Odometer fraud?

[Tom P.]

What do you make of this?

Toyota 4runner *ASK FOR THE CARFAX**ODOMETER TAMPERING****

"Hello....If you are interested in buying a toyota vehicle make sure you get the carfax to make sure there isn't any odometer tampering. there are a couple here in Austin that I've gotten the carfax on and it shows that the vehicles have much more mileage that what the owner claims it currently has. The years on these vehicles are from 98-03. They are commiting odometer fraud and can be reported to the authorities."

 

[BrianSD_42]

Well I don't actually trust carfax.

Always try to buy from a private seller and preferably someone you CAN track down.

I doubt anyone will sell you a car with fraudulent mileage if they are selling it parked in front of their house.

:guitar2:

 

[KHoffRunner]

Yeah i think it happens relativity often.. my parents had a '95 4runner and at 60k a drink was spilled in the dash and we had to replace the odometer but long story short we sold the 4runner and gave the guy the odometer that was taken out and about two months later i noticed it was on craigslist and was listed to have only have 70k miles, which was what was on the replaced odometer! But in relativity it had 130 on it..

 

[Victor_inox]

Well I don't actually trust carfax.


I doubt anyone will sell you a car with fraudulent mileage if they are selling it parked in front of their house.

:guitar2:

I disagree, it`s only dangerous if you can prove rollback. If I bought the car new, drove 100000miles and then installed new cluster, then what? how you can prove it if I services it myself or in independent shop? rolling back odometers is HUge businessand billions of dollars lost because of odo rollback.
if you can prove it then seller will have to buy it back for full price but only if you can prove it. colorado emission testing places no longer reporting mileage of the test, one less trusted source to collect odo info. i bet you can tell if vehicle have 100000 on odo vs 10000 but that wouldn`t be enought to accuse someone in odo fraud. if would be enough for you not to buy it in first place though. I bought Vw bug with 4000 on odo only to doscover later that it was at least 20000 more according to emission testing record. I bought it from a dealer so I returned it and got100% refund including registration fees. I`d rather buy from dealer then private seller. dealer board is very powerful organization, dealer can get his/her license revoked for things like that, bonded and insured dealer is way safer then private party. nothing you can do to private guy but sue. time and money consuming process and then good luck getting judgement money from that guy.

 

[Brilliant]

why waste your energy on this one?

 

[98OzarksRunner]

There's a used car dealer in our city (150K population) that has listed several low-mileage 4Runners and Land Cruisers for really good prices. I ran a carfax on a couple of them (at different times) and they both had over 100K more than his internet ads claim. I don't know if it's bait and switch ('Sorry that was a typo') or they are really defrauding people. I thought about going to look at one just to see what the odo says.

You can also get on the toyota owners site, enter a VIN as your car and get the maintenance history on it. Anything done at a Toyota dealer will show up. (It's also free.) I just bought a 2002 Limited and got full history back to 2005 (probably when they started using this system). I confirmed that with the carfax and got a great truck at a good price, with confidence.

 

[Victor_inox]

There's a used car dealer in our city (150K population) that has listed several low-mileage 4Runners and Land Cruisers for really good prices. I ran a carfax on a couple of them (at different times) and they both had over 100K more than his internet ads claim. I don't know if it's bait and switch ('Sorry that was a typo') or they are really defrauding people. I thought about going to look at one just to see what the odo says.

You can also get on the toyota owners site, enter a VIN as your car and get the maintenance history on it. Anything done at a Toyota dealer will show up. (It's also free.) I just bought a 2002 Limited and got full history back to 2005 (probably when they started using this system). I confirmed that with the carfax and got a great truck at a good price, with confidence.

My wifes old rav4 only shows what was done for the of the warranty- first 36000. every oil change for the first 3 years but nothing after that.