Inspection misses clocked car

[Hugo911]

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

[Hugo911]

Thanks for your reply. Just to clarify when I say "clocked" I meant there was a discrepancy between the miles on the dash/odometer which was lower than the recoded miles on the internal memory of the car's onboard computer.

Maybe "clocked" is the not the right word and someone can enlighten me.

[Hugo911]

Thanks for everyone's input.

To clarify it's a gen 1 997.
It is indeed possible to read ECU recoded mileage/KM and compare that to the digital odometer - obviously specialist equipment is needed that dealers and inspection people have.
Discrepancy was about 15%.
Dealer has bought it back, which is a relief.

Looks like some of you have had similar experiences too, but I would have expected my inspection to have picked it up. He didn't, my prospective buyer's inspection DID pick it up and the buyer walked away as you would expect.

I feel that I should ask my inspection chap to refund me for the inspection. Do you agree?

[Hugo911]

Good question Davek.

I'm still out of pocket as dealer didn't give me the same amount I had agreed for the private sale, I also had to compensate prospective buyer for his inspection on my "dodgy car" and to be honest what is the value of the inspection I had paid £400 when he missed the clocking of the car. Imagine if I'd purchased privately and left with a dud car that I couldn't sell?

[Hugo911]

Let's have a show of hands for consensus...

[Hugo911]

Let's have a show of hands for consensus...

[Hugo911]

Bennachie said:

Not Seal Grey is it?

Nope not Seal Grey. But like the other poster said looks like there's a fair few clocked cars out there which is worrying!

Mine seems badly clocked and hence was identified. What if someone properly clocked the car, ie ECU and odometer... Then there's no way of knowing!

[Hugo911]

mollytherocker said:

Fair play to the dealer I suppose, but it sounds like he bought it for less than the market value?

Well I got a little better than the trade in value...

[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]

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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!

[Hugo911]

So I emailed Mr "leading Porsche inspection chap in the UK" and he hasn't even had the decency to respond to a polite email:

Dear <name>

You inspected a car I was purchasing from <dealer>.

The car was a 997.1 Tip, reg <reg>.

I was attempting to sell the car recently and an inspection arranged by the prospective buyer revealed a discrepancy on the mileage. The odometer is showing c7,000 lower mileage than the ECU.

The inspection chap suggested my buyer walk away from this car, as I imagine you would have too as the findings imply the mileage of the car has been tampered with.

<Original dealer> have accepted the car has an issue on the mileage and after some discussion agreed to purchase the car back from me.

As you can imagine I am unhappy that your inspection did not uncover this discrepancy at the time of inspection. I was fortunate that I purchased from <dealer> and they stood by their car, I would clearly have no recourse having purchased the same car privately.

Having discussed this matter on the forums, the consensus is that I should request my inspection cost back from you. I’ve not revealed your name on the forum as providing the original inspection, so my discretion is assured.

I would therefore request that you refund me the amount I paid for the inspection (c£400) as clearly this is something that I would expect the inspection to have picked up.

I await your response.