mx5cartalk.com

16/03/2022
'Surge in odometer tampering
Fair Trading has recorded a four-fold increase in fines for odometer tampering.

There has been a four-fold increase in the number of fines issued for odometer tampering in NSW, with hundreds of thousands of kilometres being knocked off vehicle odometers and sold to unsuspecting buyers.

The state government is warning car buyers to be wary about the dodgy practice, which the Fair Trading Minister Eleni Petinos called "abhorrent".

Particularly egregious examples include one seller shaving 400,000 kilometres off a Subaru XV and selling it for $32,000 — an $11,000 increase on its previous price.

"NSW Fair Trading Investigators dished out $112,200 in fines and 76 penalty notices in 2021 and 2022 — a huge jump from 22 total penalties in 2020 — so anyone considering conning a potential buyer by odometer tampering should know that when you are caught, it's going to cost you," Ms Petinos said.

She said buyers of second-hand cars should always do their due dilligence before handing over cash.

"If it seems too good to be true, it just might be. So, it's worth taking extra measures to make sure you don't end up with an expensive mistake," Ms Petinos said'.

So it’s a $1500 fine IF (and a big if) you get caught, and one person made an extra $11000 by doing it. Well worth the risk to them I’d suggest. Even if they got caught every 6 times they did it, they’d still be ahead…..

They should make the fine $20000 and car confiscation so it’s more of a deterrent to the lowlifes doing this,

Who do you suggest they confiscate the car from? I don't think there is a refund and return of the car to the seller. I'd imagine it would be more a civil matter. It would be a confusing and complex situation which is not worth fathoming.

When I got caught out with my NB8A years ago where the seller had changed the instrument panel to another one with ~300,000km lower reading that I found after later contacting Mazda when I eventually got suspicious, I found as far as a private sale goes there's virtually nothing you can do (in SA at least anyway). I went to police, a lawyer, rego department and no one wanted to know about it. He wouldn't appear at any conciliation meeting or anything so I eventually just had to cop it and put it down to experience. He'd done a bloody good con job of paperwork and history stuff just to sell it for probably about $3-4k more than it would have sold with honest mileage. Car was actually in really nice condition but started to show some major mechanical problems that defied the ~140k odo reading. As it turned out I got most of my money back a short time later when I traded it on the SE, despite me explaining to the dealer in detail the odo reading and mechanical issues!

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