Mileage fraud threat highlighted by vehicle check data

Car clocking is the term used to describe the process of deliberately falsifying the mileage on a car to improve its sale price, and it’s illegal. Unfortunately though, it’s perfectly legal for an owner to change the mileage on any car they own, as long as they disclose a known discrepancy between the odometer and the car’s true mileage when selling it. With companies openly offering ‘mileage correction’ services for cash, the situation leads to plenty of opportunity for buyers to come unstuck, whether through their own carelessness when it comes to checking a vehicle’s history, or as a result of deliberate deceit by unscrupulous sellers.

Figures from history check firm CarVertical reveal the extent to which mileage doctoring has spread through the UK car parc. The company says 2.1 per cent of the 7.6 million cars checked on its website in the 12 months to October had odometer readings that didn’t tally with the car’s recorded mileage history. If you scale that up to the size of the UK used car market, it suggests that 160,000 vehicles will change hands this year with some risk of potential mileage fraud.

While clocking is often associated with older used cars, the firm says figures for cars under five years old are almost as shocking, with 1.9 per cent showing evidence of falsified mileages.

CarVertical’s results show Kias to be the most commonly clocked nearly new car, with nine per cent of the brand’s cars showing dodgy mileages when checked. Nissan was runner-up at almost 7 per cent, and Dacia third at just over 6 per cent. The figures also shed light on the vehicles getting the biggest ‘mileage makeovers’, with clocked Ford Transit vans rolled back by an average of 76,365 miles, and clocked Skoda Octavias by 76,053 miles.

According to the car history check specialist, clocking can inflate a used car’s value by up to 25 per cent, potentially leaving car buyers duped out of thousands of pounds.

One of the best ways to check the mileage on a potential used car purchase is to pay for a used car check before handing over cash to a vendor.