Inspection misses clocked car

[Hugo911]

Wilmslowboy said:

Well done OP...I'm sure you didn't have to, but it was the gentlemanly thing to do

[Takes a bow]

[WindyM]

POORCARDEALER said:

Sadly plenty of them are clcoked prior to first MOT.

Also, the sophisticated clockers cover all bases, including ecu etc etc

Edited by POORCARDEALER on Saturday 18th July 15:16

As I said in the second post, this doesn't surprise me, but it makes sense that they are done before the MoT system starts recording. I saw one dealer recently with 4 x 7/8 year old 911s for sale all with between 40-50k miles... I'm sure it's perfectly possible but it just seems too coincidental to me... Perhaps I'm reading too much into it and without any evidence have no grounds to question it... I can understand the GT cars spending most of their days in the garage, but surely the Carreras and Ss are bought to be driven every day? So by 6 years old, 60,000 miles shouldn't seem high, but somehow it does!

[fridaypassion]

Whoever inspected it is legally responsible for anything thats subsequently wrong with the car - one good reason I dont inspect cars for other people.

[W12GT]

Wilmslowboy said:

Hugo911 said:

?... I also had to compensate prospective buyer for his inspection on my "dodgy car" .......

Well done OP...I'm sure you didn't have to, but it was the gentlemanly thing to do

Not sure I agree with this tbh. The OP didn't deliberately do this do why be even more out of pocket? When we buy a car and get an inspection it is in effect a kind of insurance to protect us against something bad - we do that through choice and if it comes back as a baddie we walk away having spent a relatively small amount of money instead of losing alot more.

Feel for you OP but I wouldn't have given him the money and I certainly wouldn't hav accepted a poor price from the supplying dealer - especially if it is a well known specialist - they often tell us how wonderful they are at being so thorough: if they missed this what else have they missed - rev ranges? Bore scoring? RMS issues? Bad accident repair???

I know you can't name and shame but if I were you I'd avoid that dealer in the future.

[Hugo911]

W12GT said:

Not sure I agree with this tbh. The OP didn't deliberately do this do why be even more out of pocket? When we buy a car and get an inspection it is in effect a kind of insurance to protect us against something bad - we do that through choice and if it comes back as a baddie we walk away having spent a relatively small amount of money instead of losing alot more.

Feel for you OP but I wouldn't have given him the money and I certainly wouldn't hav accepted a poor price from the supplying dealer - especially if it is a well known specialist - they often tell us how wonderful they are at being so thorough: if they missed this what else have they missed - rev ranges? Bore scoring? RMS issues? Bad accident repair???

I know you can't name and shame but if I were you I'd avoid that dealer in the future.

I see your point, yes I wasn't obliged to fund the chap's inspection but he's a friend of a friend and acted in good faith so for relationships' sake I thought better to just give him the cash than for there to be some bad blood between us.

As for the dealer, I guess I was just relieved to get rid of the tainted car. To be fair they looked after me better than I expected on this issue. I probably would buy from them again, they are pretty reputable and stood by the car.

But the episode does make one wonder how this happened buying through a good specialist and having a supposedly top inspection. Imagine buying a car from a general used car dealer and perhaps no inspection... how many bad cars are being bought on that basis. Have seen some friends get their fingers badly burnt going down that route.

[Spy]

I believe that a discrepancy between ECU and displayed mileage on the odometer is common although by what percentage (small I assume) I don't know. I think this is because the figures are recorded independently.

Even so, if there was a 15% discrepancy on the OPs car, that does not sound like a lot.

FOr example, if the odometer shows 50k miles, with a 15% discrepancy, then the actual mileage would be at max 57,500 miles - surely that is not enough to affect the sale price ?

Edited by Spy on Tuesday 21st July 10:18

[BertBert]

fridaypassion said:

Whoever inspected it is legally responsible for anything thats subsequently wrong with the car - one good reason I dont inspect cars for other people.

How does that work? Most of the inspection "agreements" I have seen certainly don't have this.
Bert

[arcticGT]

I believe the discrepancy comes from the speedo over-reading (so approx 7% more miles should be shown on the dash compared to the ECU).

If I'm reading right it sounds like the dash is showing 15% less than the ECU, in which case the dash will have roughly 22% of it's miles missing ?

It's hard to say for definite as there aren't many facts posted. Could even be the 2nd inspection is wrong !!!

[TOV!E]

Be interesting what mileage the car will be sold with next time

[Smi1er]

In my experience even an inspection by a so called specialist can be hit and miss. All depends on the individuals completing the inspection and their knowledge/attention to detail. In my case I ended up with a large bill to rectify worn suspension components only a few months and very few miles after an inspection. Having never done this before I used a specialist company, which the vendor agreed to allow me to use, but there was no contract so very flakey as to what could be reclaimed or not. Fortunately it was something that could be fixed, but I wish I had skipped the inspection and just put the money towards rectifying the issues. Hindsight eh!

[BertBert]

BertBert said:

fridaypassion said:

Whoever inspected it is legally responsible for anything thats subsequently wrong with the car - one good reason I dont inspect cars for other people.

How does that work? Most of the inspection "agreements" I have seen certainly don't have this.
Bert

Just as an example have a look at the terms from a well known Porsche PPI Specialist...
http://www.porscheinspections.com/content/download...

[fredt]

Am inspection only means you've had someone competent look over the car, it's a piece of mind thing only you have no comeback. Look at any ppi contract.

I'm assuming you have the computer printout and everything so it's a easy to see that mistakes were made at the time of the inspection? If so I would expect any professional to refund the inspection fee in full as the inspection is not worth the paper is written on. Does not matter if it's two years ago as it's plain to see the fella made a mistake

[Hugo911]

arcticGT said:

I believe the discrepancy comes from the speedo over-reading (so approx 7% more miles should be shown on the dash compared to the ECU).

If I'm reading right it sounds like the dash is showing 15% less than the ECU, in which case the dash will have roughly 22% of it's miles missing ?

It's hard to say for definite as there aren't many facts posted. Could even be the 2nd inspection is wrong !!!

Agree with this post that the odometer/speedometer should have slightly higher miles. But yes my odometer is lower which implies a clocked car. The inspection of my prospective buyer identified this and returning to the dealer I purchased from found the same issue as clearly he was going to check it before agreeing to a remedy!

Pretty conclusive of two separate checks of the car with two separate sets of equipment find the same discrepancy!

[Hugo911]

BertBert said:

Just as an example have a look at the terms from a well known Porsche PPI Specialist...
http://www.porscheinspections.com/content/download...

Lots of exclusions here, I guess most inspectors will be "lawyered up" but then kind of defeats the point of inspection if there's no recourse on a faulty inspection.

For what it's worth, the inspection missed 3 things at the start. Dealer rectified them free of charge at the time. The inspection chap refuted that he had missed anything and tried to blame everything on me! Dealer was good and just put it right but when I asked for money back on the inspection I was told "you're not out of pocket as the dealer has rectified the faults, so why do you want your money back now". The arrogance astonished me, imagine if I had bought the car privately!

Faults included erratic steering (required geo), dealer was fine with it. Inspection guy concluded I had hit a pot hole.

Also the rear window was moving/flexing at the seal a common fault on older 997s for which Porsche have released an upgraded part to fix. Again inspection chap disagreed despite the dealer putting it right at their cost.

I doubt he will even entertain the discussion about missing the mileage discrepancy and even if he does, he'll likely say "well the dealer bought it back from you, why do you want your money back?!".

Sorry rant over but if this was a building surveyor he would be closer to losing his licence over such failings. Same goes for incompetent doctors, dentists, lawyers and accountants.

4 things have been wrong with the car, all missed by the inspection. Therefore the report gave me nothing of value!

Tempted to name and shame so no one else wastes their money with this guy.

[Scooty100]

Hugo911 said:

So I bought a 997 first gen/gen 1 C2S 2 years ago, did all the research (including on here), bought from a very reputable independent Porsche specialist and even got a pre purchase inspection from one of the top inspection chaps.
After owning it 2 years and a change in jobs, it was time to sell it to a good owner - a friend of a friend. All seemed fine, but when he got his inspection done it revealed the car was clocked.
It surprised me as neither the reputable dealer nor the reputable inspection chap spotted this 2 years ago.
Anyway, the dealer has offered to buy the car back which is a massive relief. Anyone else had a similar experienced or just my bad luck?
Also would you think I should ask the inspection chap for my money back for missing something like this?
Thoughts welcome...

Edited by Hugo911 on Saturday 18th July 13:10

Have to say Hugo its very decent of the dealer to buy the car back from you two years on though no doubt at a trade price. I can assure you not all are that reputable......Im thinking specifically of the one that had me over. Then again that's why his reputation is in tatters. Good luck with it all

[gowmonster]

BertBert said:

BertBert said:

fridaypassion said:

Whoever inspected it is legally responsible for anything thats subsequently wrong with the car - one good reason I dont inspect cars for other people.

How does that work? Most of the inspection "agreements" I have seen certainly don't have this.
Bert

Just as an example have a look at the terms from a well known Porsche PPI Specialist...
http://www.porscheinspections.com/content/download...

so everything you would really want them to check is excluded

and everything they do do you could do yourself if you know what to look for...

[Hugo911]

Scooty100 said:

Have to say Hugo its very decent of the dealer to buy the car back from you two years on though no doubt at a trade price. I can assure you not all are that reputable......Im thinking specifically of the one that had me over. Then again that's why his reputation is in tatters. Good luck with it all

Agree I was lucky, but then one of the reasons I bought from this dealer was his reputation. Paid a fair price for the car initially so he clearly trades on his reputation and hence makes enough money on each car so he can stand by it for future problems.

I can imagine most dealers telling me where to go or blaming me/hand of God!

The good news is not many people seem to have come across clocked cars... Which either is a good thing as there's not many out there... Or a bad thing if people have unknown clocked cars, especially if people "properly" clock cars and leave no discrepancy between dash and ECU.

[hartech]

I came into the motor trade from automotive, composite and then aerospace engineering some 20 years ago with no car sales or motor trade experience (then mainly in 4 cylinder water cooled versions) and was shocked to quickly establish that about half the cars were much more worn out than the other half (for the recorded mileage) and concluded that half were and half were not clocked.

As we grew the business after a year or two (and being involved in a great many cars) we came across 2 cars that were exceptions to this rule until the penny dropped that these were actually the only 2 cars we had seen that had genuine mileage on them - the other half we thought were genuine had been slightly clocked and the rest heavily clocked - it was so common place it was amazing.

I remember a prospective owner telling me about a 944 with incredibly low mileage for sale at a local dealer and offered to check it but the dealer would not allow the car to come to us - so I just warned of the likelihood it was clocked (which didn't please the prospective owner at all as he wanted to buy it!).

Anyway he bought it (against our advice) because it was a one owner car driven by a solicitor all its life with all the old MOT's and dropped it in for us to check over afterwards. We immediately found a non standard fuse housing linked into the sender wire that drives the speedo from the gearbox and the whole explanation emerged. It had covered around 100K more than recorded but was however a good car - just not at true mileages.

I am embarrassed to admit that right at the beginning of the business - I also bought and sold a car that turned out to have been slightly clocked. The evidence did not come to light when I properly checked it with computer records (that were OK) and bought it - but only some time after I sold it when the records were updated from the previous owner and I obviously refunded the buyer only to have him come back soon afterwards having looked at just about every similar car in the region and understanding why it was actually a great car - far better than any of the others (for the recorded mileage) and bought it for a second time (now at the reduced price I was selling it at to reflect the actual mileage) - it was just one of those only slightly previously clocked cars in a market full of heavily clocked ones! Finding the very rare un-clocked cars in those days was difficult - probably only about 10% genuine of the ones I used to look to buy (and that after discarding lots more following a telephone call check on details). Another trick we uncovered was a car registered to the man but actually driven by his wife (usually lighter = less seat wear and usually less aggressively driven (I hope that is not misinterpreted as sexist!) and therefore an easier candidate for the male owner to clock and get away with it.

More recently the ability to check internal memories in the systems and compare running hours and mileages with typical average mileages combined with the DVLA records etc - has made it easier to confirm legitimate cars than using suspicions from seat wear and general condition and we find there are far less cars clocked these days (or that cannot be easily identified) although you do need some diagnostic equipment - some of which is very expensive and not often bought by specialists that just sell sports cars rather than those that service and repair them as well and need the equipment.

It has been a difficult situation and I am quite glad to find we need the space where we used to stock sales cars to park engine rebuild cars (in work) and don't get so involved in sales much nowadays (unless we have thoroughly rebuilt the engine say and had a chance to go right through the car).

Having said all that - some cars that have covered higher mileages than recorded on the speedo are never the less in excellent condition and well above average (even for the true mileage) while others that have not been interfered with are quite poor by comparison (even for the clocked mileage) so mileage - true or not is not everything!

Ironically - when the government decided to insist dealers placed a decal in sales cars declaring that they do no not guarantee mileages - it provided an opportunity for some to get away with clocking on the grounds that they made it clear mileages were not guaranteed anyway! I remember at the time we were so confident in our ability to judge cars that we didn't place such a decal in the cars and did guarantee them - but it was quite a risky stance to take especially as a consequence was that most of our sales cars appeared higher mileage than competitors (for similar prices) yet were not only genuine but in better condition as well due to our strict policy of only buying in excellent genuine mileage cars - but we made less from the sales not only because buyers were comparing them with clocked cars elsewhere but because we were then going right through them and fixing even minor faults before the sale.

The car recording systems (like hpi) actually created a problem in trying to protect buyers because if ever anyone enquired about the history of a car and made a mistake in the mileage they provided (even by a small amount) it showed up as a potential clocked car. Many dealers would give a rounded up mileage during their check (so say 67015 might be reported as 67000 - possibly what they were told by the seller on the phone) and it could often be very difficult and time consuming to try and correct it even when it was an obvious innocent reporting error - sometimes condemning a perfectly good car.

It was a difficult business. Reliable dealers can immediately judge a "good car" (even sometimes just looking at it - not even driving it) regardless of the accuracy of the clock and rogue dealers can exploit the lack of comparative experience of the "excited potential buyer" and most Porsche's look and drive better than expected for "first time buyers".

Service histories are not a reliable guide and neither are MOT certificates although - there are many more genuine cars around than there used to be.

Modern Porsche's are difficult for engineers to check properly without stripping parts down (during a service check say) and so I sympathise with those doing so as a business and understand why they may have several exclusions. Checking for bore scoring (for example) takes a long time and needs a ramp ideally!

I am glad now hat I concentrate on technical issues and don't have to get involved much in buying and selling anymore - but I don't think there are any easy answers or fixes!

Baz

[davek_964]

Hugo911 said:

Agree with this post that the odometer/speedometer should have slightly higher miles. But yes my odometer is lower which implies a clocked car. The inspection of my prospective buyer identified this and returning to the dealer I purchased from found the same issue as clearly he was going to check it before agreeing to a remedy!

Pretty conclusive of two separate checks of the car with two separate sets of equipment find the same discrepancy!

Which leads to an interesting question.

If the dealer is able to check the mileage against the ECU - how did he originally buy (and sell to you) a clocked car?

[Hugo911]

davek_964 said:

Which leads to an interesting question.

If the dealer is able to check the mileage against the ECU - how did he originally buy (and sell to you) a clocked car?

THAT my friend is the million dollar question... it shows up nicely on his equipment there is a discrepancy.

Two years ago how he AND the guy who did my £400 inspection (which includes mileage check) did not spot this at the time is what puzzles me!