Just bought a car today, have a couple of questions

Joe_Horner

colino wrote: »

No it's not alright. Lots of cars have dash failures and it's the easiest thing in the world to both change them and, for a well connected dealer, to reset the second hand clocks to the "correct" mileage. Might seem a lttle thing, but if he's too lazy/cheap to carry out that job, what else has he skated over?
Get a proper HPi done and if theres anything remotely amiss, get the car back to him and your cash back. Theres plenty of cheap Foci about.

So it's "ok" to change the clock and hide the fact by having the new one set to the right mileage but "not ok" to change the clock, leave the new one as is, and let the customer know about the discrepancy?

OP, stop worrying.

The V5 is SUPPOSED to be sent to DVLA by the previous RK / dealer. Lots of people do just hand it to the new keeper and trust them to send it but that's not how it's meant to be - and is a good way to be hit for lots of speeding / parking / no-tax fines! So the dealer did the paperwork the right way, good for them.

The clock being changed is NOT an issue seeing as he's been up-front about it. As Colino mentioned, it's easy enough to reset mileages on them and a dodgy dealer would be far more likely to wind 10 or 20k off it and say nothing than have it 60k out and admit it.

At the end of the day, it's only a mileage figure (which can be fiddled in countless ways) and, at that age of car, the condition matters far more than what the clock says - if it looks, feels and drives like a 70k motor with replacement instruments then that's what it is

Lum

Yes you can flash the mileage on the new clocks to any number you want, but this often leaves traces which can be found later, and ends up looking dodgier than just leaving it alone and documenting the process.

prowla

Joe_Horner wrote: »

The V5 is SUPPOSED to be sent to DVLA by the previous RK / dealer. Lots of people do just hand it to the new keeper and trust them to send it but that's not how it's meant to be - and is a good way to be hit for lots of speeding / parking / no-tax fines! So the dealer did the paperwork the right way, good for them.

That happened to me once - I trusted the seller and got a letter from the plod in the post. I did explain it and the matter was dropped though.

AlexisV

The mileages should be in the service history.

macman

The point about the clock is surely that the real mileage could be much higher than the declared 70K. Clearly on a nine year old vehicle no-one would believe 20K, but 70K is feasible. However it could be 100K or more.
Which is why the OP should have established this by way of checking the service or MOT records before purchase. If those records were not available, I'd have walked.

Flyboy152

macman wrote: »

The point about the clock is surely that the real mileage could be much higher than the declared 70K. Clearly on a nine year old vehicle no-one would believe 20K, but 70K is feasible. However it could be 100K or more.
Which is why the OP should have established this by way of checking the service or MOT records before purchase. If those records were not available, I'd have walked.

But the MOT does bear out the probablilty that the car is kosher.

it has been declared on the mot and the dvla site confirmed the mot was authentic

macman

I think it probably is kosher. But my point is that this could easily have been established beyond doubt before purchase.

missile

macman wrote: »

I think it probably is kosher. But my point is that this could easily have been established beyond doubt before purchase.

The time for OP to ask for advise was before he/she purchased.

Flyboy152

missile wrote: »

The time for OP to ask for advise was before he/she purchased.

Perhaps, but as with most people who are as inexperienced as the OP in buying cars, they didn't think of that at the time. But they have asked now and it would churlish for some people to beat them up about it. As it turns out, there seems to have been no harm done.

cardinalbiggles

Lum wrote: »

Yes you can flash the mileage on the new clocks to any number you want, but this often leaves traces which can be found later, and ends up looking dodgier than just leaving it alone and documenting the process.

You can usually easily put them forwards to whatever number you like but not as easily backwards (well on my Fiat via the OBDII interface)

If it was my car I would update it to be what it should have been to save any problems. Leaving it lower is just asking for trouble or misunderstanding whether that be on purpose or not.