Buy Used Car: Has The Mileage Reading Been Changed?

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The truth is that the vast majority of new car shoppers really have one thing in mind when they're out looking at vehicles. What they're looking for, is a reasonable deal that is being offered by an honest person who will be truthful about the vehicle history. How much wear and tear it has on it, and a fair price that's in accordance with that level of wear. Basically a car that's worth what they paid for it, and that isn't going to give them any unwanted maintenance repair surprises.

Now for sure what they don't want is a vehicle that has had the mileage numbers tempered with and reduced by a swindler. Of course it's illegal, and in fact it's a serious felony that can land a perpetrator behind bars for years. However, every now and again they do catch someone who's doing it. Generally what they do, is take a high mileage newer vehicle with perhaps 80 or 90,000 miles on it, and then drop the mileage down about 40 or 50,000 miles.

Now in the case of a higher end late-model vehicle a 50,000 mile reduction in the numbers on the odometer means that the selling price can be raised considerably. Several thousand dollars at least. Then if you're unfortunate enough to buy an overpriced car or truck like this, odds are the won't even notice anything is wrong. That is until it begins having mechanical problems about 50,000 miles sooner than it really should have.

Now what most people don't know, and you're probably one of them, is that lowering the miles on the vehicle's odometer is a whole lot easier than you may realize. You probably have a picture in your head of a relatively secure complex mechanism that has some safety device built-in. Something that requires a real expert to manipulate. The truth is far from that, and in fact most people who change odometer readings do it by simply by retrieving a lower mileage used speedometer from a wrecking yard.

The first thing that should get your warning flags up that a vehicle may have had its odometer reading lowered, is if the mileage just seems unreasonably low for the year of the car or truck. Now of course the seller will always have some story to explain the low mileage. Perhaps it was his grandmother's car or that it sat in storage while someone was perhaps overseas in the military, and this may or may not be true. So it's up to you to check things out beyond a simple story.

So the first to look once you get inside the car or truck, is around the dashboard area to check the screws to see if they've been removed and replaced. Are there any missing? Are there scratches on around them? What you have to consider here, is that a speedometer is a very rarely replaced. Then inspect places like the drivers side armrest, steering wheel, and carpeting below the pedals to see if the wear there corresponds with what's showing on the mileage reading.

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