Bought car and speedo is way off

homewardbound11

Hi,
I bought a second hand car from a dealer (main). The car reads in KM but after driving it, I can clearly see that 50km is 50 pmh. The car was bought only a week ago.
Thing is we really like the car but the mileage is now not 102,000km but infact 102,000 miles.
What are my options.

mickdw

What car is it?

unkel

Did you talk to the dealer? Was the car clearly advertised as having 102k km?

homewardbound11

its a 2005 opel meriva. The clok is of analog type and only in kilometres.

Eric Cartman

if its a jap car with km/h dials it could have been in the UK , chances are a little converter box was installed at the rear of the gauge cluster , remove the gauges and see , remove the box and just reconnect the original wires by colour , most of these boxes only affect the speedo and not the odometer so the mileage could still be accurate

homewardbound11

thanks, for the reply.
But opel, can it originate in japan. The oddometer does look off but I will need to test this properly first.
Either way and assuming the worst case senario. The car is out by 40,000 miles. What would be my best course of action given that we still like the car.

650Ginge

homewardbound11 wrote: »

thanks, for the reply.
But opel, can it originate in japan. The oddometer does look off but I will need to test this properly first.
Either way and assuming the worst case senario. The car is out by 40,000 miles. What would be my best course of action given that we still like the car.

Maybe quit panicing and find out if the advice you have been given is any use.

How are you checking the 'correct' speed?

homewardbound11

650Ginge wrote: »

Maybe quit panicing and find out if the advice you have been given is any use.

How are you checking the 'correct' speed?

The sppedo is off. No question. I tracked it with confirmation of another car and a sat nav.
Any relevant advice on the course of action with the dealer would be appreciated.
The oddometer I cant confirm until I test it.

homewardbound11

Right , an update.

Travelled 210km in car and it registered 130km on the oddometer. Note the car displays in KM's only but actually it is miles and Mph..

Brought it back to the dealer who addmitted there was an issue .. They are looking into it but they say the car displaying km's but really it was travelling in miles per hour. Even if they correct the issue, I am left with a car with unconfirmed milage.

Now what are my best options to deal with this. They so far have not offered an apology for this. To my knowledge my options are.



a) Refund.
This is o.k.ish but leaves us with the search again for a new car and als out of pocket with insurance cover and also travel to and from the dealer (160km).

b) Look for an alternative with the same dealer.
My wife does like the car but as the oddometer is now unreliable and working in miles. It means that the car was never serviced at proper intervals. It also meansi cannot sell or trade with it in the future.
The garage now have the hassle of a car with unconfirmed milage and also correcting the car from miles back to kilometers. Surely they cannot sell this on either as if corrected the oddometer would then be incorrect.

Any opionions on their responsibilities and my options.?

Chimaera

Is the car Irish or UK-sourced originally? If the service book is stamped, I'd phone the dealers listed in it and ask them to verify that they serviced the vehicle - they should have it in their records.

Also worth doing a history check on the VIN to see what that turns up: get one done for here at least, and perhaps the UK too.

My theory at this point is that it's a UK sourced car and someone replaced the imperial instrument overlay with a metric one without recalibrating the instrument cluster. Alternatively, the settings in the cluster for converting the distance/speed signal into the dash display are wrong.

It's also unlikely the previous owner would have covered 102k miles or kilometres without realising something was amiss here. Either the PO did something to it, or the dealer selling it did.

Buffman

homewardbound11 wrote: »

They so far have not offered an apology for this.

Well, this alone would rule out option b) for me.
If you decide you don't want to keep the car, can't say I'd disagree TBH with unknown mileage and servicing.

I agree with Chimaera, it's unlikely to have been like that since 2005, so there's probably a story to it.
If you can confirm the mileage and servicing and were to keep the car, you should be looking for some money back on it.

homewardbound11 wrote: »

This is o.k.ish but leaves us with the search again for a new car and als out of pocket with insurance cover and also travel to and from the dealer (160km).

Well, you should be able to transfer your insurance, and hit the dealer up for travel expenses.

homewardbound11

thanks for the replies. I feel i am getting somewhere now.

They dont seem too willing to follow up on the previous owners and there isnt really any service history of note other than recent ones in their hands.

Even though the car feels good, I think the prudent option would be to get the cash back on this car. It is far too dodgy as it is. Just goes to show that you can't be too carefull. I would say the dealer is as clueless about this as I cant really someone going to the effort of changing the instrument panel and not correcting the conversion from km to miles.
So it looks alot like a silly effort and possibly former owners/sellers.

Vertakill

I had a jap car recently that made it's way to the UK before making it to Ireland.
It was originally in KM's.. the speedo had km/h, the onboard computer had 'km/h' written beside it, the consumption was done in l/km .... but it had a mph to km/h converter attached just under the steering wheel.

I never could be bothered to disconnect it but it did confuse the crap out of me sometimes. I could never tell if my consumption was in km's or miles, my speedo and obc always had km/h on it but the number displayed was actually in miles.

Same story probably with the odometer. I'm not really sure but I couldn't tell at a glance if it was actually in km's or miles in the end (never bothered gauging the distance of a trip). Very confusing.

Anyways, I'd take a refund... Too much sh!t to explain when you go to sell it on!

Henry Ford III

What mileage was shown on the cars service history?