Hi guys n' gals,
I'm obviously fairly new to this site and was intrigued by this thread enough to chime in on it. For the record, I've got an AAS in Automotive Tech and about 4 years of experience before becoming disabled.

If you off-road your vehicle, chances are you are commiting odometer fraud yourselves ;)

Think about it- if you put larger tires on your vehicle without recalibrating the speedometer/odometer- then the mileage will roll over (a certain percentage-depending on size and gearing) slower than if you had stock tires and visa versa. For example, my 94 4Runner was bought with 235/75/15 tires on it and 208k miles. Well, the vehicle came from the factory with 31x10.50's meaning that - theoretically the mileage could be off as much as 20k miles lower than what the odometer reads. The same goes for gear ratios.

While this isn't exactly something that is sought out or even thought much about- it is an issue and it is technically illegal. Kinda like the catalytic convertor issue. It's actually illegal to replace any catalytic convertor on a vehicle with less than 60k miles unless faulty. It's also illegal to resell used cats.

Also, at least in North and South Carolina (I think this is Federal) any vehicle over 100k miles is sold as TMU anyways. TMU means true mileage unknown. By law the seller must tell a customer this, but being as it's "supposed" to be common knowledge, they let them look at the nice, trustworthy Carfax reports and keep quiet because the vehicle has 101k miles on the clock. I dare say this law is "left over" from the days when vehicles only had 5-digit odometers. It's really rather ridiculous because if the vehicle really has 101k then the True Miles ARE known! This is a major reason a vehicle's value plummets when it hits the 100k mark.

Even if the odometer is immediately replaced by a dealer and documented inside the door jamb the showing the mileage at which it was replaced it will still have to be sold as TMU.

More importantly though is the fact that mileage means very little when it comes to the condition of a vehicle. As someone mentioned, mileage has to do with price more than anything. A vehicle with 30k miles may actually be in worse shape than one that was meticulously maintained at 200k miles.

I worked at a Mazda dealership a while back and a guy brought in his car for its first oil change at 30 thousand miles! As far as I'm concerned, it could have its oil changed every 2k miles from then on out, but the damage was done. I brought some of the oil to my service manager to bring to the customer and it was black as night and thick as honey.

When shopping for a used vehicle- mileage is really a very small factor in the overall process of doing such. If you don't feel confident inspecting a vehicle yourself, take it to a mechanic to have it inspected. Carfax reports are nice to have and if you're searching around for a car- get the 1 month subscription so that you can run every vehicle you're interested through.

Having rambled through all this, I have just one more thing to say-
I personally would never buy a new vehicle. It's about as smart as buying 2 used cars and throwing 1 away. Buying a "first model" or a redesigned model in its first year is even worse. If you just have to have a new one, let the company get the kinks and flaws worked out of it first.
Idealistically, if you just have to have that new car smell- buy a certified pre-owned under warranty. That way someone else has already paid the 20% depreciation the car went through just by being titled.

On a good note, it's getting harder and harder for a vehicle's odometer to be tampered with. With Carfax miles, title mileage documentation and more and more automakers storing mileage into its computer. As someone said- a computer can be changed out, but it will still most likely show a discrepency in mileage somewhere along the documentation of the vehicle.

My $.0002 ;)

~R