I looked at a used car once that had a 'get your next oil change' sticker still on it that said the next oil change was due in fifty-six thousand miles more than what showed on the odometer. I decided not to buy it. The dealer was just plain being sloppy when they missed removing that sticker cleaning the car. I mean, if you're going to rip people off you should at least put some effort into trying to do a good job of it.
@@SuperFrank6666 Actually I was wondering why I was alone in the comment section for 3 minutes. BTW I have a question for you, but I'll ask it on another past comment.
I’m in Kentucky. I purchased a 65 Chevy Impala SS in 1982 with 40,000 miles.After driving the car for over fives years, I tracked down the original owner in Evansville, IN. A very nice lady came running out to the car to check it out. Her husband had bought it brand new when he was in high school. She told me that they dated in that car, honeymooned in that car. They had had 10 children……… Anyway she told me the car had 75,000 miles when they sold it. I was pissed. The following weekend I heard the Indiana attorney general speak on odometer fraud. He recommended I run a title history through the state. When I got the report, the third owner had rolled it back to 40,000. An affidavit showed he wrote out 75,000, then draws an “X” over the first number and then wrote out “40,000”. Indiana recovered $1500.for me.
@@Genesh12 I filled out a form from Indiana because the car had been titled in that state and also paid $25.00. It took about two weeks for all of the history on the car to arrive. I had to enclose the vin number. Once all of the papers came, it was obvious when the mileage was changed. The third owner changed the mileage. I was the fourth owner after buying it off a car lot. I kept the car for over 15 years before selling it. I passed the information onto the person that bought it. I’m not sure where the car is today. It was burning oil when I got the $1500. My brother in law pulled the 327, 300 hp and rebuilt it. I bought new valves due to wear on the stems. It ran much better when finished. It was such fun to drive. It was not a show car, but it was mostly rust free and had been babied all it’s life. Remember that this took place in the md to late 80’s. I put over 10,000 miles on the car. It made tris to Louisville, KY, Indianapolis, IN, and many short trips around the area. I am not sure how you would do that today. Call the state attorney generals office or go to their web site. Good luck !!!!!
Finally...something about police doing what police SHOULD do. Putting a stop to a business defrauding customers. Too often these days the police are used as little more than hired thugs for big business.
Can pretty much guarantee they didn't do it for anything resembling "public safety"..."Free cars? Free $$$? Yes!" Anyone as dumb as that "dealer", shouldn't be breathing..."Yeah, I just busted you committing fraud; I want my $ back...!" : "NO!" "Alrighty then; The Police taking EVERYTHING it is, then?"
@@brentfarvors192 : When I heard about odometer fraud in the title, I immediately thought of the film Matilda. It takes a special kind of dumb for the dealer to be like Matilda's dad, and think no one will ever go after him for it. What decade / century does he think this is?
@@DozerfleetProd Sitting here imagining his first night in jail, with all the other inmates laughing..."Damn, now I don't have it that bad..." "You are FKD!" The state doesn't care about the crimes, as much as the $$$...He's going to find that fact out rather quickly.
I'm glad you included the information about the 10 year odometer rules. I worked for the North Carolina DMV for about 9 years and people sometimes asked me about the reassignment section and odemeter disclosure.
In 1993 my fiancé bought a nice 87 Oldsmobile Cutlass for $3k. The dealer was honest enough to tell her the odometer had gone around once and actually had 130,000 miles. After I married her we were gonna do some traveling. I figured it's time to do some catch up maintenance. I took it to my mechanic to R&R the plastic timing gear and replace it with an iron gear. And while the fuel pump and water pump were out, replace them with new ones. When I picked up the car my mechanic told me there's no way it has over 100k miles. The plastic gear was like new. Then I reexamined the interior then realizing the pedals had practically no wear on them. We got many years out of the car. Finally died at 190k when the transmission crapped out.
@@Iconoclasher Asking or telling you what my friend because my phone has been compromised and I don't know what conversation you are referring to so could clue.me in I don't even know if you can read because as soon as I type it disappears! I don't know where it goes it's like magic!! But it really is starting to piss me off! Just saying
Back in the days of mechanical odometers, there was a speedometer repair shop called "True Mileage." One of their services was rolling back odometers. When you sold one that they had reset you could claim that the mileage shown was true mileage.
Steve , around 2011 I was the handling insurance adjuster on a hail loss claim for an auto dealer in TN. The dealer was being obstinate, and stated you do know that insurance adjuster have a severe trust/believability problem. I stood silent for several seconds and said! As compared to car dealers? A solid 30 seconds past, at which point he laughed. We came to settlement in the end.
This wasn't their first rodeo. They got in trouble prior for odometer fraud on two vehicles. Why is this offense not a one-and-done dealership death penalty? There's no fuzzy area where maybe they thought this was ok. There is no possibility this was anything but willful fraud. Yank their dealership license and never give it back.
I was wondering the same thing. How do they still have a license? Maybe it's under someone else's name. Either way, this time it should be jail time and like lifetime ban from selling cars.
I was looking at a vehicle years ago, I believe it had 32-33k miles; as I always did with used vehicles I took it to a mechanic during a test drive and the mechanic said they thought the odometer may have been rolled back as the vehicle had at least 75k miles on it, based on wear and tear. When I returned the car the salesman gave me the hard sell, even after telling him what the mechanic said, the salesman then tried to scare me into the purchase by saying something along the lines of by having it inspected I bought it. The salesman then threatened to “call the police” because I refused to buy the vehicle do I told him to go ahead and they can figure things out; the salesman quickly dropped the threat. After some investigation it turned out the person they received the vehicle from swopped the instrument cluster to avoid a mileage payment regarding their lease; the person actually still had the old cluster, so to save some $ they ended up paying the $ in restitution, paying fines, and court costs, plus having to serve 3 years probation as part of a plea agreement. What was amazing was the person took the vehicle in for service, which recorded the mirage at the dealer, yet when it came back with fewer miles than in their computer it didn’t send up any red flags; seemed like they knew about it and were OK with the fraud because they didn’t do it themselves. Always do your due diligence and verify things yourself, like printing your own car facts, or having an independent mechanic verify things; you wouldn’t think to buy a home without an inspection so why buy a car without one, especially when some cars can cost more than done homes.
I've had litigants in person who took the same attitude towards me (I'm a lawyer) as the dealer who contacted you directly. My response was much the same as yours, though likely not as polite. It never ends well.
Agreed, had idiot dealer been fair in the first place, the customer wouldn't have had to hire an attorney and involve the extra fees ! Doesn't take a lot of brain matter to figure out who started that process. Good businessmen would have figured that out and worked out the deal with the customer without attorney fees.
In utah the the victim of odo fraud gets to: Keep the car, A full refund plus Treble damages and attorneys fees. Seems like your client should've gotten more.
When my car had a fender bender and went to a dealer for repair, they mistakenly put a wrong mileage in the system - instead of 45k, they put 55k. Next time when I brought it for oil change few months later, they recorded correct mileage 48k. Later when I tried to trade in my car at another dealership, the Carfax report they ran came back with "suspected odometer rollback" alert and told me that they can not allow the trade in until I get this fixed. The dealer ship that made the mistake was like an hour and a half drive (I moved since). I had to file a complaint to the dealership and they gave me a very good deal on another car to make up for it. So, do check the mileage that they put in when you do the maintenance/etc. Especially at the dealerships or other places that reports mileage to the Carfax you will never know what can happen down the line - lucky for me, dealership that made the mistake was close enough to make in person complaint, I don't know what could have happened if it was going to be long distance deal.
Went to trade in my bmw on a new ford escape, they showed me the carfax and said it was worth less because it had been a theft recovery. I had owned the car since new and it was in storage as I was working out of the country. Needless to say I went to a different dealer.
Of course they want to roll the odometer back-it allows them to get more money for the car because of the lower mileage. When you go to Kelly Blue Book one of the things you enter is the mileage to assess the value.
This is much harder to do with new automobiles that have digital odometers. The odometer reading is stored in the body or cab computer which is separate from the drive train computer. The computer has to be hacked to alter anything. To double that trouble some manufacturers have the VIN code in the computer so if you take a body computer from a different vehicle it will not function. That too can be hacked but difficult & illegal. But ya gotta get caught. Back in the days of mechanical odometers all you had to do was hook a drill or electric driven device especially made for the situation to the speedo cable & spin the odometer forward. Older cars had odometers that only went to 99,999,9 miles then rolled over to all zeros. So if you had a car with, say, 89,000K on the odometer all that you had to do was roll it forward past the zero until you got the reading desired. Then came the 100K+ odometers & it became more difficult. Also some manufacturers made odometers that wouldn't register if you ran the odometer cable in reverse. They keep making it more difficult but it seems that the crooks out there are always 1 step ahead.
@Peter Angles Only if you hack the ECM memory. And the ECM also contains the VIN. You can't do it through the normal diagnostic scan tool. Can you imagine a used car dealer having the skill to do that without permanently disabling the engine?
Hey, since these vehicles are being used criminally for the profit of the dealer, could they be seized under Civil Asset Forfeiture and subsequently have the seizure successfully defended in court? Just fix the odometers and auction them off a second time, that might make dealers too scared to do this kind of thing.
@@Baughbe Not exactly, but in this case it would be more just than at least 75-90% of the situations they use it for in real life. It almost fits CAF's intended purpose. Also, if they do it more against businesses instead of individuals, the theft would get more publicity and lobbyists would get hired to ban the practice.
@@Baughbe i think the idea is that you would have those 2 fight each other and eventually on or both problems kill each other in the process. either asset forfiture eats out rolling back the odometer or vice versa.
The audacity of being called greedy by a salesperson who’s literal job is to sell stuff for the highest price they can talk people into. I think the headshrinkers call that Projection
When the shady car dealer said "Oh, so this is about money," I would have said "well, I didn't spend several years of my life in college so I could work for free. So yes, it is about money."
I had a motorcycle, only four years old, that I traded in for a new motorcycle. One of the things I knew about that motorcycle is that the odometer had been changed out not once but twice for new odometers reading 0 miles due to the integrated speedometer failing. This had been done under warranty. The dealer I was trading it into presented me with the paperwork for signing over the bike, but the checkbox for the mileage accuracy was not checked. I pushed it back to them and said fix it. They were not pleased, but I wasn't going to sign off on something that could easily be proved just by looking into manufacturer warranty records. I had been up front with them about the odometer from the start prior to the trade-in negotiations.
When your storefront is an empty gravel lot in the industrial part of town, alarm bells should be ringing along with the red flags. Frankly, I'm surprised that the customer wasn't simply robbed, murdered and dumped in the river.
This problem is much more common than people know. Many cars only store the mileage in the gauge cluster and can be changed with the proper software tool. I've recently been in the market for a used Chevy Traverse/GMC Acadia/Buick Enclave and I've found over 25 of them with modified odometers.
Arrest the car dealer's owner on a Friday evening. Stick them on jail, and hint another inmate that he's in there for diddling a child. He's not going to look too good on Monday, when the court lets him out on bail.
I bought a cheap minivan for the sake of hauling wood around. Owner said the engine had blown so it had an engine out of a Malibu (same engine, basically). They were super honest about it though. Van had 245,000km's on it and the motor had 170,000km's on it. I imagine if I bought this at a dealer, they would have had to disclose this info as well.
Dayton-Andrews dealership in Clearwater, Fl did that to me once. A 10yo car with only 22k miles on it. An elderly couple's car, only driven to church, blah blah. To think I used to send them business makes me sick at heart.
This happened in my hometown 20 some years ago at a local ford dealer. The mechanic that was told to do it called the state police and turned them in. Other mechanics did it and were charged. The dealer lost his dealership was arrested then ended himself over all the publicity with the trial. His family still blames the mechanic for it saying it was no big deal. Boggle!!!
The way to change odometer readings: Easiest: Use a scan tool with this you can change the odometer value. Think about it, if your odometer has to be replaced, the dealership/mechanic will write down the old values of odometer, trip and settings Install a new gauge cluster, then write back all those values. Slightly Harder: Remove the old gauge cluster and replace it with one with less miles on it, This is what people think gets done and is easy enough for backyard mechanic to do as it does not require the use of a $1000+ scan tool. Hard: This involves taking part the gauge cluster, finding the EPROM which holds the data for settings, trip and odometer. Read the data from it, modify the value for the odometer in a hex editor, write back the data. Problem with this method is, the PCM may also store the setting and write back the data, but this method should work on early gen cars with digital odometers.
There are videos on cbs2 los angeles on a guy in the san fernando valley that rolled back odometers in his home garage. There was a line of people waiting to get odometers rolled back.
It's amazing dealers think they can get away with this kind of stuff with tools like Carfax and multiple onboard computer modules now. Every vehicle I've bought used has odometer history going all the way back to manufacture, sometimes back to the 80's
This was extremely common in the Miami area. Everyone knew someone that would do this in their garage for a nominal fee. Was a very popular service for people with leases that had gone over the mileage and for dealers to lower the mileage on used vehicles. It was rampant down in the Miami area. The dash does not need to be changed, the computer just gets reprogrammed with a new mileage, takes 10 minutes...
Back in the 60’s that was a common practice to roll the odometer back and that was lucky the car lasted more then 100.000 miles before needing engine or transmission work.
I see some comments about just running in reverse to get a lower odometer reading. It does not work that way with electronic odometers! Electronic speed sensors merely count pulses as the driveshaft rotates. They count pulses the same whether going forward or in reverse. So going backwards adds the same mileage as going forward.
Hello Steve, I had an old car that I wanted to change the speedometer in with one from a year older that went to 140mph instead of 120mph. I waited until the miles matched and took pictures of both at the same time. Since I documented this did I violate any laws? I live in Ohio. Any answer you have is fine. Thank you. Great TH-cam channel you have.
? How would anyone ever know if the miles were the same? Maybe some serious car fan you sell it to might notice, but as long as car fax isn't throwing anything up, I doubt they'd care...
Your good to go....the rule is when changing out instrument clusters you have to document the original milage...which you did with both clusters so they can be compared to each other to get totalmilage...that was a smart move
@@groofromtheup5719 your supposed to document that milage at which it stopped...then while it's not working u use your tripometer to count milage until it's fixed and even if you don't I can still plug in my snan tool to get proper milage then I program the new cluster with correct milage....this of course is in a perfect world and but like I said,I can screw with the milage all u want and my scan tool will tell the real milage....besides that's just a fn douchbag move not disclosing at least accurate milage
@@groofromtheup5719 Toyota or Honda...yes milage is redundant as these vehicles run forever...Kia and dodges don't last very long as they r scrap metal on wheels....if u go over on your lease by a few thousand miles,I say go ahead and reset it so they don't get overcharged if the dealer is to stupid to see if it was tampered with....but when it's a private sale and someone sells me a car they lied about...don't sell it to me at your house cause I'll come back later
I heard that cars made during or after the 2001 model year must have a second, "secret" odometer reading kept in the engine computer. Car dealers and speedometer repair shops (do they still exist?) will have the equipment to check the mileage in the engine computer and reset a replacement speedometer cluster, to keep things honest and detect fraud. If the engine computer has to be replaced, I'm not sure if that mileage log can be reset or not.
In California, there is also a box you can check to certify that the mileage has exceeded the odometer mechanical limits. Almost every car i bought fit that category.
@@mexicanspec I work on my own cars and get into some pretty major repairs. I drive them until the wheels fall off, put the wheels back on and drive them some more. I discovered that the digital odometer on the 1992-1997 ford f series pickup maxes out at 399,999 before rolling back to 300,000. My 95 f-250 did it twice since I had it. It’s still on its original 7.3 Diesel engine, but I had to replace the transmission once myself. The transmission I removed was not the original ether.
@@monteclark1115 I wonder how the DMV would handle that? That is a design flaw in the cluster so do they go after Ford? I have seen million mile Dodges but is there a million mile Ford out there?
Despite being illegal, this problem is rampant in the used car industry. A friend of mine bought a Chevy years ago from a used car dealership that was supposed to be low miles that was 8 years old and 65K. After looking at he car for the fist time months later,at the first oil chznge, it was clear that this car probably had 265K on it and had 20W50 oil in if to cancel the fact that the engine burned oil. He had to junk it a year later when if wouldn't pass emissions testing. Since I was not with him HS had signed van s"as is" so there was no recourse.
There’s this bizarre attitude I keep running into that goes something like “My money is mine, I worked hard for it! Why should I have to give my hard-earned money away for goods or services?!” It genuinely never occurs to them that other people work hard for their money too, or work hard providing those goods and/or services, and they deserve their hard-earned money too!
I'm a bit surprised that the dealership got away with only a civil action previously. You'd think that a Federal prosecutor would be champing at the bit to get a relatively easy case like odometer fraud.
They didn't roll the odometer back, they replaced it with a different one! You can say semantics but if the dash cluster went bad, you can go to a junkyard and get one. The cluster holds the mileage of the donor vehicle.
Bought a truck with 87k on it. Took it to a instant oil change. They said the last oil change was at 270k miles. The car fax said the truck had 60k ten years ago. Nobody cared. Tried to get police involved, tried calling lawyers. Could not get anyone to do anything.
My buddy worked at a collection agency 🤣🤣 he has a 'oh it's about money " story with a guy he was trying get money out of lol yes sir my company bought your debt to try to collect it to make money 💸
I see a lot of vehicles missing their instrument clusters in junkyards. I asked one of the yards I visit often why that is. The answer I was given was exactly this. Especially in vehicles where the mileage is stored solely in the cluster and not also in a separate computer or module.
The ones to watch for are the high performance sports cars, the mileage is ABSOLUTELY accurate, but you wonder how many of those miles were put on it 1/4 mile at a time!
This is huge money today. Im betting equally as big of a crime today is when someone sells a vehicle to a junk yard that vehicle can never under any circumstances be sold to the public as a running driving car again, doesn't matter if i buy a brand new car, if i sell it the next day in perfect condition to a junk yard they have to salvage the title. However, most of those businesses are scumbags and they deal with crooks all day.
Rolling back the odometer is another form of fraud, even I know that just from watching Matilda as a kid. Do these people not realize they're going to get caught? All it takes is one customer having an issue and finding out the true mileage followed up by a report.
Ben dropping the mic on the 55mph speed limit! Hey, what is 70,000 miles amongst friends? Should have checked it out in person before buying, after all the name means Flip Over Read Directions!
I believe an Autonation Honda dealership near me might have done something like that last year. California Highway Patrol was at the dealership with several Patrol vehicles along with 2 car carrier trucks loading up vehicles. What made it stand out more was that the Los Angeles sheriff department is on the diagonal corner and they were not the ones handling it.
I looked at a used car once that had a 'get your next oil change' sticker still on it that said the next oil change was due in fifty-six thousand miles more than what showed on the odometer. I decided not to buy it. The dealer was just plain being sloppy when they missed removing that sticker cleaning the car. I mean, if you're going to rip people off you should at least put some effort into trying to do a good job of it.
Right he is what I call a Half Ass-er
@@Joxman2k lmao
@@Joxman2k Good one
Mic No 1 Steve's Left helping Ben to shade the Turbine Car
Outstanding.
@@SuperFrank6666 Actually I was wondering why I was alone in the comment section for 3 minutes.
BTW I have a question for you, but I'll ask it on another past comment.
I would have commented but I have an appliance repair guy here today...
@@BenLeitch Shock, Horror, My condolences to your wallet 🤐
I’m in Kentucky. I purchased a 65 Chevy Impala SS in 1982 with 40,000 miles.After driving the car for over fives years, I tracked down the original owner in Evansville, IN. A very nice lady came running out to the car to check it out. Her husband had bought it brand new when he was in high school. She told me that they dated in that car, honeymooned in that car. They had had 10 children……… Anyway she told me the car had 75,000 miles when they sold it. I was pissed. The following weekend I heard the Indiana attorney general speak on odometer fraud. He recommended I run a title history through the state. When I got the report, the third owner had rolled it back to 40,000. An affidavit showed he wrote out 75,000, then draws an “X” over the first number and then wrote out “40,000”. Indiana recovered $1500.for me.
HOW DO YOU DO I TITLE HISTORY?
@@Genesh12 I filled out a form from Indiana because the car had been titled in that state and also paid $25.00. It took about two weeks for all of the history on the car to arrive. I had to enclose the vin number. Once all of the papers came, it was obvious when the mileage was changed. The third owner changed the mileage. I was the fourth owner after buying it off a car lot. I kept the car for over 15 years before selling it. I passed the information onto the person that bought it. I’m not sure where the car is today.
It was burning oil when I got the $1500. My brother in law pulled the 327, 300 hp and rebuilt it. I bought new valves due to wear on the stems. It ran much better when finished. It was such fun to drive. It was not a show car, but it was mostly rust free and had been babied all it’s life. Remember that this took place in the md to late 80’s. I put over 10,000 miles on the car. It made tris to Louisville, KY, Indianapolis, IN, and many short trips around the area.
I am not sure how you would do that today. Call the state attorney generals office or go to their web site. Good luck !!!!!
Finally...something about police doing what police SHOULD do. Putting a stop to a business defrauding customers. Too often these days the police are used as little more than hired thugs for big business.
"for big business ...". Yeah, move away from where you live if that's what you are seeing. Ours are merely lazy.
"Thats a civil matter. Now show me your ID so I can go warrant fishing, or I will arrest you for resisting arrest."
Can pretty much guarantee they didn't do it for anything resembling "public safety"..."Free cars? Free $$$? Yes!" Anyone as dumb as that "dealer", shouldn't be breathing..."Yeah, I just busted you committing fraud; I want my $ back...!" : "NO!" "Alrighty then; The Police taking EVERYTHING it is, then?"
@@brentfarvors192 : When I heard about odometer fraud in the title, I immediately thought of the film Matilda. It takes a special kind of dumb for the dealer to be like Matilda's dad, and think no one will ever go after him for it. What decade / century does he think this is?
@@DozerfleetProd Sitting here imagining his first night in jail, with all the other inmates laughing..."Damn, now I don't have it that bad..." "You are FKD!" The state doesn't care about the crimes, as much as the $$$...He's going to find that fact out rather quickly.
I'm glad you included the information about the 10 year odometer rules. I worked for the North Carolina DMV for about 9 years and people sometimes asked me about the reassignment section and odemeter disclosure.
"if you're a cop, you have to tell me." 😆
In 1993 my fiancé bought a nice 87 Oldsmobile Cutlass for $3k. The dealer was honest enough to tell her the odometer had gone around once and actually had 130,000 miles. After I married her we were gonna do some traveling. I figured it's time to do some catch up maintenance. I took it to my mechanic to R&R the plastic timing gear and replace it with an iron gear. And while the fuel pump and water pump were out, replace them with new ones. When I picked up the car my mechanic told me there's no way it has over 100k miles. The plastic gear was like new. Then I reexamined the interior then realizing the pedals had practically no wear on them.
We got many years out of the car. Finally died at 190k when the transmission crapped out.
One of the worst autos that I have ever owned?
@@karenjensen6642
Are you asking me or telling me?
@@Iconoclasher Asking or telling you what my friend because my phone has been compromised and I don't know what conversation you are referring to so could clue.me in I don't even know if you can read because as soon as I type it disappears! I don't know where it goes it's like magic!! But it really is starting to piss me off! Just saying
Well, when one compares reputations of lawyers and car dealers I don't think either one comes out on top.
It's like those employers who refuse to give raises and then get shocked when people quit and start throwing the word family around
Yeah when I heard that shit I tune out because it is a lie and manipulation.
Go look up "Boyd Coddington". He was the poster-boy for people quitting his shop over low pay, and a toxic environment.
I always love Steve’s experiential stories that pop up.
Back in the days of mechanical odometers, there was a speedometer repair shop called "True Mileage." One of their services was rolling back odometers. When you sold one that they had reset you could claim that the mileage shown was true mileage.
A dishonest used car dealer? I am shocked! Shocked, I tell ya'...
Couldn't have said it better. lol salute you.
Steve , around 2011 I was the handling insurance adjuster on a hail loss claim for an auto dealer in TN. The dealer was being obstinate, and stated you do know that insurance adjuster have a severe trust/believability problem. I stood silent for several seconds and said! As compared to car dealers? A solid 30 seconds past, at which point he laughed. We came to settlement in the end.
Dealer clocks cars:
And in other news, dogs continue to bark and water remains wet.
This wasn't their first rodeo. They got in trouble prior for odometer fraud on two vehicles. Why is this offense not a one-and-done dealership death penalty? There's no fuzzy area where maybe they thought this was ok. There is no possibility this was anything but willful fraud. Yank their dealership license and never give it back.
I was wondering the same thing. How do they still have a license? Maybe it's under someone else's name. Either way, this time it should be jail time and like lifetime ban from selling cars.
I know a car dealer who did time for that very thing!!! Steve your channel is awesome!!
They should put the dealer in prison for 10 years making license plates
that is too funny, ha ha ha......!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Their skill set isn't up to the level needed to make useful products like license plates.
I was looking at a vehicle years ago, I believe it had 32-33k miles; as I always did with used vehicles I took it to a mechanic during a test drive and the mechanic said they thought the odometer may have been rolled back as the vehicle had at least 75k miles on it, based on wear and tear. When I returned the car the salesman gave me the hard sell, even after telling him what the mechanic said, the salesman then tried to scare me into the purchase by saying something along the lines of by having it inspected I bought it. The salesman then threatened to “call the police” because I refused to buy the vehicle do I told him to go ahead and they can figure things out; the salesman quickly dropped the threat. After some investigation it turned out the person they received the vehicle from swopped the instrument cluster to avoid a mileage payment regarding their lease; the person actually still had the old cluster, so to save some $ they ended up paying the $ in restitution, paying fines, and court costs, plus having to serve 3 years probation as part of a plea agreement. What was amazing was the person took the vehicle in for service, which recorded the mirage at the dealer, yet when it came back with fewer miles than in their computer it didn’t send up any red flags; seemed like they knew about it and were OK with the fraud because they didn’t do it themselves.
Always do your due diligence and verify things yourself, like printing your own car facts, or having an independent mechanic verify things; you wouldn’t think to buy a home without an inspection so why buy a car without one, especially when some cars can cost more than done homes.
Salesmen are the scum of the earth. Not needed by thinking people.
You should have called the State Police!!
So they were merely an accessory.
I've had litigants in person who took the same attitude towards me (I'm a lawyer) as the dealer who contacted you directly. My response was much the same as yours, though likely not as polite. It never ends well.
Agreed, had idiot dealer been fair in the first place, the customer wouldn't have had to hire an attorney and involve the extra fees ! Doesn't take a lot of brain matter to figure out who started that process. Good businessmen would have figured that out and worked out the deal with the customer without attorney fees.
@@Garth2011 There is greedy...and then there is *stupid* greedy.
In utah the the victim of odo fraud gets to:
Keep the car,
A full refund plus Treble damages and attorneys fees.
Seems like your client should've gotten more.
Why in the world would Utah law matter in the slightest? Isn't Leto in Michigan?
Car dealers have the laws and contracts so slanted in their favor - and some still feel the need to cheat.
Beautiful! Enjoyed it immensely! You have just clearly explained what today is common practice in our main-stream-media and others.
"Steve, you're such a greedy lawyer."
🤣🤣🤣👍
When my car had a fender bender and went to a dealer for repair, they mistakenly put a wrong mileage in the system - instead of 45k, they put 55k. Next time when I brought it for oil change few months later, they recorded correct mileage 48k. Later when I tried to trade in my car at another dealership, the Carfax report they ran came back with "suspected odometer rollback" alert and told me that they can not allow the trade in until I get this fixed. The dealer ship that made the mistake was like an hour and a half drive (I moved since). I had to file a complaint to the dealership and they gave me a very good deal on another car to make up for it. So, do check the mileage that they put in when you do the maintenance/etc. Especially at the dealerships or other places that reports mileage to the Carfax you will never know what can happen down the line - lucky for me, dealership that made the mistake was close enough to make in person complaint, I don't know what could have happened if it was going to be long distance deal.
Same thing happened to me. Good advice
Went to trade in my bmw on a new ford escape, they showed me the carfax and said it was worth less because it had been a theft recovery. I had owned the car since new and it was in storage as I was working out of the country. Needless to say I went to a different dealer.
Of course they want to roll the odometer back-it allows them to get more money for the car because of the lower mileage. When you go to Kelly Blue Book one of the things you enter is the mileage to assess the value.
Love the witty ness this man has. Often I’m the same way just don’t have the balls to actually speak my mind the way he does
This is much harder to do with new automobiles that have digital odometers. The odometer reading is stored in the body or cab computer which is separate from the drive train computer. The computer has to be hacked to alter anything. To double that trouble some manufacturers have the VIN code in the computer so if you take a body computer from a different vehicle it will not function. That too can be hacked but difficult & illegal. But ya gotta get caught. Back in the days of mechanical odometers all you had to do was hook a drill or electric driven device especially made for the situation to the speedo cable & spin the odometer forward. Older cars had odometers that only went to 99,999,9 miles then rolled over to all zeros. So if you had a car with, say, 89,000K on the odometer all that you had to do was roll it forward past the zero until you got the reading desired. Then came the 100K+ odometers & it became more difficult. Also some manufacturers made odometers that wouldn't register if you ran the odometer cable in reverse. They keep making it more difficult but it seems that the crooks out there are always 1 step ahead.
Yeppers
@Peter Angles Only if you hack the ECM memory. And the ECM also contains the VIN. You can't do it through the normal diagnostic scan tool. Can you imagine a used car dealer having the skill to do that without permanently disabling the engine?
Hey, since these vehicles are being used criminally for the profit of the dealer, could they be seized under Civil Asset Forfeiture and subsequently have the seizure successfully defended in court? Just fix the odometers and auction them off a second time, that might make dealers too scared to do this kind of thing.
While it might seem funny for the giggle aspect of it, do we really want to encourage the obviously criminal practice of civil asset forfeiture?
@@Baughbe Not exactly, but in this case it would be more just than at least 75-90% of the situations they use it for in real life. It almost fits CAF's intended purpose. Also, if they do it more against businesses instead of individuals, the theft would get more publicity and lobbyists would get hired to ban the practice.
@@Baughbe i think the idea is that you would have those 2 fight each other and eventually on or both problems kill each other in the process. either asset forfiture eats out rolling back the odometer or vice versa.
The audacity of being called greedy by a salesperson who’s literal job is to sell stuff for the highest price they can talk people into.
I think the headshrinkers call that Projection
KBB Auto Sales.
What semi-reputable organization also uses the letters KBB? I wonder if they used those letters to make them seem more credible?
@@contradictorycrow4327 I did say semi-reputable. And they used to be reputable.
A car dealer calling an attorney greedy now if that ain’t the pot calling the kettle black I don’t know what is!
I can't believe this still happens
In the UK all mileage is recorded at the annual MOT test as a running total
When the shady car dealer said "Oh, so this is about money," I would have said "well, I didn't spend several years of my life in college so I could work for free. So yes, it is about money."
Crooks often accuse their victims of being crooked so that they can tell themselves that they are the victims.
AKA bullies
"You are a blackmailer...!" "Think I'M BAD? I'm sending some friends in uniforms...Pay THEM?"
I had a motorcycle, only four years old, that I traded in for a new motorcycle. One of the things I knew about that motorcycle is that the odometer had been changed out not once but twice for new odometers reading 0 miles due to the integrated speedometer failing. This had been done under warranty.
The dealer I was trading it into presented me with the paperwork for signing over the bike, but the checkbox for the mileage accuracy was not checked. I pushed it back to them and said fix it. They were not pleased, but I wasn't going to sign off on something that could easily be proved just by looking into manufacturer warranty records. I had been up front with them about the odometer from the start prior to the trade-in negotiations.
In Kansas on the Title there's no "car is over ten years old" provision, instead there's a "is the odometer accurate" provision instead.
THIS A GREAT VIDEO. RETIRED 77, USAF VFW.
When your storefront is an empty gravel lot in the industrial part of town, alarm bells should be ringing along with the red flags.
Frankly, I'm surprised that the customer wasn't simply robbed, murdered and dumped in the river.
car dealer calling a lawyer greedy that's like an alligator calling a shark blood thirsty.
Bless you Steve! I was just about to look at a used car sold by.... KBB auto!
Steve, all of my old lawyer jokes just changed to car dealer jokes!
The mind games and mental gymnastics are incredible with these scammers. 😂
anyone who buys a ford should not complain, these cars are designed to feed mechanics for generations
@@contradictorycrow4327 what branch of the government do you work for?
Their website currently lists 6 cars for sale. 4 cars seized is a big chunk of their inventory.
This problem is much more common than people know. Many cars only store the mileage in the gauge cluster and can be changed with the proper software tool. I've recently been in the market for a used Chevy Traverse/GMC Acadia/Buick Enclave and I've found over 25 of them with modified odometers.
AFTER the case is proven in court, those cars better be forfeited.
Arrest the car dealer's owner on a Friday evening. Stick them on jail, and hint another inmate that he's in there for diddling a child. He's not going to look too good on Monday, when the court lets him out on bail.
Hundo, unfolded, over the top of the first mic from the right, on the top of the main cabinet. 1.3k+.
ODB2 scanners now can check for mileage issues on newer cars.
I bought a cheap minivan for the sake of hauling wood around. Owner said the engine had blown so it had an engine out of a Malibu (same engine, basically). They were super honest about it though. Van had 245,000km's on it and the motor had 170,000km's on it. I imagine if I bought this at a dealer, they would have had to disclose this info as well.
Loved your comment about the dealer calling you greedy because he wouldn't do the right thing for his customer.
Shades of Fargo all over again (almost) not quite.
Caught Defrauding and Get's Mad about taking responsibility. Classic.
For every $ the dealership owner stole he/she deserve a day in Jail.
This will fix the problem and deter others from odometer fraud
Ben - Atop last mic to Steve's left. Tough to see.
Dayton-Andrews dealership in Clearwater, Fl did that to me once. A 10yo car with only 22k miles on it. An elderly couple's car, only driven to church, blah blah. To think I used to send them business makes me sick at heart.
This happened in my hometown 20 some years ago at a local ford dealer. The mechanic that was told to do it called the state police and turned them in. Other mechanics did it and were charged. The dealer lost his dealership was arrested then ended himself over all the publicity with the trial. His family still blames the mechanic for it saying it was no big deal. Boggle!!!
Surprised that Kelly Blue Book doesn't sue this dealership for using the same acronym as them.
The way to change odometer readings:
Easiest: Use a scan tool with this you can change the odometer value.
Think about it, if your odometer has to be replaced, the dealership/mechanic will write down the old values of odometer, trip and settings
Install a new gauge cluster, then write back all those values.
Slightly Harder: Remove the old gauge cluster and replace it with one with less miles on it,
This is what people think gets done and is easy enough for backyard mechanic to do as it does not require the use of a $1000+ scan tool.
Hard: This involves taking part the gauge cluster, finding the EPROM which holds the data for settings, trip and odometer.
Read the data from it, modify the value for the odometer in a hex editor, write back the data.
Problem with this method is, the PCM may also store the setting and write back the data, but this method should work on early gen cars with digital odometers.
This is rich....a CAR DEALER complaining to you for charging MONEY! Who would'a thunk it? Always remember...FOLLOW THE MONEY! Great video, Steve.
It's always about the money, if it was never about the money we wouldn't be living in this kind of society.
There are videos on cbs2 los angeles on a guy in the san fernando valley that rolled back odometers in his home garage. There was a line of people waiting to get odometers rolled back.
It's amazing dealers think they can get away with this kind of stuff with tools like Carfax and multiple onboard computer modules now. Every vehicle I've bought used has odometer history going all the way back to manufacture, sometimes back to the 80's
It is always about the money.
I thought you were an attorney so you could make great TH-cam videos.
I had a truck with a broke speedometer. It had 214k miles on it the ENTIRE time I owned it. That old S10 was beat all to hell.
This was extremely common in the Miami area. Everyone knew someone that would do this in their garage for a nominal fee. Was a very popular service for people with leases that had gone over the mileage and for dealers to lower the mileage on used vehicles. It was rampant down in the Miami area. The dash does not need to be changed, the computer just gets reprogrammed with a new mileage, takes 10 minutes...
Great episode, keep up the fabulous work.
A used car salesman calling an attorney greedy. 🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂
I worked at Casa De Cadillac in the late 80`s and when I found out they did that I quit my job.
Back in the 60’s that was a common practice to roll the odometer back and that was lucky
the car lasted more then 100.000 miles before needing engine or transmission work.
"An attorney and a car dealer walk into a bar"
I see some comments about just running in reverse to get a lower odometer reading. It does not work that way with electronic odometers! Electronic speed sensors merely count pulses as the driveshaft rotates. They count pulses the same whether going forward or in reverse. So going backwards adds the same mileage as going forward.
Hello Steve, I had an old car that I wanted to change the speedometer in with one from a year older that went to 140mph instead of 120mph. I waited until the miles matched and took pictures of both at the same time. Since I documented this did I violate any laws? I live in Ohio. Any answer you have is fine. Thank you. Great TH-cam channel you have.
? How would anyone ever know if the miles were the same? Maybe some serious car fan you sell it to might notice, but as long as car fax isn't throwing anything up, I doubt they'd care...
Your good to go....the rule is when changing out instrument clusters you have to document the original milage...which you did with both clusters so they can be compared to each other to get totalmilage...that was a smart move
@@groofromtheup5719 maybe in the US but In Canada this is how its done
@@groofromtheup5719 your supposed to document that milage at which it stopped...then while it's not working u use your tripometer to count milage until it's fixed and even if you don't I can still plug in my snan tool to get proper milage then I program the new cluster with correct milage....this of course is in a perfect world and but like I said,I can screw with the milage all u want and my scan tool will tell the real milage....besides that's just a fn douchbag move not disclosing at least accurate milage
@@groofromtheup5719 Toyota or Honda...yes milage is redundant as these vehicles run forever...Kia and dodges don't last very long as they r scrap metal on wheels....if u go over on your lease by a few thousand miles,I say go ahead and reset it so they don't get overcharged if the dealer is to stupid to see if it was tampered with....but when it's a private sale and someone sells me a car they lied about...don't sell it to me at your house cause I'll come back later
Interesting how a person can call another person names when the accuser is doing what they are accusing the other person of doing. Sound familiar?
I heard that cars made during or after the 2001 model year must have a second, "secret" odometer reading kept in the engine computer. Car dealers and speedometer repair shops (do they still exist?) will have the equipment to check the mileage in the engine computer and reset a replacement speedometer cluster, to keep things honest and detect fraud. If the engine computer has to be replaced, I'm not sure if that mileage log can be reset or not.
So, is it still 10 years? I seem to recall something about 2011 and newer vehicles having the 10 year rule extended to 20 years.
My 79 gmc has had the odometer replaced three times. The cable twice, and the gear once. I've had no luck with that thing.
Your awesome steve thanks
In California, there is also a box you can check to certify that the mileage has exceeded the odometer mechanical limits. Almost every car i bought fit that category.
That doesn't apply much any more. There are very few million mile cars out there.
@@mexicanspec I work on my own cars and get into some pretty major repairs. I drive them until the wheels fall off, put the wheels back on and drive them some more. I discovered that the digital odometer on the 1992-1997 ford f series pickup maxes out at 399,999 before rolling back to 300,000. My 95 f-250 did it twice since I had it. It’s still on its original 7.3 Diesel engine, but I had to replace the transmission once myself. The transmission I removed was not the original ether.
@@monteclark1115 I wonder how the DMV would handle that? That is a design flaw in the cluster so do they go after Ford? I have seen million mile Dodges but is there a million mile Ford out there?
IN my small town, we have a lot of car dealers for our size. Odometer fraud happens all the time.
Despite being illegal, this problem is rampant in the used car industry. A friend of mine bought a Chevy years ago from a used car dealership that was supposed to be low miles that was 8 years old and 65K. After looking at he car for the fist time months later,at the first oil chznge, it was clear that this car probably had 265K on it and had 20W50 oil in if to cancel the fact that the engine burned oil. He had to junk it a year later when if wouldn't pass emissions testing. Since I was not with him HS had signed van s"as is" so there was no recourse.
KBB Motors - Hope the lawyers for Kelly’s Blue Book don’t hear about them.
There’s this bizarre attitude I keep running into that goes something like “My money is mine, I worked hard for it! Why should I have to give my hard-earned money away for goods or services?!”
It genuinely never occurs to them that other people work hard for their money too, or work hard providing those goods and/or services, and they deserve their hard-earned money too!
I'm a bit surprised that the dealership got away with only a civil action previously. You'd think that a Federal prosecutor would be champing at the bit to get a relatively easy case like odometer fraud.
They didn't roll the odometer back, they replaced it with a different one! You can say semantics but if the dash cluster went bad, you can go to a junkyard and get one. The cluster holds the mileage of the donor vehicle.
Bought a truck with 87k on it. Took it to a instant oil change. They said the last oil change was at 270k miles. The car fax said the truck had 60k ten years ago. Nobody cared. Tried to get police involved, tried calling lawyers. Could not get anyone to do anything.
Thank you steve.
It's amazing how many people want to get paid for work that they do. Steve work for free.
My buddy worked at a collection agency 🤣🤣 he has a 'oh it's about money " story with a guy he was trying get money out of lol yes sir my company bought your debt to try to collect it to make money 💸
The dumbest thing a person can do is talk to a debt collector and/or acknowledge the debt.
They should have left those odometers alone.
I see a lot of vehicles missing their instrument clusters in junkyards. I asked one of the yards I visit often why that is. The answer I was given was exactly this. Especially in vehicles where the mileage is stored solely in the cluster and not also in a separate computer or module.
The ones to watch for are the high performance sports cars, the mileage is ABSOLUTELY accurate, but you wonder how many of those miles were put on it 1/4 mile at a time!
Is there any update on the FedEx odometer fraud that you reported several months ago?
This is huge money today.
Im betting equally as big of a crime today is when someone sells a vehicle to a junk yard that vehicle can never under any circumstances be sold to the public as a running driving car again, doesn't matter if i buy a brand new car, if i sell it the next day in perfect condition to a junk yard they have to salvage the title.
However, most of those businesses are scumbags and they deal with crooks all day.
Rolling back the odometer is another form of fraud, even I know that just from watching Matilda as a kid. Do these people not realize they're going to get caught? All it takes is one customer having an issue and finding out the true mileage followed up by a report.
Steve a greedy lawyer?? Isn't he the one that said, "We sued everyone and got paid!" LOL.
Ben dropping the mic on the 55mph speed limit! Hey, what is 70,000 miles amongst friends? Should have checked it out in person before buying, after all the name means Flip Over Read Directions!
I believe an Autonation Honda dealership near me might have done something like that last year. California Highway Patrol was at the dealership with several Patrol vehicles along with 2 car carrier trucks loading up vehicles. What made it stand out more was that the Los Angeles sheriff department is on the diagonal corner and they were not the ones handling it.
CHP handles large scale odometer fraud and auto theft rings.
As a car dealership…. For shame Steve, For Shame… how dare you step in to cause me discomfort in my dealings… ha, I sleep well in my town.