You may shudder at the thought of a Nigerian doing this to a fellow Nigerian but the truth is that this practice is quite rampant among some people that ship cars to Nigeria. If you look at the ads on Nairaland, you will frequently see 2000 and 2001 model cars with less than 100,000 miles especially the Camrys and Accords. Without even running a VIN report, I can confidently tell you that such mileages are almost certainly pure fabrication. It is nearly impossible to find a 10 year old tokunboh in Nigeria with less than 100,000 miles. Don't get me wrong, such cars exist in the US but they are so expensive that very few dealers can afford to ship them to Nigeria.

davidylan:

@ bizbooks

Not true. I bought a solara V6 engine for $3500 and less than 75000 miles on it. It was 11 yrs old.

BizBooks:

Do you mind providing the VIN?

Unfortunately most dealers know this which is why virtually 99% of auctions you find in the US are dealer-only. If it were open to the public most dealerships would close down.

It can be difficult, but not impossible to detect when a vehicle's odometer has been altered. CARFAX has compiled the following tips to help used car buyers detect odometer fraud:
• Ask to see the title and compare the mileage listed on the title with the vehicle's odometer. Examine the title closely if the mileage notation seems obscured or is hard to read.
• Compare the mileage on the odometer with the mileage indicated on the vehicle's maintenance or inspection records. You may also want to examine the mileage listed on oil-change and maintenance stickers. You may find these stickers on windows or door frames, in the glove box, or under the hood.
• Get a free CARFAX Odometer Check to help uncover potential odometer rollback.
• If the vehicle has a traditional mechanical odometer, check that the numbers on the odometer gauge are aligned correctly. If the gauge's numbers are crooked, contain gaps, or jiggle when you hit the dash with your hand, the vehicle may have been involved in odometer tampering.
• Examine the tires. If the odometer reads 20,000 or less miles, the vehicle should have the original tires.
• Look at the wear and tear on the vehicle – especially the gas, brake and clutch pedals – to see if the wear seems consistent with and appropriate for the number of miles displayed on the odometer.

Emperoh:

Odometer roll back!! Go to Berger and u will bleed at what you will see.

deadie:

I know somebody who imports cars and he told me that probably more than 90% of imported cars have their mileage reduced. The mileage reduction is mainly done abroad, cost average about 100 USD. VIN probably wouldn't help you. I know a car that was brought in with 60,000k knocked off the odometer, the user is still happy because of the good performance. The only advice is to test drive the car. But as long as finding out if the odometer was tampered with, forget it. As I have said earlier, it is done to virtually all the cars coming into Nigeria.

logica:

You can only get a low odometer reading for an old car if you are buying directly from a retiree. Yep, very rare.

alanbolo:

@ Fhemmy,  I understand your concern about the VIN check.  Here in NJ / NYC, we have dealers who ran the vin and tamper with the odometer to bring it down a bit more to what the VIN check reported last.   

I ran a MDX vin recently and what was reported there is totally not corresponding to what Acura have in their database -  and always oil change / tune-ups at the dealer.  VIN is good to check reported cases and not necessarily the TRUE mileage.

Have we noticed that most of our road accident with head on collisions have no Air-Bag deployed at accident time?  Bag-less SRS or

Imagineers:

i bought my Skoda Octavia brand new 2001 model in December 2001. the mileage has not gone beyond 82,000 kilometers.  This was possible because the car has been parked most of the time. My office is just within a bicycle distance from house.

It is very wrong to use the mileage to determine the real life of an automobile.

chaircover:

^^^^ hmmmmm that is true o!

I live 5 minutes from work and in the winter months I kill my car 5 days a week because the engine never quite warms up before I park it in the company car park and there is no way I am walking to work in freezing temperatures.

Ironically my milage is very low. I only do approx 6,000 miles a year, so anyone who sees the car will happily snap it up because of its low mileage. It only has 2 minor almost invisible marks on the whole body & a full BMW service history but It is still has the winter pressure in its history.

Fhemmmy:

You call that joke of a winter in UK freezing?
Come to Canada and you will halla