I have a somewhat hypothetical question. I bought a 96 Camry with 76,000 miles supposedly on the dash a couple years back. Seemed to have problems that you shouldn’t at that low mileage. What are some ways you can tell the real mileage of a older car that may have been rolled back?
I saw this a lot when I was shopping for my kids' first cars...
Odometer tampering is VERY common with Toyotas because of their resale value... On OfferUp and Craigslist (mostly on OfferUp), I found over three dozen incidences of tampering. How? Before looking at a car, I'd use the VIN or license plate to get the VIN and search incessantly. If a seller hid the plates and VIN, I wouldn't go see the car after I had ONE experience when I got there and the car was clearly totaled at one point although shiny. My OBD showed no airbags as a pending code... Yep, my $2.50 Car Scanner Pro app for Android picked that poop up real nice! I have found cars with 100,000-mile rollbacks from 4-5 years ago! That means 100k PLUS whatever happened over the last 4-5 years. Even with average driving, that's 60k!
Sadly, even a Toyota dealership was selling a car with a CarFax mileage concern. Saw one a few weeks ago. Easily a 50k discrepancy going back a year.
Tips:
- Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo and MSN your VIN. You'd be amazed at how many "donate your car" websites keep archives around. That seems to be the main source for these repeat scammers.
- Go to Toyota.com and sign up for the owner's account. Adding your VIN gives you the ability to see any service records that might be hanging around. If something like a recall happened in 2010, you might see the actual mileage then and can compare with what it is today.
- Toyota dealers have "Service Line" reports, probably the same as the Toyota Owner's information, but more thorough (including detailed notes as opposed to generic codes.
- Sign up for the CarFax garage. You might see a mileage from a QuickieLoob oil change 6 years ago...
- Check the VehicleHistory and FAXVIN websites.
- Ask to see the smog checks/inspection forms from the past. Let's face it, most of these slime buy and flip over a period of a couple of months to a year. Real documentation is rare. They usually buy from an old lady who hands over all the service records and these scum trash the records and go to work... I got to the point where I took alcohol pads to see if they WD-40d the paint to make it look good. (That's really effective!)
- A hacked version of TechStream software might help. (Owners with pre-collision systems, see below)
- Referring back to item 2, if the car was sold in another state, check registration histories. Some states have inspections that are reported. Maybe you can get a free CarFax by befriending someone who works at a dealership or with an online sales site.
Now for those owners with a pre-collision and/or lane departure system from Toyota... I have a so-equipped Rav4 or two... I can't get the actual odometer reading from the ECU using the hacked TechStream software, but... You can get a VEHICLE DIAGNOSTIC REPORT with the VEHICLE CONTROL HISTORY REPORT. It records all sorts of odd things like engaging the ABS or getting an emergency brake alert. It records the odometer and the key cycle (presumably, every time the car is turned on or fully started). It's a sneaky way to find out what the real odometer was at a particular time.
Excellent!!
Is there documentation present? Whenever you find records of saying that "this part" was replaced at "this mileage", then you could tell how the vehicle was treated.
Where did you buy this vehicle? If it was a private party, did you asked them if anything was replaced? Also, what problems are currently on this car?
