Fake Mileage - what to do?

[jever98]

Hi there,

after 4 months of waiting, my '94 3.0TD manual finally got to Rwanda and was cleared from customs. I bought it online in Japan from KBC Cars (www.kbccars.com) with a mileage of 38,000km. Since I thought it was low, I asked them to guarantee it, which they did.

Now, when my agent drove it from Mombasa to Kigali (about 2000km) the t-belt light came on. From this, I figured that the clock has been turned back and the mileage is fake.

I wrote an email to the people who sold it to me to say I knew the mileage is fake and wanted compensation. They of course said that they didn't do anything.

My question: should I try to verify the mileage the car had when it was auctioned? Could this help me to get some money back from the people I bought it from? It is in a good state, but I am annoyed to have been cheated like this.

Any advice or experiences are very welcome...

Cheers
Nick

[AndyLala]

You might be able to obtain the de-registration papers of the vehicle in Japan which should state the mileage. This might support your claim, however, it will still end up being your word against theirs... as control and responsibility of the vehicle has been in a few hands between leaving Japan (benig de-registered, auctioned, shipped, etc.) and arriving in yours.

AndyL

[jever98]

Hm,

when I bought the car, it had already been auctioned and the mileage was given to me before shipping.
Thus, I figured, if the mileage was higher at the auction (which supposedly you can check?) than when they sold it to me (before shipping), I could show that it had been the company that sold it to me who had turned back the clock.

Anybody else out there who has any experiences with this kind of stuff?

Thanks,
Nick

[andy]

Hi there,

after 4 months of waiting, my '94 3.0TD manual finally got to Rwanda and was cleared from customs. I bought it online in Japan from KBC Cars (www.kbccars.com) with a mileage of 38,000km. Since I thought it was low, I asked them to guarantee it, which they did.

Now, when my agent drove it from Mombasa to Kigali (about 2000km) the t-belt light came on. From this, I figured that the clock has been turned back and the mileage is fake.

I wrote an email to the people who sold it to me to say I knew the mileage is fake and wanted compensation. They of course said that they didn't do anything.

My question: should I try to verify the mileage the car had when it was auctioned? Could this help me to get some money back from the people I bought it from? It is in a good state, but I am annoyed to have been cheated like this.

Any advice or experiences are very welcome...

Cheers
Nick

I had the same problem with KBC Japan, found some paperwork in the back of the surf that showed it had been clocked by 100,000km, I even contacted their branch in England http://www.kbccars.co.uk/pages/index.htm and spoke to the owner, he said that he could not do anything as they were a franchise, but he did speak to the guys in japan about it, all I got was a email from Japan saying that I should not make a fuss about it and that they would give me a discount on future purchases, which never happened for obvious reasons.

You could try to find out what auction house it was sold at in Japan, and then contact them about it, it would help if you had a contact that could do that for you in Japanese, as they did not reply to my emails in English.

Another thing that you could do is contact BIMTA in the UK and get a mileage check done, they might be able to advise you more on the best route to take.

[jever98]

Oh no,

I hope that the car has only been clocked by 60,000 and not 160,000. I will contact BIMTA and ask them for advice...

Cheers
Nick