AutoCheck odometer history

[Silver_TT]

I am about to pay for and take delivery of a 2002 Turbo with 58K miles. The price is fair -- it's what Edmunds says the car is worth, and it seems right given the vehicles I have been looking at for the last few months. Mechanically the vehicle looks to be in good shape... there is just one thing. I ran a Experian Autocheck on it and it only scored a 76 with a warning that the vehicle does not qualify for Buyback protection. When I looked at why the score is so low it appears to be because of two things.

1. Loan/lien records - The owner told me he originally had a loan on the vehicle. I'm assuming it just hasn't been reported as paid off, which he's telling me it now is.

2. Odometer rollback/rollver. The thing here is that I actually see the mileage decrease TWICE, but both times by very small amounts.. and the car had also been moving from different states.

Here are the readings:

DATE MILEAGE LOCATION DATA SOURCE

11/03/2004 6,741 Maryland Motor Vehicle Dept

12/07/2005 11,338 Pacific SW Region Auto Auction

01/25/2006 10,723 Arizona Motor Vehicle Dept ***MILEAGE DECREASED***

06/08/2006 13,099 Texas State Agency

10/02/2006 12,012 Texas Motor Vehicle Dept ***MILEAGE DECREASED***

10/22/2007 28,235 Texas State Agency

I'm guessing these were people at the DMV who fat-fingered or weren't that accurate with odometer readings. Isn't it almost impossible to hack the odometer and computer in these cars? Even if someone found out how to do it, why would you do this to a car with 10K miles on it just to rollback 500 miles. Doesn't make sense and strongly points to a clerical error.

Is there a way to verify this or get it corrected? How would something like this affect the value of the vehicle later?? Should I be concerned with this and walk away from the vehicle?

Edited March 19, 2013 by ferrugia

[Silver_TT]

I just talked to AutoCheck and they said the one of the decreases is from the Emissions department and they said that doesn't really count because they always make mistakes. It does look like in AZ or the auto auction the mileage was wrong. They are able to check on the auction and have created a case and will get back to me. They said otherwise if it was from the AZ DMV then the owner needs to get in touch with them to see if he can get it corrected. So sounds like no fraud, but obviously I just want a 100% clear and pristine record.

[jpflip]

If you can get the info about the ecu it would be useful. (Durametric , PIWIS or PST2 can give you this information.) First for the amount of revolution above the limit Type I and also if there was any type II overrev's....At the same time you can get the hours of the car. You normally multiply the hours by 30 (for 30 miles per hour average or 50 if you are in kilometers) and you got an approximation of the miles on the car.....

[Silver_TT]

Good news! I just heard back from AutoCheck about my open case on this and their research team was able to determine that there was an error when someone entered the mileage from the title. So they are taking it off the report as a black mark because it's an error... the emissions one is able to be taken off after we fax them a copy of the title...... so the records are clear and the score is looking a lot better now at 91!

Edited March 20, 2013 by ferrugia