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Odometer Fraud

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darling2321

Junior Member
:mad: What is the name of your state?lNew Jersey
I bought a used 1992 car and the miles were 134472. The odometer was broken, for how long I have no idea. The dealership that I bought it from tried to fix it twice without success. They finally decided to insert a new dash, with a new odometer and everything. now the odometer still doesn't work, but the miles read 72,298. Is this considered a type of odometer fraud?
 
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darling2321

Junior Member
Reply

NJ
I did know about the change but there is nothing noted on the vehicle record. It doesn't say on the title anywhere that it is a salvaged car. Is there anything I can do leagally? Thanks!
 
unknown miles

This is a fairly straightforward situation.

Federal law requires that a seller sign an odometer statement when a vehicle covered by said law is sold. If the odometer reading is incorrect, for any reason, the vehicle must be sold as "miles unknown". This is true even if the odometer is off by only 1/100th of a mile, since it would not be possible to determine it it were 1/100th of a mile or 100,000 miles. Guesses DON'T COUNT.

This situation can occur under several circumstances:

- odometer was illegally rolled back

- odometer was replaced

- under most circumstances, when odometer was repaired

- odometer was not connected for any period when car was driven

etc etc

That's right, if your new car (for instance) had its odometer fixed or changed with only 20 real miles on it, the car must be forever sold as "miles unknown". To do otherwise is illegal.

If the vehicle you bought was not sold "miles unknown" (ie, if they put an actual figure for mileage when it was sold), you might have a case. I say "might" because you knew about the problem. This DOES NOT RELIEVE THE DEALER'S RESPONSIBILITY TO PUT"Miles Unknown" on all appropriate docs, and indeed, they will do this sometimes because loan companies frequently refuse to finance such cars. At the very least, the contract can be negated IF they didn't note the unknown miles.

On your contract, what does it say under "mileage" when the car was sold to you? If it has an actual figure, the contract is not valid.



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darling2321

Junior Member
One the contract the dealership but down that the miles were 134472. Nothing is noted about miles unknown. I did know when I bought it that the speedometer didn't work, but I did not know that when the speedometer doesn't work, the odometer doesn't turn. I didn't realize this until a few days later.
 
odometer fraud

This is potentially a huge problem for the dealer who sold you the car. Because of the malfunctioning odometer, they are required by law to put "miles unknown" on the contract.

I'm not sure what your goal is here (ie get a different car from the same dealer, get your money back , etc), but you have quite a bit of leverage. The dealer DOES NOT want this reported, as they would face fines and other possible sanctions including being put on "probation".

You could confront the manager (or the owner, if necessary) and see what they are prepared to do. I know of a dealership that sold a couple of cars as new that had fallen off a train and needed extensive repair. They were fined $70,000 and put on probation for 5 years. This is a different situation, but not by much!

Note: It DOES NOT matter if you knew about the odometer problem in terms of the dealers' illegal action. In other words, it does not excuse there action. That action was knowingly falsifying the miles on the car.

This is potentially a case an attorney would take on a contingent basis if you really wanted to take advantage of your leverage.
 

JETX

Senior Member
The truth is... based solely on the information provided by the OP in this thread..... no one can tell you whether this is going to be a problem with the dealer or not.

Re-read the OP's posts. The OP's post doesn't say anything about this odometer replacement being prior to his purchase. It only says that the odometer on his car wasn't working, the dealer tried to repair it... and eventually replaced it.
There is NOTHING illegal or improper about that. There is also NOTHING to show that the dealer knew that the odometer reading of 134,472 was not correct.

In fact, there is NOTHING in your post that shows the dealership did anything wrong....

All this 'they did wrong... hang em' is pure crap.
If you think that the dealer lied or was deceptive, investigate it.... starting with contacting them and asking. If you find that they did do wrong, report it. If you find that they were deceptive, consider legal action.

Do not fall for this 'the sky is falling' crap.... it is based on pure conjecture and imagination!! :eek:
 

darling2321

Junior Member
I do know that when the dealership that I bought the car from purchased the car from an auction in PA and then drove it back to their place of buisness being in Pennsville, NJ. That's at least a 25 mile drive and it only regestered 5 miles. I have this information from my carfax report. The car has also had 4 different owners in 2 months, and one of them was sold from the same dealership a few weeks before I purchased the car. The odometer was broken before I bought the car. The dealership promised to fix the problem. The car has to be able to pass inspection in order for them to be able to sell it. They put a new odometer into the car without setting the balance of miles to zero, which under the odometer act they were supposed to do. They also did not put a sticker on the driver side door stating that there was a new odometer put into the car and to add on the previous miles for an accurate account of miles. They have had three attempts to fix the car already and are now asking for another. I am just trying to get my money back.
 

JETX

Senior Member
darling2321 said:
I do know that when the dealership that I bought the car from purchased the car from an auction in PA and then drove it back to their place of buisness being in Pennsville, NJ. That's at least a 25 mile drive and it only regestered 5 miles. I have this information from my carfax report. The car has also had 4 different owners in 2 months, and one of them was sold from the same dealership a few weeks before I purchased the car. The odometer was broken before I bought the car. The dealership promised to fix the problem. The car has to be able to pass inspection in order for them to be able to sell it. They put a new odometer into the car without setting the balance of miles to zero, which under the odometer act they were supposed to do. They also did not put a sticker on the driver side door stating that there was a new odometer put into the car and to add on the previous miles for an accurate account of miles. They have had three attempts to fix the car already and are now asking for another. I am just trying to get my money back.
This is the FIRST time in this thread that you claim that the dealership had pre-sale knowledge of this.
So, your options are simple. Run down to your local small claims (or special civil) court and file a lawsuit against them.
And/or you can contact: http://www.lemonlawclaims.com/odometerfraud.htm

Also, report their actions to the NJ State Police, Auto Unit.
http://www.njsp.org/divorg/invest/invest.html#auto
 
Jet: I would admit that it's difficult to tell from the first post whether the dealer knew at the time of purchase, but since they SIGNED the odometer statement at the time of purchase, they are liable for any misrepresentations. Basically, it didn't really matter if they had pre-sale knowledge.

The only possible defense they might have would be if the odometer started malfunctioning soon after they signed the contract and the person took delivery.

Instead of using this incredibly unlikely event as a basis for advice, I am concentrating on the real world.

In this case, given the information presented, I believe that the dealer would have a VERY difficult time saying that they were unaware of the problem.

Why? The vehicle was sold, what, 4 times in a couple of months? Every time it was sold, an odometer statement had to be filed. I would bet that, based upon these statements and the testimony of the owners, it would be child's play to show that the dealer knew what was going on.
 
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Jet: have you ever made a mistake in all of your 28k + posts? That would be almost superhuman, like a person who got 100% correct on every test he took in school.

If it's true that people learn from their mistakes, you haven't learned a damn thing in years, if ever. Let's face it, though: when you start having to reissue your advice because you made incorrect assumptions (even then I think you would've got it wrong), you need to be an observer, not an advice giver.

That last one was for calling my (correct) statements "crap", a term that ironically could be used to describe your own advice here. Time for Matlock...
 

JETX

Senior Member
cjbrown929 said:
Jet: I would admit that it's difficult to tell from the first post whether the dealer knew at the time of purchase, but since they SIGNED the odometer statement at the time of purchase, they are liable for any misrepresentations. Basically, it didn't really matter if they had pre-sale knowledge.
Sorry, but as usual, you are WRONG again.
No one, dealer or buyer, can be found liable for signing a false odometer reading.... if they didn't know of it.

Lets say that they take a trade-in on a vehicle having 75000 on the odometer. They then sell the same vehicle.... signing the odometer statement showing that same 75000 miles. However, the dealer didn't know that the ACTUAL mileage on the vehicle was 100,000.
Based on your THEORY, the dealership would be liable for the false mileage statement.... even though they had NO knowledge of it. WRONG!!
The dealer/seller can ONLY be liable if they knew, or should have known, that the mileage on the odometer was not correct.

Instead of using this incredibly unlikely event as a basis for advice, I am concentrating on the real world.
Please let us know when this will start... because so far you have been playing in fantasyland.
 

JETX

Senior Member
cjbrown929 said:
Jet: have you ever made a mistake in all of your 28k + posts? That would be almost superhuman, like a person who got 100% correct on every test he took in school.
Yep, I certainly have. It doesn't happen very often, but I have made mistakes, even on this forum. And when I make a mistake, I am man enough to admit it... and not try to spin my response into something it wasn't.
Something YOU might consider doing.

To help you... here are some links to where I have admited mistakes on this forum:
https://forum.freeadvice.com/showthread.php?t=284969
https://forum.freeadvice.com/showthread.php?t=208249
https://forum.freeadvice.com/showthread.php?t=171314
https://forum.freeadvice.com/showthread.php?t=110831
 
Jet: I'm going to have to take your mistakes one at a time to keep these posts of manageable length.

Your first post, in answer to the op's question about possible fraud by the dealer says "Not if you knew about it and the replacement odometer was noted in the vehicle record."

By "vehicle record" are you referring to the title that the dealership signed at the time of sale? The ONLY legal options for filling out the odometer reading on the title at the time of sale are 1) the actual miles or 2) "miles unknown", if for any of several reasons, and regardless of how small the amount is, the odometer does not accurately represent the "true" miles.

The dealer in this case put a number (134,472) rather than "unknown miles" SIGNIFICANTLY increasing the cars value. Cars with "unknown miles" are worth a fraction of the same vehicle with known miles, and often do not qualify for financing. Besides, it was ILLEGAL.

I am confident that if the op follows my advice, they will be in good shape.
 
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