My situation: I'm looking for a used car and I've fallen in love with
a 2004 Volvo S40. Its a great deal, since the price is low and it only
has almost 28,000 miles, and the car is in above-average condition.
However, I ran a Carfax report, and even though the report is 100%
clean, the last reported mileage was at 4067 miles (and an online DMV
VIN check shows last check at around 6600 miles). Inside the car, I
found a service sticker on the windshield that indicated what appears
to be an oil change performed at around 24,000 miles, assuming the
shop recommends 3,000 miles between oil changes. (To avoid confusion,
I'll mention that I was counting down from the "Next Service Due"
figure of 26,992 miles on the sticker).
Now, since the car has almost 28k miles on the odometer, and the
mileage recorded on the car was at 24,000 miles, before the last DMV
figure of 6600 miles, 24,000 minus 6600 means that there are approx
17,400 miles unaccounted for in the Carfax vehicle history report!
While I believe that the car was probably serviced during those miles,
albeit not at a Carfax-identified auto shop, having such a big mileage
gap does worry me slightly. Its more of an annoying paranoia, and not
even close to make me walk away. However, for total peace of mind, in
addition to getting my car looked at by the dealer, I want to get the
digital odometer checked.
My question: Can a dealer (in this case a big Volvo dealership)
somehow run a check to see if a car's digital odometer (the car being
a Volvo) has been rolled back or otherwise tampered with? I'm
referring to a definitive check where the dealer actually logs into
the odometer and checks for error codes/report logs etc, rather than
simply physically inspecting the car for evidence of high mileage. How
accurate would such a check be (in other words, is it indeed
"definitive")?
Thanks in advance,
Marty K. |
