A tale of caution when buying used

[DSUK]

You might have noticed my earlier post about buying a used Octavia 1.9 tdi
I did not go ahead withe the purchase. The car drove well and looked good. It came up HPI clear and all the documentation seemed to tie up. It was priced cheap by a 'trader' at £4999 for a new shape 05 plate estate with 67,000 miles on the clock, which kept alarm bells ringing. I could not contact the previous owner to ask them about the car as it was registered to a leasing company that I could not track down. But I looked into it a little deeper and managed to ring the garage that had serviced and stamped up the book on 4 occasions. Guess what, they had no record of the car ever being to them. Further more, they had moved premises about 2 years ago, and a month before this someone had stolen their garage stamp that they use on the service books. The car I was going to buy was stamped up using this old address just a couple of months ago. I think the car must have come into the trade with a blank service book and someone has seen an opportunity, clocked the car and then used the stolen stamp to give ut a service history that tied up with the cars new mileage. The only alarm bells that rang when I looked at it was the wear on the gear kn0b and gater that did not tie in the same as other cars with similar mileage I have seen I wonder how many miles it had really covered. Needless to say i will be getting my £200 deposit back. Moral of the story, don't be afraid to delve in as much as you can before parting with all your money!

[Tom_vRS]

My alarm bells would have been ringing at the price tbh!!!

Its a shame really, as if it had done 130k honest, fully service historied miles then at £5k it would have been an excellent deal!

[mannyo]

To true, this type of thing is becoming more common. What the dealer may not know however, is that even if the car had been clocked, with the octavia, only the mileage displayed on the dash is changed. If the car is hooked up to vag-com, then the non changeable correct mileage can be read from the ECU because its also recorded there independantly from the dash panel.

[DSUK]

Even if I got it hooked up to a VAG com to see the correct mileage, this kind of dishonesty with the car has kind of put me off! Also I drive about 40,000 miles a year and wanted to keep it for about 3 years, hence me being interested in a car that had only done 67,000 miles not potentially 167,000!

[mantamad]

Have you reported it to trading standards? if not do so before some one else ends up buying a lemon.

Simon

[Tomo1971]

Regarding the mileage been hidden, I would guess that, by now, you can get this "wound back" or corrected. I was in one of these places that do "digital milegae correction" a few weeks back (for something different BTW) and got speaking to them. They can now do the BMW's that hide the mileage in 5 or 6 different places. They charge 250 but it can be done, so wouldnt suprise me if they can do others using similar technologies.

So beware. If in doubt, ask the seller if he will allow you to take it to VAG to check and find out where the ICU's are hidden in the car and check for loose trim panels around that area or damaged screw heads etc

Steve

[Gizmo68]

I agree take someone with VAG-COM along to 'check for fault codes'

Then use it to check the mileage & service date / mileage.

If they refuse then they are hiding something so walk away.

[woodenspatulas]

sadly its the old saying "if its too good to be true, it probably is"

good work at keeping your money away from that car. likes been said above, the dealer might not have known anything was wrong with it. best thing is to keep an eye out, or post up the reg maybe?