Vehicle history concerns -- Autocheck, not included in rollback calculation

[BimmerRules!]

Hello,

I used autocheck (thru our website :) ) to look up a zhp listing and found something related to the odometer that worries me: the report says no indication of odometer rolback or tampering but the mileage #s for their reported date doesn't make sense.

Following is the table from the report:

0 Problem(s) Reported:
=============================
Mileage Date Reported
--------------------------------------
11 04/29/2004
20,000 01/22/2009 not included in rollback calculation
15,956 03/30/2009
20,700 05/27/2009
28,000 01/14/2010
30,000 10/09/2010
30,441 11/18/2010

=============================

Puzled that it goes from 11 miles to 20,000 and then drops to 15,956. Do any of the members have some plausible explanations?

When I searched on the web about "not included in rollback", I found the following on yahoo answers which could probably explain the above:

"A rollback is a vehicle that has been delivered to someone else but the sale did not go through. Generally because the buyer could not get a loan. That vehicle was returned to the dealer and it could have been driven for 2 days or 2 months. Carfax does not know the milage when the vehicle was returned." (source: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080419111430AAaVlwu)

Two things worry me assuming the above is correct:

(1) If mileage was not known when the car was returned, then it could be anything from 10k to 100k. Beats me how they can assign a random 20k #! Should we disregard it and assume that the 15,956 number is the accurate one?

That doesn't make sense because of my second concern -

(2) If vehicle was returned to the dealer, it is bizzare that it was just sitting there in IL from April 2004 until it reached AZ in Jan 2009 and someone kept paying for the registration/renewal (as I can see in the report).

I suspect that the vechicle was driven between 2004 and 2009 and so the current mileage on the car is understated. Would greatly appreciate the other members thoughts on this issue.

Thanks!

[Marcus-SanDiego]

Let me get my Autocheck report from when I bought my car. As I recall, there were huge gaps in it. It means that there were not any registration events (that got recorded) and it also means that the dealer was not reporting maintenance events on a regular basis.

Yep. Just looked at mine. Showed a registration event at 8 miles. New owner. There was never another mileage update after that. The most recent update was when I registered the vehicle in California. It shows mileage. So, there were no mileage markers between August 2005 and September 2010.

At least with yours you can see that there were mileage events.

As for the odometer issue, shoot a note to autocheck. Ask them what it means (or could mean).

The car could have received a new odometer (cluster) at some point.

[aurelius]

Bear in mind these car data aggregators don't pull info from all 50 states (at least Carfax does not) nor do they have any way of indicating when a guy doing a state inspection enters your mileage into the computer incorrectly. Or when a state employee enters the wrong mileage when issuing a new title. Etc., etc.

I think I can run a free Carfax. PM me the VIN or post it here.

[Marcus-SanDiego]

Mark, here you go: WBAEV53454KM05975

[Marcus-SanDiego]

I found this on another forum:

"A rollback is when the odometer has been "rolled back" to a lower number. (not easily possible on a C5). This is autocheck, not carfax.
"Not included" was because it is a small number within a close date, meaning that is a reporting error, either by typo of the mileage or the date. No one is going to roll back mileage 30 miles, even if possible. Autocheck merely did not include this as a reported rollback because a sensible person would not do so either. Had it been a large number, or a lower number after a longer period of time, it would have been reported as a possible rollback."

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c5-general/2853597-rollback-calculation.html

[danewilson77]

Isn't what it says now (about 30k) really what matters most? It should be within 5k miles. Who knows what happened.

I didn't think our odo's could be rolled back?

Droid + Tapatalk = FTW!

[Marcus-SanDiego]

Odo rollback not likely. Cluster exchange possible, though. But I think the guy on the other forum has it right. Not an odo incident here. More likely it was an error -- somewhere along the line -- that Autocheck does not believe indicates an odo incident.

[az3579]

I'm willing to bet that the 20k figure was just an estimate that they got wrong, or perhaps they felt the need to round up. Either way, I personally am convinced that it's a clerical error, nothing more.

Plus, how are you going to roll the mileage back on an E46 with a complicated EWS and mileage redundancy system? I'm sure the system would flag multiple modules being messed with.


I personally never believed Carfax or any other site like this because they have incomplete data, and many times even report accidents that never happened or not report accidents that did. It's false reassurance.

I say that if the mileage reads that low, it is that low.



Mark,
If the cluster was replaced and wasn't coded, the tamper dot would illuminate next to the odometer. If it isn't there, all of the modules in the car agree on the mileage, meaning the cluster was adapted to the car, or it was never replaced.

[danewilson77]

If you change odo on our cars...I believe is resynchs to what mileage is stored in computer. Prevents cluster swap odo disguising.

Droid + Tapatalk = FTW!

[Marcus-SanDiego]

Mark,
If the cluster was replaced and wasn't coded, the tamper dot would illuminate next to the odometer. If it isn't there, all of the modules in the car agree on the mileage, meaning the cluster was adapted to the car, or it was never replaced.

Good to know.

[az3579]

If you change odo on our cars...I believe is resynchs to what mileage is stored in computer. Prevents cluster swap odo disguising.

Droid + Tapatalk = FTW!

I actually heard differently. A friend of mine went through this; he swapped an LKM and didn't have it coded. Sure enough, after x amount of miles driving, the tamper dot came on. I would think it's the same for the cluster, but that I haven't verified, so you may as well be correct for the cluster. For the LKM, however, I'm certain that it will trigger a dot. I don't see why the two would be different in their behaviours, but BMW does weird stuff all the time so it wouldn't surprise me.

[danewilson77]

I actually heard differently. A friend of mine went through this; he swapped an LKM and didn't have it coded. Sure enough, after x amount of miles driving, the tamper dot came on. I would think it's the same for the cluster, but that I haven't verified, so you may as well be correct for the cluster. For the LKM, however, I'm certain that it will trigger a dot. I don't see why the two would be different in their behaviours, but BMW does weird stuff all the time so it wouldn't surprise me.

That's what you heard. I looked it up on snopes, and its unfounded.

Droid + Tapatalk = FTW!

[az3579]

I looked it up on snopes, and its unfounded.

Droid + Tapatalk = FTW!

I'm puzzled by this statement; what do you mean?

[BimmerRules!]

Odo rollback not likely. Cluster exchange possible, though. But I think the guy on the other forum has it right. Not an odo incident here. More likely it was an error -- somewhere along the line -- that Autocheck does not believe indicates an odo incident.

Thank you all for your guidance. Very much appreciated. :)

Marcus - may i know how you got the vin #? I first thought you were posting yours and then was startled to see that it's the Vegas one!

[BimmerRules!]

UPDATE: just spoke to my contact at a BMW dealer who looked up the car. He said that the first time the car was at a BMW dealership for service was in November 2006 when the odometer was 15k.

Whereas, autocheck's miles (as I posted in the first page) says 20k in Jan 2009, then declines to 16k in March 2009 and subsequently starts to increase to the current 34k.

Not sure what's going on but I feel that the current miles are understated if what the dealer told me is true.

I have emailed Autocheck to clarify. Will post an update once I hear from them.

Thanks again for all the comments and feedback!

[Marcus-SanDiego]

Thank you all for your guidance. Very much appreciated. :)

Marcus - may i know how you got the vin #? I first thought you were posting yours and then was startled to see that it's the Vegas one!

I went to the actual ad in the first post. You can get VIN at the autotrader ad.

[BimmerRules!]

Thanks Marcus, forgot about that (i got it from the seller).

btw, I emailed Autocheck with the rollback query and received only an automated response. Will update you once I hear from them.

[Mike V]

This doesn't answer the question but definitely run both AutoCheck and Carfax. A buddy was looking at an 02 M5 on eBay. The free AutoCheck report looked great but when I ran a Carfax for him, it showed an impact with frame damage. Yikes. I've heard stories of the opposite too (where Carfax shows good but AutoCheck shows accident history).

[Marcus-SanDiego]

Mike, when I was looking for cars last summer, I saw more omissions with Carfax. It's probably best to get both -- just to make sure.