What type of cars are most likely to have been tampered with?

The reason for winding odometers is to make more money.  The most money can be made by tampering with top range or luxury vehicles such as Mercedes or BMW.  In Japan we currently fail about 4% of all vehicles we inspect. The breakdown of tampered vehicles in Japan for particular vehicles types is as follows:

Trucks/ Buses 15%, 4X4 trucks 6.1%, Sports (GT type cars) 5.9%, MPV 4.1%, Vans 3.9%, Saloons 2.6% and Small hatches 2.5%. .

Commerical trucks and buses are the most commonly tampered followed by 4X4 utility vehicles (Toyota Surf, Izuzu Bighorn, MMC Pajero) and sports rated vehicles (such as Subaru WRX, Legacy GT, Mitsubishi EVO 4 or Nissan 300ZX) . The most commonly tampered vehicles in Japan by vehicle models class are the Subaru Legacy, Nissan Terrano and Isuzu Bighorn.

The last category to watch out for are the ex-lease vehicles that would have been driven by a professional sales rep.  The type of vehicles are such as Toyota Camry, Mitsubishi Diamante and the Nissan Maxima or Primera.  Ex-lease vehicles virtually never do less than 20,000 kilometers a year.

A general guideline is that as the value of the car increases or the mileage displayed on the odometer drops on an imported vehicle, the risk of interference increases, especially if the car fits into any of the above three categories.

How many kilometres are usually removed?

In most cases when we inspect an odometer, it is possible for us to tell to what extent the odometer has been wound back.  We have seen vehicles clocked by up to 200,000 kilometers or as low as 10,000 kms.  A very common range is between 20-40,000 kilometers, nearly a complete lap of the planet in distance but almost impossible to detect from the condition of the vehicle.  Bear in mind that the average motorist does between 10 to 30,000 kilometers each year, even in countries such as Japan and you can get a quick idea if the mileage is reasonable.  However, we have inspected the odometers of vehicles that have done as little as 10-20,000 kilometres in the ten years since they were manufactured and found them to be in perfect condition.  From our database of vehicles inspected verified to be correct mileage, the average distance traveled per year is around 18 to 22,000 kms. 

What method of tampering is the most common?

Most of the imported cars that fail our inspection process do so because of scratches around the odometer window and lever marks on the actual drums, indicating that the alteration has been done through the front face of the instrument.  Probably 30% of failures have been altered from the rear of the instrument and a further 5-10% fail because of obvious signs that the entire odometer unit has been swapped.  The theory that odometers are wound mainly with high speed drills operating in reverse attached to the speedometer cable is an old wives tale. 

There are however, a significant number of New Zealand car owners who will detach the speedometer cable from the instrument.  This method prevents the speedometer and the odometer from working at all.  The only way of detecting this form of odometer fraud is through tracing the paperwork to detect periods where the mileage increases by miraculously small amounts or sometimes goes backwards.

What about digital odometers?

Tampering of digital odometers in Japan is widespread. For detailed information in regard to digital odometers click here.

Is mechanical unreliability a sign of tampering?

Not always.  Whilst a clocked vehicle may not perform as well as the buyer would expect in terms of fuel economy or repair bills, genuine low mileage vehicles with poor service histories will also perform poorly.  A mechanical inspection of the vehicle combined with an analysis of the service history of the vehicle (if available) is as important as the odometer reading.  A recent AA report indicate that diesels vehicles are often poorly serviced in Japan and great care is needed in selecting an imported diesel model.