I'm in the middle of a purchase of a used 2010 Prius. There was some oddities in the vehicle report from autocheck: a year and a half after purchase it says 60,000 miles on the registration, a few months later it's reported again as 30,000. The lady that owns it will be looking for service records but at this point there's no proof which mileage is correct. Her story is that she misreported the miles to the DMV when transferring registration from her father. The story does seem plausible, but can the odometer have been somehow hacked/tampered with? Currently there's 50,000miles on the car. Assuming rollback that should be closer to 80,000. I'll be seeing the car on Wednesday, would there be any interior/exterior/driving notes that I should keep in mind which may help me see whether she's telling the truth or not? Would a mechanic familiar w/ Priuses have tools that'd allow you to see whether there's been some hackjob modifications done to the internal chips?
Mileage gets reported wrong, check the miles and dates, the dealer is the one that reported the wrong numbers June 29. DateService ProviderMileage April 9, 2013 Swope Toyota 83,314 June 29, 2012 Jeff Wyler Toyota Of Clarksville 113,024
The millage can indeed be altered with the correct equipment through the OBD port. If the car was serviced by Toyota you can check the millage at services online using the VIN number this should give you a good idea of what the real millage is. John (Britprius)
Thanks John, that sounds like the best way to look something up assuming it was serviced at the dealership. This is being sold by a lady that doesn't care about the car to the point of rounding mileage readings to the 5th digit(!), it does seem difficult to believe she was involved in any foul play... but these days you really can't tell. Hopefully she's at least been changing the oil every 5-10,000 miles.
Keep us informed. John (Britprius) The oil change interval was changed in the US to 10,000 miles so it is possible there may only be 3 change if the millage is 30,000. In the UK the change interval has always been 10,000 even on the gen2 Prius. John (Britprius)
The story she gave you seems plausible enough. I would think if mileage could be hacked it would take a lot of effort for a small payback. Getting a rollback of 30K is pretty small compared to a 150K rollback. The Toyota dealer should have the info in computers. In addition, many auto services have computer records. If she appears to be straight with you you could ask to talk with her father for confirmation.
I got the car. She had all records, everything looked straight. Car looked immaculate on the inside, outside it looked like she had the cheapest possible car carrier bring the thing over using vice grips on the bottoms of the cars (or at least you'd think it w/ the scratches there). Runs like a champ, honestly could care less if the thing was more banged up than it already was since I'll keep it till it's dead or totaled. Now to figure out how to cover up the worst offending blemishes...
can you go back to the car carrier for damages? Or maybe make an insurance claim, possibly comprehensive , and it would not increase the cost of your future insurance since it really isn't classified as an accident. I dont think a claim of this sort would be fraudulent, but you wan check with your insurance carrier. Good luck! Sorry about the damage!
We've got a Toyota Canada website entry that says "3000 km", when in fact it was 300 km. Could well be they just mis-read.