Any legitimate reason a new car would be clocked?

Little CuChulainn

My partner bought her Nissan brand new five years ago from a Nissan dealer. It was serviced with Nissan for the first few years and then by a member of the family. It's never been with another mechanic. The family mechanic hooked it up to the computer last week and noticed that the kilometers driven in the computer memory is 13,000 more than the readout on the dashboard.

Is there any legitimate reason the dealership may have clocked the car before selling it? It wasn't a demo model or import.

*Kol*

Are you saying that the car may have had 13000 km on it when your partner bought it?

Little CuChulainn

*Kol* wrote: »

Are you saying that the car may have had 13000 km on it when your partner bought it?

Unless the internal reading is incorrect I can't think of any other reason there would be a difference.

Atlantic Dawn

Was she first owner of the car, does the logbook list previous owners as 1 or 0?

Sam Russell

Could be the dealer used it as a demonstrator on trade plates - not unheard of - but winding back the clock to hide such use - not so common.

Cee-Jay-Cee

Did the car ever have its ECU replaced? That's the only legitimate reason I can think of for such a major discrepancy.

Did she buy the car as brand new or nearly new demo model?

Little CuChulainn

Our understanding was the car was brand new as she had to wait for it do be delivered to the dealers. Registration cert says no previous owners. ECU was not replaced to my knowledge.

Cee-Jay-Cee

Possibly just a glitch but I would however bring it back to the dealer and see if their computer shows the same thing and ask them to explain it.

OldMrBrennan83

This post has been deleted.

swarlb

Patww79 wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

If a Main Nissan Dealer (as opposed to a person who 'deals in cars') clocked a brand new car to the tune of 13,000 kms or miles, then it's the Dealership who is at fault, and not a renegade mechanic.
Firstly report it to the Dealership, then SIMI, and finally the Police.
A car with 13,000 would show clear signs of wear and tear, no matter how clean it was presented.

OldMrBrennan83

This post has been deleted.

robtri

any car with 13,000 on the clock as stated above has obvious signs wear and use....

was there any signs when the car was purchased of use?

what model car? whats the current mileage? what was the recorded mileage
any modifications at all to the car? repairs to the car

Sleeper12

Sam Russell wrote:

Could be the dealer used it as a demonstrator on trade plates - not unheard of - but winding back the clock to hide such use - not so common.

Not just not so common, it's downright illegal.

Little CuChulainn

robtri wrote: »

any car with 13,000 on the clock as stated above has obvious signs wear and use....

was there any signs when the car was purchased of use?

what model car? whats the current mileage? what was the recorded mileage
any modifications at all to the car? repairs to the car

There were issue with the car when purchased. Air con and phone microphone were not working properly. It's a qashqai. Someone reversed into it the week after it was purchased but all repairs were done by the dealer. No modifications to it. I'm looking for the purchase records to see if it notes what mileage was recorded when we got it.

bazz26

What was the reading on the ECU versus what is on the clock? Was the reading from the ECU in actual km or miles?

Little CuChulainn

bazz26 wrote: »

What was the reading on the ECU versus what is on the clock? Was the reading from the ECU in actual km or miles?

The ECU showed 13000 more than the clock.

corsav6

Little CuChulainn wrote: »

The ECU showed 13000 more than the clock.

I think he means is the ecu in miles and the clocks in km, or vice versa.

As stated already you would certainly notice 13k on a car, especially if been passed off as brand new.

porsche boy

Was it ever brought in for a recall?? We're the dash clocks replaced early in its life?

Explosive_Cornflake

swarlb wrote: »

If a Main Nissan Dealer (as opposed to a person who 'deals in cars') clocked a brand new car to the tune of 13,000 kms or miles, then it's the Dealership who is at fault, and not a renegade mechanic.
Firstly report it to the Dealership, then SIMI, and finally the Police.
A car with 13,000 would show clear signs of wear and tear, no matter how clean it was presented.

I don't think sting will care about it, he probably has other things going on.


The ECU and the care could be reading at different rates. I'd have a talk with nissan. What was the totals on the two readings? i.e. is it out by 10% or 50%?
You could track it over the next 10k and see if they still differ by the same actual margin or same percentage margin.

EndaHonesty

Edit. Never mind. I'm not making sense.

mikeecho

The car was bought 5 years ago.

And has been serviced by both a main dealer and another mechanic.

Best of luck trying to prove who caused the mileage discrepancy.

BarryD

corsav6 wrote: »

I think he means is the ecu in miles and the clocks in km, or vice versa.

Yeah, but wouldn't make sense. The OP is concerned because the internal reading is Higher that what's reading on the clock. Presumably the clock reads Kms if the car is 5 years old, new and not an import? So therefore if the internal reading was miles, it would be Less than the dashboard

Little CuChulainn

corsav6 wrote: »

I think he means is the ecu in miles and the clocks in km, or vice versa.

As stated already you would certainly notice 13k on a car, especially if been passed off as brand new.

Both KM. I think 138k and 151k are the readings.

porsche boy wrote: »

Was it ever brought in for a recall?? We're the dash clocks replaced early in its life?

There was a recall for something. I can't recall what it was at the moment. I'll have to check that out.

mikeecho wrote: »

The car was bought 5 years ago.

And has been serviced by both a main dealer and another mechanic.

Best of luck trying to prove who caused the mileage discrepancy.

I'll worry about that if it comes to it. I'm just trying to figure out if there could be any legitimate reason for the discrepancy right now.

mickdw

Given that the car is supposed to be a factory order and not from local stock, you could have a quick check around it for any dates on parts. On any factory order car I've seen, the parts are usually dated only weeks before delivery as the factories operate a 'just in time' operation in terms of parts arriving at factory.
So check around and if you see a few dates maybe 6 months before delivery date, it might be suspicious but not definitive. On the other hand, if you see any late dates as in a couple of weeks before delivery to you, it would rule out someone having it for long enough to clock up 13000 km.

landmarkjohn

Little CuChulainn wrote: »

There were issue with the car when purchased. Air con and phone microphone were not working properly. It's a qashqai. Someone reversed into it the week after it was purchased but all repairs were done by the dealer. No modifications to it. I'm looking for the purchase records to see if it notes what mileage was recorded when we got it.

I guess it is possible that during the course of these repairs the ECU was swapped with one from a used stock vehicle (to fix aircon and microphone issue)

robbie99

You can enter the VIN into one of the many Nissan VIN decoders (google) and get a build date for the car. I'd expect it to take less than 2 months for the car to reach the dealer from the factory.

noelf

On a Golf I had it had a software update during a service to prevent the milometer defaulting to zero ..

*Kol*

noelf wrote: »

On a Golf I had it had a software update during a service to prevent the milometer defaulting to zero ..

I had a golf years ago where the speedo cable fell out of the back of the dash. It took me nearly a year to get it reconnected!!

JoeA3

This is nuts. There's got to be a simple explanation. 13k Kms is huge. Even the most dis interested non-car-nut would notice if a "new" car had 13k Kms clocked up. The new car smell would be well faded for starters!!