O/T Mileage wrong on bill-o-sale??
 

I am looking at an Astro van with 83k miles on it. I tell the guy I will buy it and he says one problem. The bill of sale has 96160 miles on it. He says it was wrong when they issued the bill of sale but he did not notice until years later. He tried to contact the old owner but was not successful in getting a leter to change it. Does this sound okay or is the guy BSing me? It has one those digital odometers and the car looks like it has 20k miles on it.

Thoughts?

Thank you Stacy for the CarFax. :)

The report has the following dates and mileage:
1/6/94 1,631
1/17/96 88,844
2/13/96 88,861
12/27/96 89,107
9/22/97 96,160

and
1/25/99 47,519 Inspection Co.
New Jersey
Vehicle Inspected
POTENTIAL ODOMETER ROLLBACK

Is this last info from a NJ inspection station?
Is carfax ever wrong?
Can a digital odometer be rolled back?

This sort of thing should raise enough red flags to force you to move on. Unless you're a gambling man. But wth something like this, why gamble? Start looking elsewhere.

Carfax report
 

Is this last info from a NJ inspection station? Could be or could be an auction.

Is carfax ever wrong? Carfax sucks. They just enter data and keep it under the vin. They do nothing to verify the miles just enter it so that if and when there are errors you must submit the corrections to them otherwise it'll be in there forever. Same thing with Autocheck, etc. Great service but a lot of cars get labled as bad.

Can a digital odometer be rolled back? Technically no but I supose anything is possible. Most of the time they are simply disconnected and then reconnected. I even had a lease turn in 911 that the leasee had installed a toggle switch to turn on and off his odo. Stupid guy didn't take it off before turning in the car. He's now paying a good $20k to solve his error.

Check the door jamb of the van to see if the odo had been replaced. I would favor that or would think somehow the 1st digit isn't lighting up and the vehicle has 146k on it. Chrysler Sebrings seem to alway have this problem but on them the entire light goes out. This might have more than 1 backlight.

Good news is you should be able to get it real cheap. Bad news is do you want it? Personally once a car reaches a certain age I go totally by its condition and maint records. If its been a well cared for 146k that's better than a not well cared for 50k. That said you would need to adjust any price you offer them by 25-40% off book for an odo discrep.

I would stay away from this one.

I could just be a new computer in the car.....

- Rob

Do you mean computer or digital odo?

My cavalier has a digital odometer. There is a removable chip in the gauge cluster that holds the milage data. The chip can easily be swapped, and with minor technical experiance, it can be flashed clear. It is also possible that he just replaced the cluster.

Mike

My cavalier has a digital odometer. There is a removable chip in the gauge cluster that holds the milage data. The chip can easily be swapped, and with minor technical experiance, it can be flashed clear. It is also possible that he just replaced the cluster.

Mike

RUN! do not walk away from this
 

Even the apparent math would scare me if, as you say, it has 83K on the Odometer now. Thats two years to play with... Unless you're picking it up for 500 bucks... you're asking for trouble.. IMHO

RUN!!!

RUN FASTER!!

RUN MUCH FASTER!!