They Rolled Back OVER 200,000 MILES on THIS CAR! Here's how you can avoid Odometer Rollback Scams

Most of you should remember this clip from the movie Matilda, where Danny DeVito, Matilda's father, turns back the mileage on a car using just a drill, before marking it up and selling it to an unsuspecting buyer. Twenty years ago, we could turn the numbers back by hand. Here, take my hat. But the feds like to test the ingenuity of the American businessman. While he makes this process look very easy in the movie, the reality is, it was very easy to turn back the mileage on older cars with analog dials. Hey guys, I'm Sam Krak, and today I'm going to tell you why you should never fall for an odometer rollback scam. It's just one of those scams that is super easy to avoid. Now, locally here in the Tampa Bay area, there was a report of a person rolling back the odometer on cars and selling it. Now, this is nothing new. It happens all the time, and it happens all over the country, and probably all over the world. The big thing is, scammers target a certain type of car. Now, I'm going to show you a few news clips from this specific news story, and others, and then I'm going to show you exactly the common theme with these odometer rollback scams, and show you exactly how you can avoid them. Mary Ellen Morgan bought this van on Craigslist. She paid $5,000, and the odometer read 108,000. Later that night, she discovered it actually had nearly 178,000 miles. So, as you just saw, the woman bought the car first, and bought a Carfax after. And, as far as I know, you actually should be doing those in reverse order. Running a Carfax first, or some other sort of in-history report, and then getting the car afterward. You see, nowadays, most people don't do their own car maintenance. And, even if you take your car to, say, a Jiffy Lube, or any other quick oil change place, they're writing down the miles. So, not only does that go on a receipt, it goes into a history record. And, as long as Carfax, or the other VIN check that you're being provided, or pulling yourself, subscribes to whatever is providing that history record, it will show on a report. So, in pretty much all of these odometer rollback scams that are publicized, a simple VIN history check would have uncovered pretty much all of them. The people involved in these scams usually just don't physically change the odometer. They also have to change the title somehow to not reflect the actual miles. And, basically, how you do that, in most states, in my state of Florida, the rule is 10 years old. Once a car reaches a certain age, the state exempts the odometer from being reported when being registered. The reason they do that is because it's obvious. When a car gets a certain age, they no longer mind. So, you've got classic cars that have had two or three different engines in them at one point. The odometer really doesn't matter. It comes down to the condition of the car. And, my golden rule is 10 years and 100,000 miles cumulative on a car that's not a special car. A car that you're going out just seeking transportation. Look at it as an individual car. Look at the condition. Make sure you check out the mechanics as best as you're able to. Make sure it sounds alright and its drivability. If it passes that test and the price point is good, you're probably good to go. In this upcoming clip, we'll take a look at another Honda that had over 300,000 miles at one time. But, the scam artist went and rolled it back to just over 100,000 miles. Taking over 200,000 miles off the odometer. Again, this is an analog gauge. These are very easy to change. We got a shot of the odometer and it did show just under 127,000 miles. But, that's nowhere near the mileage Carfax showed on the 1997 Honda Civic. We ran the vehicle identification number. Someone had rolled back the odometer 205,000 miles. It's right there. And, the car's previous owner, Mark LeBonce, who tipped us off, showed me a receipt from an old repair. Right. It had 254. I put another 80,000 miles on it. In 2008, the car already had 254,000 miles on it. And, just days after LeBonce sold it, he spotted it back online for about four times the price he had sold it for. And, I got a little suspicious. And, as I read the ad, it said that the car had 127,000 miles on it. And, that kind of made some alarm bells go off. Could that be possible? Uh, no. Unless he drove in reverse for a long, long way. Wow. We're really dealing with a bunch of brain surgeons here. It clearly doesn't work like that. And, for proof, I'll show you this clip from Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I better check on the car. Hey! Yeah? The miles aren't coming off. The miles aren't coming off going in reverse. Huh. Well, I thought that might be a problem. Just have to crack open the odometer. Roll it back by hand. Now, the two common elements in these two different news stories are the fact that both of the cars involved were Hondas. Obviously, it doesn't just happen to Hondas. But, a Honda is a good car for a scam artist to go ahead and roll back the miles on. Because, number one, they're easy to work on. Number two, the parts are readily available if they're going to do something like swap the gauge cluster. And, number three, they're reliable enough to where they think they can get away with it. Everyone knows if you treat a Japanese car pretty well as far as maintenance goes, it'll last darn near forever. Not to mention Hondas, Toyotas, cars like this that are even 10, 15 years old. They get to a certain point and the car itself doesn't really depreciate much unless they have really excessive miles. By turning the miles back, you can make another $500 to $1,000. That's what boggles my mind is these criminals are doing this over hundreds of dollars. And, they don't have much more to gain than $1,000 or maybe at the most $2,000. They're putting their whole entire life at risk over a little, little amount of money. But, this brings us to our next topic and that's how people roll back odometers. Like we just stated, analog odometers can be manually turned by hand or using some sort of tools. We've already discussed the action of manually swapping out gauge clusters. But, the latest form of odometer rollback is really the most concerning. And, that is through a very easy computer hooked up to your car. Anytime you go in for service that requires diagnosis, usually you have a scan tool placed into your car. Now, the good news is most scan tools that are offered publicly don't have the capability to do this. However, if someone at the dealership can manipulate your odometer, that pretty much means that if someone wants to do it, they'll figure out how to. Now, just because your odometer is manipulated doesn't mean that there's not other systems in the car that will reflect the actual mileage. That's why it's very important when you're buying a used car that is newer, and you want to make sure you're not getting something that has had the odometer rolled back, you get it checked out by a bona fide dealership either during a pre-purchase inspection or some other case. I've heard of a very recent story where someone purchased a certified pre-owned BMW. The car said it only had about 30,000 or 40,000 miles. And, a BMW mechanic discovered that the car actually had over 100,000 miles using their scan tool. These computer systems are very sophisticated. And, like I said, even though the gauge cluster might have one number, it doesn't mean that one of the other computer systems embedded in the car won't display the actual mileage. This dealership that sold the individual of the car got into a lot of legal trouble because of this. Now, to recap, always run a VIN check, especially a Carfax check. If you don't want to pay for a Carfax, in the video I'll link right above, I show you how to get a totally free VIN check that, in my opinion, is just as good, if not better, than Carfax. Another tip I'll leave you with is to research the person you're buying the car from. I know that sounds weird, but do a quick Google search of their phone number. That's all. If they're selling multiple cars and hold a dealer's license, but they're listing it as private party, you already know there's some sort of deception going on. And when it comes to clusters being swapped out, which, in my opinion, is probably the most common tactic used in the scam odometer rollback game, is to look around the dashboard for pry marks or anything that would tell you that that dashboard was taken apart so that they could swap that whole entire gauge cluster. Now, some of you might be wondering, at the salvage auctions, there's cars that will show an odometer reading and then say, not actual. And that basically means that the odometer wasn't able to be read at the time the car was logged in. And that's for a number of reasons, but it usually has to do with whatever the type of damage the car sustained was and the reason it's at auction. So, say the car was in a flood and the electronics don't work, they can't get an odometer reading. And if you actually see an odometer reading a number, not zero, that means that they're taking the last known history report, whether it was an oil change, whether it was a registration event, and they're posting it to give you some sort of guide. Now, I've seen it where some cars might say 75,000 miles, but someone might have owned it another two or three years and put another 30,000 miles on it. And the car really has way more than is being posted. But that, again, is for you guys to go in person, check the car out, feel it out. Especially if you're buying a car at auction, it kind of goes back to the 10 years, 100,000 mile golden rule. You want to focus in on the deal and the car itself first, and then you can focus in on the miles somewhere after. Again, assuming you're getting a really good price on it. Now, if you have any tips or tricks on avoiding odometer rollback scams, be sure to list them in the comment section below. Big shout out to 4WheelOnline for providing the link to this story. Thanks a lot for watching, and I will catch you very soon.