Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Used car: beware, your meter may be tampered with – TF1

Car of your dreams comes with an abnormally low mileage. An announcement too good to be true. Europe , fraud is a city become standard practice. European Commission estimated that 5 to 12% of used vehicles would be affected. The figures are even more important when it comes to cross-border transactions. And because the process is greatly simplified in recent years. Today, for odometer tampering, simply equip a single box that can be purchased on the Internet for less than 150 €. The fraudster only has to plug into the meter and enter the new mileage. The operation takes only a few seconds. Once the odometer rejuvenated, the value of the vehicle can be increased up to severa l thousand. Which would have an annual economic impact from 5.6 to 9.6 billion throughout the European Union according to the Commission. But tampering with an odometer is not only simple. It is also virtually undetectable. Rare are prosecuted for this scam. But the consequences can be significant given the higher risk of failure.

To stop these scams, one solution would be to strengthen controls, harmonize legislation and facilitate access to data from the mileage between European countries. The European Commission has decided to record the mileage of a vehicle every technical control to create a European database. However, the first periodic test is compulsory four years after the purchase of a new vehicle, while most frauds occur before the meter.

Some tips to follow

If you want to buy a used car, auto Argus advise you to follow these recommendations:

  • – Be wary of abnormally low mileage, wacky or “friendly” ads imprecise or involve contradictory elements.

  • – Check the service record is up to date

  • – Check that the vehicle is not hilly

  • – Ask if the vehicle has undergone major mechanical work

  • – Check the maintenance book and correspondence of the city with the revisions.

  • – Read the serial number on the registration card

  • – Raise the coordinates of the dealer supposed to have serviced the car

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