milage has not changed in a year...

[missxashlee]

What is the name of your state? North Carolina

My boyfriend purchased a 97' Ford Mustang that had 128,000 miles a little under a year ago. He purchased the car AS IS - however less than a week after having the car something broke leaving the driver side of the car almost touching the ground. (Sorry, I cannot remember the name of the part.) Well, the dealership had one of their partners tow it to their shop and they fixed it for free - to keep on good terms for the future. Well after this incident my boyfriend noticed that the mileage had not changed since he had the car. At first he thought maybe it was broken and left it at that. Well, he was looking through the paper work in his glove box because its time for inspection and ran across the inspection form from the previous inspection and the previous owner or dealer. On the inspection paper it list the mileage at 138,000 - which is 10,000 more than what the dealer claimed was on the car when he purchased it. Obviously the dealership had to know about the milage because they had the car inspected for him before he purchased(different inspection from the paper that was found in the glove box). Either the dealership knew that the odometer (mileage thing) was broken - the dealership changed the mileage - OR both. Can anyone provide any legal advice for this problem?

[Some Random Guy]

Locate the paperwork from when you bought the car. It should have a sheet with the mileage on it and checkboxes for whether the mileage is believed to be inaccurate.

If the box is checked, then the dealer disclosed the mileage may be in error.

Also, the dealer may hav enever seen the previous inspection paperwork or read it. Many trade-ins are cleaned up by low level employees and resold without the management inspecting the vehicle in detail.

[missxashlee]

We've located the paper work from when he bought the car and where it has the milage listed the box is not checked saying that the mileage is inacurate.

My boyfriend went up to the dealership and discussed the issue with the man that sold him the car, he quickly got an attitude and didnt want to discuss the issue basically saying "well, what do you want me to do about it?" His reaction was no expected at all considering that 4 days after my boyfriend bought the car a major part broke, he called the dealer and a few hours after contacting him he had a tow truck at his house to pick up the car, and paid to have the problem fixed. We were really satisified with their resolution to the problem. So when he became so angry and non-friendly about the milage issue it lead us to believe that he knew the milage was messed up, he rolled the milage back, or both.

Since we have the paperwork and there is nothing on there stating that the milage is inacurate, what can be done?

[fairisfair]

you might find this interesting.

not a referral posted for informational purposes only.

[url]http://www.wbblawyers.com/newsDetails.asp?nid=13[/url]

[missxashlee]

whew. that was a lot to read with a lot of law jargen, that i really didnt understand. Tell me if this is correct...

with a trial jury, the plaintiff won the money... then the defentent tried to appeal the case and they lost again?

[fairisfair]

Originally Posted by missxashlee

whew. that was a lot to read with a lot of law jargen, that i really didnt understand. Tell me if this is correct...

with a trial jury, the plaintiff won the money... then the defentent tried to appeal the case and they lost again?

that is what I read. How much did you pay for the truck??

[missxashlee]

it's a 1997 ford mustang and he paid right at 10,000 after taxes, tags, etc. but he just had to replace the clutch in his car which was 700 dollars and he has bought rims for the car which are almost 3,000, tented his windows which was 200, and a few other things that werent as costly.

[fairisfair]

how long has he had the vehicle?

[missxashlee]

this month is a year. the reason he never did anything sooner is because he thought maybe the odometer was just broken and he could have it replaced when it was time to do the inspection. but come to find out the milage had been changed after the previous owner sold it and before my boyfriend bought it.

[fairisfair]

I guess I would start with the department of Motor vehicles, DOT or whatever it is called where you are at. Then consider small claims if the dealer is not willing to make a deal. Not sure how long you would have to file so you need to research that. There doesn't appear to be a significant difference in value at least according to Kelly Blue book. In fact, according to that your boyfriend paid a little too much for the car even if it did have 128K on it. Others will advise.

[missxashlee]

if the dealer makes an offer or ask what he wants..what is too little and whats to much to ask for (in terms of giving him what he paid back and keeping the car)

[missxashlee]

up-dated information...

we ran the carfax report and all of the mileage readings seem legit untill you get to the transaction between the previous owner and the dealer. there is not mileage listed for when the previous owner sold it to the dealer, but when the dealer recieves it the mileage is listed as 128,700....and the best part is we have the inpsection paper which states the mileage as 129,570. Then the dealer mileage when he bought the car was 128,700 the car sat on his lot for approx. 8 months and the mileage reading when my boyfriend bought the car says that there was 128,701. We believe that the dealer added the extra mile for inspection/carfax purposes so you couldnt pick up on the odometer rollback.

[msiron]

This does not mean there was a roll back, the cluster or ebcm (depending on which is utilized in this Ford) may have failed and when new one is installed the tech has to enter the data (mileage). This could have been done in error, off by that 10k of miles. You need all service records on this car, and a VIS.

and if someone knew what they were doing (rollback) they certainly wouldn't roll back a paltry 10k, it would be more like 70k.

[missxashlee]

Originally Posted by msiron

This does not mean there was a roll back, the cluster or ebcm (depending on which is utilized in this Ford) may have failed and when new one is installed the tech has to enter the data (mileage). This could have been done in error, off by that 10k of miles. You need all service records on this car, and a VIS.

and if someone knew what they were doing (rollback) they certainly wouldn't roll back a paltry 10k, it would be more like 70k.

My boyfriend had a meeting with the dealer friday afternoon.... the dealer has had 5 days prior to the meeting to prepare the paper work. Well friday after noon the dealer hasnt gathered any of the papers we've requested. At the meeting, we found out that my boyfriend is the 3rd person that the dealer has sold the car to - paperwork should not have been hard to get together. my boyfriend wasnt trying to be greedy, the dealer asked what he wanted from him and my boyfriend told him he would be satisfied with enough to pay the car off and he refused. And we found out that the dealer sold the car 3 times with the same mileage. (he added 1 mile to the end so carfax wouldnt suspect a rollback).

[msiron]

They will just claim they made a typo error... 138,000 128,000 would be very BELIEVABLE as an error, and very easy to make that genuine error.

How much could a 97 stang with almost 150k on it cost??? There is actually a payoff/note on this vehicle?

Just let it go, you won't get far. And the dealer is under no obligation to have any paperwork ready for a meeting with your BF, it's not court you know.

There blowing you off, take the hint and move on... and learn from your mistakes.