Carfax Says There Are Over 1.6m Trucks And Cars With Tampered Odometers.

Some of the things that people do in the automotive industry to make a quick buck are simply absurd. Even when it comes in the name of ripping off innocent people, there are lots of used car salesman out there who aren’t exactly going to be honest. There are definitely honest salesmen out there but for others, their reputation proceeds them. These might not always be professionals, either. With the help of information on the web, there could be lots of people doing something underhanded.

The odometer rollback is almost as old as the automotive industry itself. Depending on the vehicle, there can be lots of easy ways to roll back the mileage. One would think that, with computers involved these days, it will be more difficult. However, the exact opposite is true. A little bit of Googling and the right software can allow a crooked car salesman to roll back any odometer that they choose. It’s so common, in fact, that there are over 1.6 million cars on record with a tampered odometer. This is in addition to 450,000 cars being added every year.

Just to give you an idea of how simple it can be on some machines, I actually had a personal run-in with this sort of experience. In the midst of building a Chevrolet Silverado race truck, half of my gauges stopped working. It was off to the junkyard to buy another gauge cluster for the truck. As it turns out, though, the mileage stays with the cluster. Therefore, in a situation like that, a simple $100 cluster could have a crooked salesman making a couple thousand more dollars. This is while the buyer gets stuck with a car that isn’t as advertised. Not only does this devalue the car because it is more used but it also raises safety concerns for a vehicle with higher mileage.

A couple of tips have been presented by Carfax in order to help protect buyers from this phenomenon. The first is to analyze wear and tear. For those who are inexperienced, it might be difficult to do but making sure that the vehicle’s wear lines up with the mileage can be something very obvious.

In step number two, they recommend getting the vehicle inspected by professional. This could help out with those who aren’t sure what wear signs to look for.

Lastly, they recommend getting a Carfax report. Now, some might be thinking that this is just an effort to boost their sales. While that might be a side effect, we definitely have to agree that getting one of these reports can be a wealth of information. After all, $40 could save buyers a world of regret.