Milage 'clocking' more prevalent than previously thought

[Vince Green]

I have been reading on a motor trades forum that the practice of clocking the milage on cars is much more common that previously thought.

part of the problem is that the plug in software to do it is so readily available.

the other side of the problem is that so many makes of car allow the milage to be altered by this software without any sort of security firewall to prevent tampering.

Once a car is three years old it goes into the MOT database and milage is recorded. So tampering with the milage after this point becomes difficult.

However, three years is also the usual lease period so many cars are leased out from new  for three years with a contract milage of 30,000 miles. They highlight the "amazing coincidence " that so many of these cars are returned with milage just under 30,000 miles . Read into that what you will.

 

[JKD]

Might be my imagination, but I'm sure someone posted this exact thing 24 minutes ago 🤔 😅

[Dougy]

The mileage on mine shows on every MOT so surly it would be rather difficult to clock ? Obviously not in the 1st 3 years, but any work done the milage is usually noted on the dealers data base.  

[Rewulf]

21 minutes ago, Vince Green said:

Once a car is three years old it goes into the MOT database and milage is recorded. So tampering with the milage after this point becomes difficult.

Im not sure about this to be honest, theres also service intervals, the first few should really be done at the main dealers, so unless they are being quite strategic with the clocking, and we are talking early days and relatively low mileages, its not really worth it.
After it starts getting MOTs, again, its going to need clocking every year, now Im sure it happens, but not as prolific as it used to be when we had mechanical odometers.
Its certainly not as easy to clock a digital speedo as what you may have been lead to believe.

 

26 minutes ago, Vince Green said:

However, three years is also the usual lease period so many cars are leased out from new  for three years with a contract milage of 30,000 miles. They highlight the "amazing coincidence " that so many of these cars are returned with milage just under 30,000 miles . Read into that what you will.

 

The 'coincidence' is more likely the penalty charge when a lease car goes over mileage, this can get quite expensive.
I have customers who stop using the car as much, when they have approached max mileage and its due to go back.