Motor Mouth - Clocking Issue

Motor Mouth: Gabes

Hi guys,

My name is Gabes and I work as a researcher on Motor Mouth on Newstalk. We'd like to get the Boards.ie view on the topics we discuss each week. Next Monday we're looking at the issue of clocking....the practice of turning back the mileage of a car. It is currently not llegal in Ireland, although it is illegal to tell a buyer the clocked mileage is the correct mileage. If you have any views on this or any anecdotes in relation to clocking we'd love to hear from you. Also action do you think should be taken against sellers that offer clocked cars or garages that change the mileage on a car. Let us know.....

Thx
Gabes.

Tigger

I'm currently looking for a diesel second Gand and I'd say three of the four I've looked at are clocked. The nct printout you get with the acual figures on it has the displayed milage on it but untill recently the cert it's self didn't. The nct cert should have from day one also the "milege correction " people who advertise should be banned.

biko

It should be considered, and punished as, fraud. Particularly dealers caught should be extra harshly punished, not only do they lie to the buyer but they bring the whole business into disrepute.

Sure the dealer will try the "but I didn't know" defence, which is moot since they should be extra vigilant and know more about cars than Joe Soaps.

Anan1

The problem of clocking could be all but eradicated in the morning if buyers were to use their heads and do a few simple checks prior to purchase.

Pique

Anan1 wrote: »

The problem of clocking could be all but eradicated in the morning if buyers were to use their heads and do a few simple checks prior to purchase.

Not necessarily. If you are into your cars, then yes, but most people trust the dealers (and why shouldn't they) and take the mileage as fact.
Each service/nct/vrt should record the mileage and this should be stored on a secure database accessible like carcheck.

si_guru

Let's say the do ban clocking - which they should for sure. Will it ever get policed? Right now it is illegal to have no NCT or your Road Tax out of date. But you only have to look at 10 cars on any street to find one breaking the law!

Absurdum

Anan1 wrote: »

The problem of clocking could be all but eradicated in the morning if buyers were to use their heads and do a few simple checks prior to purchase.

It's not fair nor right to put the onus on the buyer - the law should be there to protect them.

Cookie_Monster

biko wrote: »

It should be considered, and punished as, fraud.

exactly.

djimi

I thought it was already fraud to lie about the mileage on a car when selling it? If its not then it should be, because that is exactly what it is.

Anan1

Pique wrote: »

Each service/nct/vrt should record the mileage and this should be stored on a secure database accessible like carcheck.

Each service does record the mileage, which is one reason why I would never buy a car without a full, verified service history.

Absurdum wrote: »

It's not fair nor right to put the onus on the buyer - the law should be there to protect them.

That would be ideal, but I can't see how it could ever be achieved. Even if a car can be proven to have been clocked, you'd then have to prove who did it and who knew. IMO, for as long as there are people who buy cars without history, there will be clockers who take advantage of it.

kasper

i would think most of the adjusted mileage happens before the car has its first test at four years old

djimi

Anan1 wrote: »

That would be ideal, but I can't see how it could ever be achieved. Even if a car can be proven to have been clocked, you'd then have to prove who did it and who knew. IMO, for as long as there are people who buy cars without history, there will be clockers who take advantage of it.

Well if garage owners knew that they faced full on fraud charges if caught, and the legal repercussions that go with it, they might think twice about clocking cars. There is always going to be cowboys who will do things like this, the same as there will always be people who are willing to break any law, but if the punishments were severe enough then it might make them think twice about it.

You cannot put the onus on the general public for a thing like this when 80%+ of car buyers do not know the first thing about cars, and should not be expected to know about them in that level of detail.

bmw535d

the reason for clocking/clocking companies is if your dash fecks up you may get a second hand one in a scrap yard.this then needs to be corrected to the cars correct mileage,so we couldn't just ban clocking,

and it is also sometimes impossible to detect if buying the car privately, iv'e seen people buying second hand steering wheels, gear knobs, carpets etc with much less wear on them, if the car went through the previous nct with say 65,000 on it. through the next to years you could put up 25-30 k miles. if you where to clock the car back 15k and nct it again it would be undetectable,nothing to say you aren't a low mileage driver.

it also not uncommon to be able to buy fake service stamps online and make up a full service history that seems very genuine, also garages are known to take a fee for making up a service history,

Anan1

djimi wrote: »

Well if garage owners knew that they faced full on fraud charges if caught, and the legal repercussions that go with it, they might think twice about clocking cars. There is always going to be cowboys who will do things like this, the same as there will always be people who are willing to break any law, but if the punishments were severe enough then it might make them think twice about it.

You cannot put the onus on the general public for a thing like this when 80%+ of car buyers do not know the first thing about cars, and should not be expected to know about them in that level of detail.

But it's not just garages who clock cars. How would you prove that a garage knew that the car they'd taken as a trade in and were now selling was clocked?

si_guru

bmw535d wrote: »

the reason for clocking/clocking companies is if your dash fecks up you may get a second hand one in a scrap yard.this then needs to be corrected to the cars correct mileage,so we couldn't just ban clocking,

and it is also sometimes impossible to detect if buying the car privately, iv'e seen people buying second hand steering wheels, gear knobs, carpets etc with much less wear on them, if the car went through the previous nct with say 65,000 on it. through the next to years you could put up 25-30 k miles. if you where to clock the car back 15k and nct it again it would be undetectable,nothing to say you aren't a low mileage driver.

it also not uncommon to be able to buy fake service stamps online and make up a full service history that seems very genuine, also garages are known to take a fee for making up a service history,

You are right, but the point is that clocking is not illegal - so it happens. If it was made illegal then the cosumer would have more protection.

djimi

Anan1 wrote: »

But it's not just garages who clock cars. How would you prove that a garage knew that the car they'd taken as a trade in and were now selling was clocked?

You wouldnt, but the law states innocent until proven guilty, and if they are proven guilty then they should be punished accordingly. If theres no proof then so be it, and I know its not an easy one to prove, but if it can be proven then the punishments should be there to deal with it, and if it stops even a handful of cowboys trying it on then why not?

si_guru

djimi wrote: »

You wouldnt, but the law states innocent until proven guilty, and if they are proven guilty then they should be punished accordingly. If theres no proof then so be it, and I know its not an easy one to prove, but if it can be proven then the punishments should be there to deal with it, and if it stops even a handful of cowboys trying it on then why not?

..but also the garages would be more careful. the harder it becomes to sell a clocked car the less reason for people to do it!

BigEejit

Gabes Motor Mouth wrote: »

Next Monday we're looking at the issue of clocking....the practice of turning back the mileage of a car. It is currently not llegal in Ireland, although it is illegal to tell a buyer the clocked mileage is the correct mileage.

:eek:
Same here in the UK ... but if you have the V5C number you can check all MOT's for the car.... How do you get the V5C number though if the seller wont show it to you

PaulKK

BigEejit wrote: »

:eek:
How do you get the V5C number though if the seller wont show it to you

If they won't show it to you walk away, what are they hiding?


When I was looking for a new car in January I spotted one in Monaghan on NI plates, 70K miles it said. Thankfully I did a UK HPI check and it reported the car as having a reg change from English plates and as having 122K miles on it in 2008.

Best 20 quid I ever spent.

Thats one good thing about UK cars, at least you can get the actual history of a car with mileage etc.

JabbaTheHut

I remember a guy on the radio a few years ago clocking a Merc of 180,000 to 60,000 for a garage. He didn't care. He was getting paid, but he did get done for clocking, and got a jail sentance. Can't remember rightly what the charges were but he was pretty repentant for it.

I just work off a rule of thumb of about 15k to 20k a year. So a 10 year old car *should* be around 150,000-200,000 miles mark. Not always the case( I have a 10 year old vectra that has less than 110,000 miles, but that's because it's only covering about 5,000 a year), but when buying, I always are mindful of what a seller would do to sell their car

bmw535d

si_guru wrote: »

You are right, but the point is that clocking is not illegal - so it happens. If it was made illegal then the cosumer would have more protection.

my point is it can't be made illegal because it is sometimes done for genuine reasons, however we could have it monitored, for example only nct centers are allowed to have clocking equipment and you go there to have your car adjusted legally for genuine reasons.this would render all those people who advertise on done-deal etc "mileage correction service" illegal, it would still be hard to police.

JHMEG

Anan1 wrote: »

The problem of clocking could be all but eradicated in the morning if buyers were to use their heads and do a few simple checks prior to purchase.

That's naive. I could be doing 20k a year, clock 19k off each year, bring my car in for its annual service, and get the book stamped every time. After 3 years I'd have "a low mileage FSH" car instead of a 60k car.

Anan1

djimi wrote: »

You wouldnt, but the law states innocent until proven guilty, and if they are proven guilty then they should be punished accordingly. If theres no proof then so be it, and I know its not an easy one to prove, but if it can be proven then the punishments should be there to deal with it, and if it stops even a handful of cowboys trying it on then why not?

If it's proven, absolutely. The problem, as you say, is that it's a very hard one to prove.

JHMEG wrote: »

That's naive. I could be doing 20k a year, clock 19k off each year, bring my car in for its annual service, and get the book stamped every time. After 3 years I'd have "a low mileage FSH" car instead of a 60k car.

Sure you could, although it's pretty unlikely that one would. But yes, it's probably impossible to completely eradicate clocking.

Motor Mouth: Gabes

Gabes Motor Mouth wrote: »

Hi guys,

My name is Gabes and I work as a researcher on Motor Mouth on Newstalk. We'd like to get the Boards.ie view on the topics we discuss each week. Next Monday we're looking at the issue of clocking....the practice of turning back the mileage of a car. It is currently not llegal in Ireland, although it is illegal to tell a buyer the clocked mileage is the correct mileage. If you have any views on this or any anecdotes in relation to clocking we'd love to hear from you. Also action do you think should be taken against sellers that offer clocked cars or garages that change the mileage on a car. Let us know.....

Thx
Gabes.

Many thanks to everyone that contributed to this discussion. I'll try and put a package together of the boards.ie views that will be used in the show tonight (Newstalk, 10-12). I'll post a new issue for discussion during the week so please keep an eye out for it.
Thanks again,
Gabes.