VW Golf Mileage Discrepancy

DominicM

My elderly father purchased a low mileage 67 plate VW Golf earlier this year from a VW main dealer. We are now having to sell it due to his failing health.  We had the car MOT’d and discovered that the last MOT mileage at 34413 miles is nearly 14000 miles more than the current Odometer reading. The ECU mileage obtained when having the vehicle serviced and plugged into AB diagnostic system is 36581 miles, more than the mileage on last year’s MOT so that points to the Odometer being wrong.  The car was purchased from a VW main dealer and the bill of sale indicates a mileage of 21651 which is lower than the current Odometer reading of 22724 miles. I believe that the dealers should have verified the mileage at the time of sale which they could have done by checking the MOT records and service history. I have asked for official VW Service records but the dealer is proving a bit elusive.  Where do we stand and what remedies are available to us?

Aylesbury_Duck

DominicM said:

My elderly father purchased a low mileage 67 plate VW Golf earlier this year from a VW main dealer. We are now having to sell it due to his failing health.  We had the car MOT’d and discovered that the last MOT mileage at 34413 miles is nearly 14000 miles more than the current Odometer reading. The ECU mileage obtained when having the vehicle serviced and plugged into AB diagnostic system is 36581 miles, more than the mileage on last year’s MOT so that points to the Odometer being wrong.  The car was purchased from a VW main dealer and the bill of sale indicates a mileage of 21651 which is lower than the current Odometer reading of 22724 miles. I believe that the dealers should have verified the mileage at the time of sale which they could have done by checking the MOT records and service history. I have asked for official VW Service records but the dealer is proving a bit elusive.  Where do we stand and what remedies are available to us?

What outcome do you want?  That will determine what your next steps might be.  Assuming you're after a partial refund (and remember it's your father that holds consumer rights, so he'll either need to deal with it or authorise you to do so), then the first step would be to list things as you have here, contact the dealer and see what they have by way of explanation.

MH1927

VAG vehicles used to store the mileage in KM not miles on the ECU.

The ECU miles (KM?) are pretty close to the Odometer miles when converted (11 miles could be a simple rounding error).

Was the servicing Garage a VAG expert?

Aylesbury_Duck

MH1927 said:

VAG vehicles used to store the mileage in KM not miles on the ECU.

The ECU miles (KM?) are pretty close to the Odometer miles when converted (11 miles could be a simple rounding error).

Was the servicing Garage a VAG expert?

That's a good spot.  It pretty much converts, as you say.

DominicM

Now why didn’t I think of that, great spot. It looks like the previous MOT mileage was actually Km. I will clarify with VW. If it is this simple an error I am surprised that they have not got back to me.

Sandtree

DominicM said:

Now why didn’t I think of that, great spot. It looks like the previous MOT mileage was actually Km. I will clarify with VW. If it is this simple an error I am surprised that they have not got back to me.

On the basis our main VW dealer had to telephone me on how to get into the boot of the car when the electronic release was faulty it wouldnt be overly surprising if they don;t think of the obvious thing that you have read the KM reading and assumed it was Miles... they may believe you've converted the reading to miles or dont know themselves that its in KM

DominicM

Oh my days that is priceless. I haven’t heard from the dealers so am letting them stew. 

The MOT and Service were carried out by a local independent garage, surprised that they and their auto electrician were unaware of the ECU values being in Kilometres. VW’s are after all fairly common.

Sandtree

DominicM said:

Oh my days that is priceless

It would have been if they hadn't had the car 4 days before phoning me and admitting they'd not started work yet as they couldnt work out how to open the boot... only at that point did they offer a hire car.

I admit it did take me the best part of an hour before giving up and checking the manual where it shows there is a manual release pull cord behind the arm rest in the back seats... seems VW decided better to call the customer than read the manual.