How to prove mileage is genuine?

ImARebel

Hi there,

Just looking for a bit of advice, I've got a car for sale and the mileage for the year is extremely low. In fact as people have pointed out to me suspiciously low.

How can I prove to people that don't know me and don't know the history of the car that it's genuine?

I have it advertised in loads of places and you know what they say about the internet "if it seems too good to be true, it usually is" and I think people think it's been clocked (and hard to blame them, I suppose)

So how do I go about proving that the mileage is genuine?

Thanks in advance

(this isn't a plug for my ad, I'm not going to put up a link or describe the car in any way, I'm genuinely looking for advice on this)

CiniO

What's the mileage and how old is the car?

galwayjohn89

Do you have NCT reports from previous years? 21,000 on a 8 year old car is very low! 2.5k every year. Was it sitting up at all?

Nissan doctor

All your service records and NCT sheets will have the mileage when each one was done.

ImARebel

It's an 04 Punto and it's got 20500 miles on it. The car was used as a holiday car by my friend's mam and she used to only be in the country for 6 months at a time, when I bought it in 2009 it had only 5000 miles on it. I have since put the remainder on but it's a second car and was only used as a run around. We have a diesel for doing the big journeys.

I NCT'd it before putting it up for sale as I wanted everything to be 100% legit and ensured timing belt and all that stuff was done before trying to sell it.

I never got it NCT'd when it expired after I bought it, I know I was supposed to, but I didn't.

ardmacha

Scan the service records and NCT certs, black out any address information etc, and put these on a website so people can see evidence of the progression. Your problem is that people will never come to see the car to see these documents, even if you have them. The gap in NCT will look a bit suspicious though.

djimi

Make sure that you have full service history for a car like that; never mind the issue of it being clocked, Id want to know that it was being serviced regularly and not just left unserviced because the mileage was so low (as is often the case).

ImARebel

The gap in the NCT was just due to a number of things happening in succession. First time I'd booked it in, I ended up in hospital and couldn't drive the car after. Then I booked it in again and my FIL in died. Then it was getting used to rarely it was easy to forget to book it in again.

Anyone that knows the history of the car says it's a great car, it's getting strangers to believe it is another thing.

I'll stick with it, but it's proving to be a pain but I can 100% see why people are dubious about it. I'm not sure if I was a buyer I'd believe my story either, lol

Thanks for the advice, I might take a pic of the old NCT cert I have, I don't have the actual full document that came with it. Or any of the old service history records. I bought it off a friend so I knew the car was reliable, I probably should have considered what would happen when I tried to sell it on. Doh...

I got it serviced in the local garage but I never got a piece of paper afterwards. I never thought to ask for one. The guy that had the garage has since died. I wonder if I would be able to get any service details at all off the guy that's taken it over. Thinking about it, it's a bit of an oversight on my part. Timing belt is done, new battery fitted etc but I've no proof.

Thanks for the advice much appreciated.

djimi

Would the local garage have records of your services? Might be worth getting them to print them out for you if they can.

ImARebel

I'll try it but the guy that owned it was quite elderly and he seemed to just make notes in a journal/diary. I suppose if I could remember the dates I was in there I could get some sort of proof. This wasn't a place with a computer and records to match, it was (is) an old fashioned old garage not like your kwik fit places.

Thanks again for all the advice, I might try advertising it a bit more locally at least they would know the garage it was done in etc

Cheers !