Odometer

Look very closely at your title.......to see if the box is marked that says something like "not actual mileage".

But no, if it was a "one owner" car there likely is no way you can prove if that is right or not.

 

Go to the Toyota Owners site and register as the owner with your VIN, then you can view any service records (at Toyota) for your car, including mileage.

 

Even if the car wasn't serviced at a Toyota shop, to get maintenance service recorded into the Toyota Owner's database, it still ought to have mileages recorded when any recall work was performed. So it still might have evidence of any odometer tampering or undisclosed changeout with a lower-reading combination meter.

Then, if the title has a space to show that the odometer reading is not actual mileage, but doesn't have it marked, you may have a basis for a claim against the seller.

 

I don't know about IL, but here in La, >100,000 miles that checkbox is not required to be accurate

Since combo meter failure is not uncommon, that would probably explain the lower miles.
(On the bright side, that may mean that the combo meter is OK!)​

 

I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. If you are thinking of pursuing a legal claim against the seller, talk to a lawyer before doing any of the below.

You might be able to tell if the combination meter is a lot newer than the car, but you'll have to take the meter out of the car and open it up.

There is a sticker on the car, probably on the driver's door jamb, that gives the month and year the car was built. It will have that date at the top, and something like "Manufacturer certifies that this vehicle meets all Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards as of the date above" on it as well. Write that date down.

Take the combination meter out of the car, put it at your electrostatic-sensitive-device workstation, open up the housing, and look at the chips (integrated circuits). Most chips will have a date code on them, usually of the form YYWW or maybe YWW - these three or four numbers will usually be by themselves, and not part of a bigger number. YY or Y is the last two digits or last digit of the year, and WW is the week number of the year, 01 through 52. 0551 would be the week of Christmas, 2005. 605 would probably be the first week of February, 2006. (605 could also mean the first week of February, 2016, but Toyota probably wasn't still making service parts for an '06 car in 2016.)

Normally, you would expect that the dates on the chips in the meter would be equal to or earlier than the build date of the car.

A regular independent garage or Toyota dealer probably won't be willing to disassemble the meter to look at the chips. An auto-electric or speedometer shop might be willing to... call and ask before you take the car in. If you can take the meter out of the car yourself, a place that fixes mobile phones, laptops, or even TV sets (if you can still find one) might be willing to open it up for you and look - again, call first. If you take it to a shop like this, ask for clear photo(s) of the date codes. It should probably be one hour or less of labor for an electronic repair shop to do this for you.

Caveats: Automotive stuff has a lot of custom chips with weird part numbers, but usually the chip maker will still put a "normal" date code on their chips. The resolution of the car build date is only one month; if the car was built in January 2006, the original combination meter had chips marked 0601, and the (suspected) replacement had chips marked 0604, you wouldn't be able to tell that the meter had been swapped. There might be a date code marked on the outside of the meter somewhere, but it may not be in the YYWW or YWW format; it might be in a format that maybe only Toyota, and maybe only somebody in Japan, can decode.

I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. If you are thinking of pursuing a legal claim against the seller, talk to a lawyer before doing any of the above.

I hope this helps!

 

Seller not disclosing THAT is a BIG no-no!

 

My 2011 is like that too, the original owner went to Toyota only for the free maintenance, then never again.
You could look at the Free CARFAX account and see if it has anything else: Already own a car? - Free CARFAX account

 

Just reading up a bit: check the wear on the brake pedal. How's it look?

 

Just noticed you mentioned codes. Are there codes appearing? There ita temperature light in the upper right corner of the panel. Blue indicates cold and it extinguishes above 107F. It will show red if temperature gets high. Also depending on manufacturers build date, early Gen2 cars odometer will stop at 299000. I think the ‘06 is NOT in that group. Again are you showing any codes?