[markyh]

Mr. Miyagi, on 19 February 2012 - 06:21 PM, said:

It's not a common as it once was. I've had one complaint which was justified in 5 years. Although I have known of a few large scale clockers.

Rubbish, It's rampant. I was looking to buy a mk8 Honda Civic in LAte December / Early Jan and enquired and looked an at least 7 before buying. Caiught 3 people out ( 1 "dealer" and 2 private) who where dumb enough to have for sale mileages less than recent previous (or several previous) MOT's recorded on the Goverment website.

http://motinfo.direc...ory-Request.jsp

How, it was easy, took laptop and blackberry (tethered as a 3G modem) to view the cars and after the usual questions and when looking at the paper work plumbed the details needed off their V5C logbook into this website infront of them and compared the results with milage recorded to what thewy had on the ODO and what the service history said.

All three had huge mileage missing past the last MOT and one past three MOT's ago. When you pull them up on it they go red and say they were not aware!!

Yeah right. Several others too where dodgy as 1/2 of certain years had only covered a few hundred miles when the first six months they dod 10k or more.

People are just lazy and stupid most times and many many people still don't know about this digital online MOT check. Why do you think these days several ebay / Autotrader adds have the licence plate number photoshopped out? This alone is not enough, but a quick call to get a MOY number or V5C doc ref number and you can start checking out mileage history before even leaving the house.

Also is good to know that BMW, VW and Honda all keep "central" service history records, so it matters not what main dealer in the country did the work the mileage and work carried out records are all stored against the cars reg number and can be pulled up and checked at your local stealership, oftenn with just a phone call to the service dept.

You don't even have to pretend to be the owner, jaust say you are looking to buy and want to maintain the service history withg them whaen was the last major service done etc, then after that they will tell you the date, mileage and what type of service or warrenty work was carried out.

Jot this down, compare to the online MOT records and make an assessment. Best you can do i'm afreaid. Works best with 05 or 06 plate car's as they just turned 3 years old when MOT's went didgital and online so have the most of online history to compare and spot the fiddlers.

M

[Soon Not a Chain Retailer]

Blanking out number plates on online ads is mostly to deter cloning rather than clocking.

Edit to add: MOT mileage recording can be sloppy particularly where fractions of miles are displayed so some will be innocent where discrepancies occur.

This post has been edited by Soon Not a Chain Retailer: 19 February 2012 - 07:23 PM

[Greg Bowman]

markyh, on 19 February 2012 - 06:21 PM, said:

Actually bought this the self diagnose a BMW E46 fault code rather than take it to a stealership. Turned out to be two problems, faulty inlet camshaft sensor and sticky fly by wire throttle.

Diagnosed and fixed both problems myself for parts only. and yes have built my own PC's since 1996. Did use this to play with the odometer mileage (works on my 06 honda civic too!) but just removed a few 100 miles as a test to see if it worked.

But as for the Key area and the ECU and where ever else the mileage is recorded (Urban myth on internet says milaeage on post 2001 cars is stored in 4-5 places within the car!!) I did not spend any time looking for any other mileage areas to be accessed.

But i'm sure you could by the software if you wanted that level of detail, might cost a few £100 quid though.

M

Probably both on the same page. To do it as a living you need a few different hardware platforms running different sometimes archaic ops systems. So £90 quid to do a job once on a blue moon doesn't seem Outreagous .

Still not sure why anyone would build their own pc unless they are Steve Jobs

This post has been edited by Greg Bowman: 19 February 2012 - 09:00 PM

[thecrashingisles]

I've seen some innocent examples of odometer readings in kilometers being recorded on the MOT so it appeared that the car had been clocked but actually the stats were unreliable.

[Darkman]

gf3, on 19 February 2012 - 04:28 PM, said:

I remember hearing a story where this guy removed the speedo from his mini to clock it and he found a brown label tied to the speedo cable saying ...

"OH NO NOT AGAIN!!"

[MongerOfDoom]

Greg Bowman, on 19 February 2012 - 06:06 PM, said:

Not as easy as it looks. I bet you build your own pc's and like Linux.

You make it sound as if it's somehow an indication of being inferior?

Greg Bowman, on 19 February 2012 - 06:06 PM, said:

The data is in 6 or 7 different locations and actually £20 quids worth of software doesn't actually cut the mustard.

I very much doubt it is on all cars. You would need some way of accessing the stored data and of powering the devices that collect the info, so there would need to be awful lot of wiring and/or connectors all around the engine. This is very much conspicuous by its absence in my low-end car made by VAG. Even then, the best you could do without a sensor somewhere between the gearbox and the wheels is record some proxy values (revs/length of time used/etc).

The easiest way to support your claim would be to find some parts that look like they might i) know some proxy for the mileage, and ii) have a connector on them that looks like it is designed for digital signalling (small-ish pins, shielding). You can start here: http://www.vwspares.co.uk/ . I guess it would also help if you could explain why it is ridiculously easy to clock the main unit if a lot of effort is then spent on making this detectable. It would also help to explain why the additional 6-7 locations don't appear to have their serial numbers recorded anywhere obvious. This would be trivial to do, would deter theft, and would also stop cars being clocked by replacing engine parts. Finally, there is nothing unusual about pirated software being cheap. Just how would you know it does not do precisely what it claims to if it's possible to do it in principle?

A garage near me wants 30quid to read the error code from the ECU to find out what is wrong. The authorized dealer says the car must be booked into their workshop before they will do so. There is no doubt whatsoever that the £20 quid dongle/software widely available on ebay can do precisely that for a lot less and without any need for a workshop or indeed any specialist skills. If you thought the cost was an indication of some measure of quality, these are your counterexamples.

Greg Bowman, on 19 February 2012 - 06:06 PM, said:

If you can do it for £20 notes and it will pass main dealer tests pm your details with references or does it just work on your escort...

Perhaps you could give us an example of car it would not work on, and how it would be possible to tell?

[satch]

markyh, on 19 February 2012 - 06:49 PM, said:

Rubbish, It's rampant. I was looking to buy a mk8 Honda Civic in LAte December / Early Jan and enquired and looked an at least 7 before buying. Caiught 3 people out ( 1 "dealer" and 2 private) who where dumb enough to have for sale mileages less than recent previous (or several previous) MOT's recorded on the Goverment website.

http://motinfo.direc...ory-Request.jsp

How, it was easy, took laptop and blackberry (tethered as a 3G modem) to view the cars and after the usual questions and when looking at the paper work plumbed the details needed off their V5C logbook into this website infront of them and compared the results with milage recorded to what thewy had on the ODO and what the service history said.

All three had huge mileage missing past the last MOT and one past three MOT's ago. When you pull them up on it they go red and say they were not aware!!

Yeah right. Several others too where dodgy as 1/2 of certain years had only covered a few hundred miles when the first six months they dod 10k or more.

People are just lazy and stupid most times and many many people still don't know about this digital online MOT check. Why do you think these days several ebay / Autotrader adds have the licence plate number photoshopped out? This alone is not enough, but a quick call to get a MOY number or V5C doc ref number and you can start checking out mileage history before even leaving the house.

Also is good to know that BMW, VW and Honda all keep "central" service history records, so it matters not what main dealer in the country did the work the mileage and work carried out records are all stored against the cars reg number and can be pulled up and checked at your local stealership, oftenn with just a phone call to the service dept.

You don't even have to pretend to be the owner, jaust say you are looking to buy and want to maintain the service history withg them whaen was the last major service done etc, then after that they will tell you the date, mileage and what type of service or warrenty work was carried out.

Jot this down, compare to the online MOT records and make an assessment. Best you can do i'm afreaid. Works best with 05 or 06 plate car's as they just turned 3 years old when MOT's went didgital and online so have the most of online history to compare and spot the fiddlers.

M

Thanks, very useful. I had no idea this was on-line and could be checked so easily.

[MongerOfDoom]

Greg Bowman, on 19 February 2012 - 08:58 PM, said:

Still not sure why anyone would build their own pc unless they are Steve Jobs

Because then you know you definitely can upgrade any part you like. You can also get the exact spec you want. If you ever bought a PC from Dell with the intention of upgrading it later, you will see what I mean.

[longtomsilver]

My annecdotal.... back in 2004 I smashed my motorcycle into the side of a van (his fault) and the insurance company made me do the repair through their own approved list. The guy who fixed it operated out of an airfield unit and it came across as very two bit. When I turned up to collect the bike (Suzuki GSXR600k3) he said that the bike required a new odometer and asked me what the mileage was as he had no record, told him there were 4,000 miles on the clock sp he plugged a wire into the ECU connected it to a laptop, turned the ignition key, pressed a few keys and the mileage went from 0 to 4000, it really is that simple.

[markyh]

satch, on 19 February 2012 - 09:43 PM, said:

Thanks, very useful. I had no idea this was on-line and could be checked so easily.

You are not alone, I would say the majority ot UK drivers are not aware of this as there has been no TV campaign or anything. Went live in 2005 and was "national" in 2006 i beleive.

I beleive the old hand written MOT's that could be stolen and forged are not legal to use anymore? Not seen one for years now.

Also vary handy when looking at second hand cars to spot "advisory" faults that are ignored by the current owner and have appeared on several MOT's going back 3-4 years.

Like an ignored ticking time bomb of cost that you may get lumbered with when the fault suddenly goes pop.

Also would not be suprised if someone now off here checks their own car sometime in the next few days and discovers it was clocked just before they bought it. I found this in 2007 and found that the wifes W reg VW Golf GTI that we bought in 2006 had been clocked back 65k!!

And this was bought with the last of the manual MOT's issued in 2006 but the car also had one of the first digital MOT's issued in 2005 too! And we bought this from a young lady who had her parents present when she sold us the car and it passed a full £30 HPI check with flying colours, mileage wound back and all !.

These days I only use HPi as cloned insurance when buying secong hand and always compare digital MOT mileage to main dealer service history mileage to try and suss out if it looks 99% genuine. Anything dodgy looking I walk away.

M

This post has been edited by markyh: 19 February 2012 - 10:17 PM

[DarkHorseWaits]

Clocking appears to be rampant. A while ago I once wrote:



...Phone the seller and get the required information to:

- Check the current MOT status and MOT history of a vehicle for free: http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/OwningAVehicle/Mot/ and might help locate missing advisory notices.

In 2010 there were over 600,000 cars in the UK that displayed a lower mileage than recorded a year earlier, that's more than 1 in every 4 new cars sold that could be clocked at some point in their history (say 2M new cars sold per year and if 600K older cars are clocked each year ? maybe), not to mention those clocked before their first MOT at 3 years old and any inter year rollbacks that don't go negative. See this BBC article on clocking. Great to see the DVLA are doing so much to protect us NOT. More from Auto Express here and BBC WatchDog.

- 'Vehicle Enquiry' to check the details held by DVLA match the log book (V5 documentation): www.taxdisc.direct.gov.uk/EvlPortalApp/ (click 'Vehicle Enquiry')....

This post has been edited by DarkHorseWaits: 19 February 2012 - 10:18 PM

[Jason]

markyh, on 19 February 2012 - 06:49 PM, said:

Rubbish, It's rampant. I was looking to buy a mk8 Honda Civic in LAte December / Early Jan and enquired and looked an at least 7 before buying. Caiught 3 people out ( 1 "dealer" and 2 private) who where dumb enough to have for sale mileages less than recent previous (or several previous) MOT's recorded on the Goverment website.

http://motinfo.direc...ory-Request.jsp

How, it was easy, took laptop and blackberry (tethered as a 3G modem) to view the cars and after the usual questions and when looking at the paper work plumbed the details needed off their V5C logbook into this website infront of them and compared the results with milage recorded to what thewy had on the ODO and what the service history said.

All three had huge mileage missing past the last MOT and one past three MOT's ago. When you pull them up on it they go red and say they were not aware!!

Yeah right. Several others too where dodgy as 1/2 of certain years had only covered a few hundred miles when the first six months they dod 10k or more.

People are just lazy and stupid most times and many many people still don't know about this digital online MOT check. Why do you think these days several ebay / Autotrader adds have the licence plate number photoshopped out? This alone is not enough, but a quick call to get a MOY number or V5C doc ref number and you can start checking out mileage history before even leaving the house.

Also is good to know that BMW, VW and Honda all keep "central" service history records, so it matters not what main dealer in the country did the work the mileage and work carried out records are all stored against the cars reg number and can be pulled up and checked at your local stealership, oftenn with just a phone call to the service dept.

You don't even have to pretend to be the owner, jaust say you are looking to buy and want to maintain the service history withg them whaen was the last major service done etc, then after that they will tell you the date, mileage and what type of service or warrenty work was carried out.

Jot this down, compare to the online MOT records and make an assessment. Best you can do i'm afreaid. Works best with 05 or 06 plate car's as they just turned 3 years old when MOT's went didgital and online so have the most of online history to compare and spot the fiddlers.

M

Cheers for that. I'll probably go away to check that sort of stuff and make an offer over the phone.

Any other useful non mechanical things to check?


Also, as some cars store data in their keys you can't clock them without getting new keys (apparently).

[markyh]

MongerOfDoom, on 19 February 2012 - 09:53 PM, said:

Because then you know you definitely can upgrade any part you like. You can also get the exact spec you want. If you ever bought a PC from Dell with the intention of upgrading it later, you will see what I mean.

Me and my mates all build our own PC's as we are FPS gamers so are upgrading every few years. We always chuckle at the uneducated who buy "boxes" from PC World or Dell.

Anything over basic spec you can save at least a few hundred quid building it yourself and match or beat a consumer box spec. All PC's are hand assembled so they all have a "labour" element included in the retail price that you can save by building DIY.

Also a piss easy since 2005 onwards with plug and play WIn XP. I always thought being able to fix most things on a car and build your own PC's was part of being a proper bloke these days !!

M

This post has been edited by markyh: 19 February 2012 - 10:35 PM

[Jason]

Just checking my car history, and it shows every single fault found in an MOT. Quick annoying when the garage throws it in for an MOT, then fixes the faults even when done with a service.

[Tiger Woods?]

Greg Bowman, on 19 February 2012 - 08:58 PM, said:

Still not sure why anyone would build their own pc unless they are Steve Jobs

Because it takes an hour and saves you at least £500 for a decent spec.

This post has been edited by Tiger Woods?: 20 February 2012 - 02:29 AM