before you all say you should have checked and yes i know i should have, why is it when we see a car we want we go all out to get it?
I bought a 1997 R plate BMW 328i coupe auto with 54k on the clock. I cant get into the "BMW driving experience" so im going to change it. Ive gone to a garage and after a bit of digging around, or the fact is ive been informed that 2 years ago at a BMW garage has had the vehicle in for what ever, it had 82k on the clock. 9 months later it has gone in to a BMW garage and it is recorded as 44K on the clock. This i have had verified. I do not have the service history, it is in the post (the forecourt i bought it from have not repeat not clocked it). is the history genuine?, the garage i bought it from believe so.
Apparently these cars are very hard to clock the garage that worked on it are going to check the original paper work to see what was done to it (im hoping that it was a odometer prob but hold little hope).
I suppose the moral is always be very careful im gonna be 8 grand out of pocket all told (ive modified the car lights, exhaust etc)
Why is it the honest people who get ......
as matter of fact ive been offered 4000 for it i guess i have to take that
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I also bought a BMW that had been clocked. I bought it privately and it was one of those silly things where I had made the decision to buy the moment I saw the car. Checked the car over all seemed in order, slimmed through the service history, made an offer and bought the car. I had the car for 3 years trouble free motoring and decided it was time to move on and sell the car.
So I dug out all the docs ready to sell the car and read through the service history. The milage on the stamps went something like this (all in K's):
89, 95, 101, 109, 115, 119, 60, 66, 73 <-- this is when I bought the car.
I guess the true milage when I sold the car was around 200K, it still ran fine (mobil 1). I told the guy who bought the car the true milage but the same as when I bought it he was on an impulse buy and just said "that mileage isn't a problem for a BMW"
And the moral is - read and check any docs/service history very, very carefully
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And the moral is - read and check any docs/service history very, very carefully
My old 325tds was clocked after I sold it. I was contacted by Vehicle Milage Check (I think) asking whether the car had 44k on the clock when I sold it a year earlier. I said no that it had 88k on the clock and if they needed any further info to contact me.
They didn't
Obviously the FBMWSH had disappeared along with any documents.
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Don't just READ the service history, check it out.
I bought a clocked car once, full service history all the right stamps, all fakes done with a John Bull printing kit.
The only thing to do is map it all out and then call the garages concerned, they are surprisingly helpful given there's no wonga in it for them...
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Just a little bit of lateral thinking....has somebody entered 82 instead of 32 on the service record input? An easy mistake if the figure is written by a mechanic on an oily piece of paper?
Check all of the BMW service history to see if other records hang together. presumably you can do this via a dealer.
pmh (was peter)
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Just a little bit(more) lateral thinking
could it be nothing more sinister than the car(s) having had a new/secondhand speedo/rev counter fitted at sometime,for whatever reason?.
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Could well be just a speedo change, with no malice, this should be recorded in the missing history, even if it took 9 months to find out, surely you must have some recourse if you bought it from a dealer, whether they clocked it or not, you paid 54k money.
Don't know what the true mileage is, but I'd have thought a 100k 328i auto coupe would be worth a lot more than 4 grand.
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I assume the car in question has a digital odometer. All it takes to clock this is a connection from a laptop computer to the engine ecu or whatever under the bonnet. Not even any telltale signs of wonky number digits or removed dashboards anymore....so much for progress!
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Ok found out some more today a little bit more optomistic!!! the "forecourt" i bought it from has been to the bmw dealer he bought it from he asures me that this car is not clocked ( yes i know the possibility he would say anything, but to be honest i believe what he is saying) i do think that it is an odometer change. he said that they hve the history and on monday he will be there talking to the sales manager about this he is also getting them to check there "manual" records of what exactly was done to the car.
On speaking to Bmw myself i can confirm that BMW garages have done a lot of work to the car
Even if i do eventually verify the milage at least i know i have a "genuine" high milage car.....
And all because i wanted to get a Honda Civic Type R and use this as a part x (glad i found out)
How honest should i be (dilemma) when i get the service history and it shows it at 54,000 i could pass this on and not lose so much..what to do
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When selling a house, you don't have to volunteer any facts about it that might adversely influence a potential buyer, although you are expected to give an honest answer to any question. Doesn't the same principle apply to selling a car?
--
L'escargot by name, but not by nature.
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BMW digital dash odo's are easy to clock via a laptop. There are guys you can ring on a mobile number and they'll come around at set the mileage to what you want (costs about £120 in this neck of the woods).
If a BMW dealer swaps an odo they can set the new one to the mileage displayed on the old one (no need to leave it at zero). There are lots of folks get suckered into clocked BMW's because they are desperate to get behind a BMW badge at a 'bargain' price. It is also oft repeated nonsense that they can do 200k without a problem. Sure, a lot do 200K, but often these are cars that are company owned and sit on the motorway all day, get regular service etc. Under these circumstances most modern cars will do 200k. I would be unhappy about buying any clocked car - at the end of the day someone has committed a criminal offence and you should investigate as thoroughly as possible.
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epaul
There's a way to check if a BMW has had a speedo change -
Ignition off
Press and hold the trip meter reset button
Turn the ignition to the auxiliary position
Let go the button.
A series of numbers will flash up.
The fourth to appear will be the last four digits of the VIN number of the car the speedo was originally fitted to - hopefully matches the car it's in.
OK, doesn't prove it's not been clocked, but if it's not the original, it certainly needs more checks.
Regards
John S
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When selling a house, you don't have to volunteer any facts about it that might adversely influence a potential buyer, although you are expected to give an honest answer to any question. Doesn't the same principle apply to selling a car? -- L'escargot by name, but not by nature.
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A quick word in your shell. YOU DO. Anything that materially affects the resale value of the house you sell you have to declare, questionare or not. If it crops up later in dispute, and can be proven you knew you are liable.
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When you say you've been "informed" that the car had 82K on the clock, by a garage, this wouldn't happen to be the garage where you were going to part-ex or sell the car to would it ?. Did they show you written proof of the 82K record or are they just trying to justify not wanting your car, or wanting to give you less money for it (Or am I barking up the wrong tree for the wrong reasons here ?).
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Sorry Kith you are barking up the wrong tree. I have spoken personally to BMW Uk and they have told me about the recorded milage.
I have to ring the garage i bought it from monday evening as he is going to the BMW garage he bought it from to sort this out (so he says!!)
However i dont think im going to get my moneys worth fom this, although i do know what i am going to do about this and i aint going say here it would be decreed as a bit underhand. Im not going to lose money on this car, well if i do its only the depreciation value im going to lose!!!!!! through the verified milage
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Not so sure about that, but when you buy a house your solicitor asks a whole string of questions that try and cover every eventuality. The seller is liable for every wrong answer. The equivalent, if applied to buying cars, would obviously include the questions " Has this car to your knowledge ever been clocked? Have you ever had any suspicion that it might have been clocked ?"
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I had a similar experience with a 520SE a year ago. Everything looked fine, the service book was stamped and the dealer even gave me a HPI certificate. When I drove it home however and looked at the service book again I just had a gut feeling that everything wasn't quite what it seemed so I contacted the supplying dealer and asked about the service history. He told me that it had last been in a BMW garage for a service a year earlier at 107k miles - the speedo showed 29k! The dealer agreed to cancel the deal but he had already sold on my part-ex. We both lost about £1500 on the deal. He said that he had always relied on the HPI check to provide both himself and the seller with protection but clearly it is far from foolproof.
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Any car dealer would know that clocking is easy to arrange on BMW's and most other cars with electronic odo's therefore I would suspect your dealer's honesty if he told you it was difficult to clock BMW's
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epaul,
wot part of the country is this dealer? I did a PE with a dealer who then sold it to someone else they do a lot of business with PE cars. When I rang them up and told them that the person they had off-loaded the car to had clocked it they were mighty UNsurprised. Being very cynical is it not past the realms of possibility that a BM dealer could be winding the clock back themselves to make that extra ££££.
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A BMW mechanic friend told me about a possible method of checking mileage that he had come across.
Whilst troubleshooting a 5 series plugged into the main dealership diagnostic, he removed and reseated one of the sensors.The diagnostic machine correctly recognised and reported the sensor removal - along with the date and current mileage. Some time later, When he then went to start the car, he noticed the odometer mileage was significantly less than what the diagnostic machine had reported.
Anyone else heard of anything like this on BMW or any other manufacturer and also whether this also can be changed via laptop to reflect a lower mileage.
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Yes - fault diagnosis will store time and date and mileage. This can be printed out. If odo is 'wound back' then the 'new' mileage is what is retrieved by the diagnostic machine - the old print out will be your only evidence of the true mileage.
Incidentally, having attended auctions where high mileage BMW's have attracted higher than expected prices the cynic in me says that these were bought especially with clocking in mind.
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Okay the latest in this saga. I have spoken to the "person" who sold me the vehicle. He has the service history and is going to send it to me tomorrow, apparently there was an Odometer change which is shown in the service history.
However on discussing this with him he said im a grand out of pocket, I argued 2 grand, he told me his margin of profit including the car i chopped in (awesome VR6 chipped ..take me back 8 months) with respect i told him that, that wasnt my concern.
He is going to the people he bought it from to try to get some money back for me (we'll see)I dont hold any hope however I will ring trading standards....failing that im sure I can insure I can give some dealer a bad name.(local press etc that should make him help me)
Watch this space.... when i see the service history i'll know what to do next
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As there are several cynics contributing to this story, may I suggest that the delaying tactics with the history are giving time for one to be fabricated?
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About 18 months ago I was drinking in a local hotel bar and one of the town's car dealers was in there (I know his face from years gone by, he's a bit of a shady character), a little worse for wear. He was gobbing off to one of his associates about various aspects of the car business, I was playing pool at the time but kept an ear open, and his conversation turned to a BMW he'd had through recently (he was boasting about how little he'd paid for it and how much he'd sold it on for).
He then went on to say he reckoned one in three used BMWs was clocked and/or had a dodgy history in some respect (missed services were filled in on the record, information about damage was erased etc). "Not that I'd ever do it of course" he said, but that BMWs were dodgy business (or good business for a dealer), far more so than any other marque, because the buyers were usually so caught up with the badge that they didn't want to believe anything could be fake about it.
One in three used BMWs having some sort of fake history sounds a bit high to me, but who can say? And this was, as the saying goes, straight from the horse's mouth.
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epaul
A couple of point here.
1 Your arguement is with the chap who sold you the car - not the person who sold it to him. You should expect him to cough up the difference - if not Trading Standards are worth a visit.
2 If he DID get an HPI Mileage check then this wouldn't be a problem. HPI would be in a position to compensate him, then he would surely be in a position to compensate you.
This chap isn't a friend of your's. He's someone who sold you a dodgy motor and is responsible for it. He will not do you any favours - you don't expect him to. However you DO expect him to play by the rules and he is clearly not doiong so!
If I were you..... yes I know you've probably heard this a lot lately but - how is this for an approach.
Go in and see this chap. Verbally state:
Hidden mileage - actual minus declared
Value adjustment - expected refund
Time limit - 7 days
Follow up action if no result - Visit to Trading Standards WITH evidence.
Let Trading standards carry out their own investigation as to where the clocking occurred and prosecute as necessary.
This chap knows that he is in a very difficult position. If he were a reputable dealer he would at least negotiate with you over the difference in value and start with a financial offer.
Personally, if you want to offload the car you should really be looking at him to pay you good declared mileage price for it now. At least you'll only see expected depreciation.
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Had a very similar prob with a car that i sold,faked service record etc,customer showed me the evidence,we both acted very reasonably and a managed to get a 'proper'car to replace the wrong one.Sold the clocked car for £3000 less.
The dealer should be very concerned if TS get involved.
I would say full money back,or a 'proper' car of at least the same value.
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