out a presea- it had 160k on the meter... However I didn't buy as I had a bad feeling about the car and after 3 weeks it was again for sale in another location by a different seller with it being clocked back to 83K.... Sad about the unfortunate buyer though...