A selection of
your comments... I saw the programme this evening ref car clocking.
Is it safer to buy a second hand car from the main dealer of that make of
car, if you are trying to avoid buying a clocked vehicle.
The rationale
for this being, that if the car is still under manufacturers warranty then it
will probably have a dealer service history and surely the dealers can detect
that an odometer has been tampered with..
Am I correct in thinking that
it is safer to buy second hand from a dealer? Alan Walker I bought
a vehicle from what appeared to be a reputable dealer, the vehicle was specialist
and therefore expensive but at 10 years old we did not expect pristine. Not
only did the vehicle have an invalid MOT certificate (a subsequent retest showed
a fail with at least 14 advices) but it had been clocked. Unfortunately
for us the dealer or garage they used, or someone else who mysteriously took a
dislike to us, set fire to the vehicle on our driveway in front of our house.
(Far be it for me to cast aspersions on anyone's character but we cannot think
of anyone that would carry out this seemingly random action of targeted arson.
The arson took place within 24 hours of the mot station being made aware of the
retest request)- the explosion shook the house and woke our neighbours. The
fire did not destroy the vehicle fully (we had 3 big fire extinguishers and helpful
guests) which meant the retest could be carried out on the rear end only. Our
insurers told us that the vehicle had been clocked, and was worth 拢1,000
less than we paid for it. We were also told that if we had not taken action to
investigate the dodgy mot, we would not have been insured. Luckily our involving
vosa meant we could at least get some of the money we paid. Now we only
go to a dealer that a trusted friend or acquaintance personally recommends! The
police investigation was inconclusive - no proof was found that the dealership
or garage that carried out the mot were responsible. The law needs to be
changed. If selling a vehicle which is later found to have been clocked during
that ownership were illegal, the dealership would have had to face charges for
selling it to us. Kate Have just finished watching the "car
clocking" item on tonight's programme.
Can I possibly be the only
person who thinks that if car mileage (as registered on the clock) was recorded
each time on a car's MOT certificate (a 10 second job for the engineer) that would
put paid to about 99% of this nonsense? Someone, somewhere would surely see if
a car had less registered miles this year than it did last year... Just a thought.
C E Scaife Being in the car trade for many years I obviously know about
clocking. What made me laugh was how you pursued the man actually doing the clocking.
In my mind he's just providing a service, it is after all the person who has asked
him to do the job who is doing the real wrong by selling the car to the unsuspecting
public.
However what really made me laugh was what your RAC man had to
say about the 116000 mile Audi A4, saying that its components would be worn out
and that it had basically had its day!
This is the real root of the problem
- modern cars can easily do 200,000 miles plus - it's not how many miles a car
has done but the service history it has that matters. However because of programme's
like yours (and there's been many) the public believe that when a car has done
more than a 100,000 miles it's knackered! The misinformed public would
rather buy a car showing low miles with no history than by a car with full service
history but having done over a 100,000 miles. Therefore car dealers and more to
the point the public themselves pander to this desire and in order to sell their
cars they clock them!
In actual fact it is the private seller who uses
people to "correct" their mileage more so than the dealers because they
want top money for the car, especially when part exchanging the car at a dealer.
It is cheaper to clock a car before each MOT or service than it is to have it
serviced properly, therefore there is no way you could find out - the only person
who really knows the true miles on a car is the person who brought it from new.
Nowadays
more people are doing more and more miles, high mileage cars a good value for
money and certainly not knackered or worn out. If people weren't so obsessed with
low mileage, then clocking would be a thing of the past, maybe you should make
a program about the good value of a high mileage cars? Simon Wall Here
in The Netherlands car clocking is a common thing. Almost every cab company is
using car clocking services to get back just a bit more money for there cars.
But therefore we have one by government controlled company to check mileage on
cars. I would suggest that you follow this example. In the Netherlands it's
called N.A.P. (Nationale autopas). Sophie and Florian
My husband
and I have recently traded in our old car for a new one. We then received a letter
from a company... asking us to give details of the vehicle that we had traded
in, including:
- date of purchase - mileage when purchased - date
sold - mileage when sold - where vehicle purchased from - where Vehicle
sold to
We have not yet completed this as we have never heard of this
type of company and don't know whether this is a genuine request. How can we find
out if this is genuine? Sharon and Steve Nicholls
If you have
evidence that these people are car-clocking, why is the evidence not with the
police and why are the police not charging them and putting them out of business?
Surely it should be a police priority to spot the suspicious advertisements
for this crime? Peter Lewis Does not a car have an MOT certificate
that will show mileage? Viv
I have just watched your TV programme
Inside Out and was interested in the article on speedometer clocking.
My
father who is 82 years of age bought a quality used Mercedes Benz from a garage,
at the time the car was about 1 year old, and displayed a mileage of 9900 miles.
When the car became due for its first MOT test, the car failed and showed excessive
wear in the suspension and the steering - this raised our suspicions about the
authenticity of the mileage.
After a lot of research we proved that
[the garage] had clocked this car but will do nothing about it.
I have
documented evidence to prove this but so far after two years [they] will still
not do anything about this. I have spoken to several people at [the garage] and
all they do is fob me off telling me that all the past history of the car has
clerical errors.
I am more than willing to make this evidence available
for viewing, but so far nobody has the balls to take on [the garage]. Robin
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