I just purchased a used 2020 Volkswagen Jetta with around 39,500 miles on it from one of our (reputable?) dealerships in our area. Looking over the carfax I noted the oil changes that had been done over the past 3 years. My concern is the last maintenance the dealership did the mileage on the carfax read 49,500 but my odometer is reading 39,500. I’m concerned on which one is accurate, do you think the mileage on the carfax recorded wrong or did the dealership rollback the odometer? I actually didn’t notice the infraction until having it now for 3 weeks. Thanks in advance
carfax read 49,500 but my odometer is reading 39,500.
the minimum wage data entry clerk couldn't read the mechanics chicken scratch on the invoice, so he just took a guess
One of the few things that Carfax is good for is detecting odometer rollback. However that's not much of a discrepancy. I doubt a dealer would bother pushing an odometer back only 10,000 miles, why not roll it back even further?
I agree with Chuck. It would be one thing if the car had over 100,00 miles but to rollback from 49,500 to 39,500 - why bother? I can’t explain the discrepancy. Since I have never been to the dealer my whole life for any kind of service it’s not clear to me how services performed by the dealer get recorded by CarFax; if someone has to manually input the mileage, then there is room for human error (like fat fingering). Is that what happened here?
It was more than likely "fat fingered", as both Chuck and DayWalker said. When typing with your right hand on the number pad (similar to a phone, except reversed) it's relatively easy to mistake a number, they probably typed it without looking. 3 and 4 are relatively close together. Using a regular keyboard is even closer together -they're right next to each other. It may have been someone with a case of the Mondays. There's no logical reason otherwise. It's exactly 10,000 miles different. Mileage says 39,500, the supposed Mileage is 49,500. It wouldn't be worth it. It may be worth another $800 more.
Whenever you have the time, find someone with a VCDS or VAGCOM scanner to read the mileage recorded on the onboard computer of the vehicle. That should provide a definitive answer.
Thanks everyone for your input and also restoring my faith in the dealership, I feel that it was just an honest mistake after reading your replies.
I agree with what everyone one else has said so far, probably just a clerical error. Even if it was rolled back, 10k isn't much and won't make too much of a difference with regards to the remaining lifespan of the car. You can try to use this information to your advantage however and try to knock off a few grand because the odometer isn't accurate (but most likely not really).
