Clocking - What's the Problem?

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Postby Silk » Thu May 21, 2015 10:24 pm


MGF wrote:
Silk wrote:
MGF wrote:The demand by thieves is likely to be related to the margins achieved. As prices increase, thieves lose interest. Demand falls.


What are you on about now? What have thieves got to do with it?


People who clock cars before resale can quite properly be described as thieves.


Only if you cross your fingers and squint really hard.
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Postby Silk » Thu May 21, 2015 10:39 pm


Garrison wrote:But you have not mentioned whether you would buy an undeclared clocked car. So would you buy an undeclared clocked car?


What do you mean by "undeclared"?

Do you mean, would I buy a car that I know had been clocked? Why would I do that when I can buy a high-mileage car directly from auction and cut out the middleman?

Clocked cars are for people who are frightened of high-mileage cars. Ignorance is bliss. :wink:
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Postby Garrison » Fri May 22, 2015 2:25 pm


chriskay wrote:
Garrison wrote: Of course, the instrument cluster can also be clocked further times through clocking or changing of the cluster.


As a matter of interest, I've just discovered that you can't change the cluster on my Volvo. The service manager at my local dealer told me that even they can't make the car accept a different cluster, only if you buy a new one from Volvo (£700) will it work and the odometer will be set to the true mileage from the info stored in the ECU. Having said that, I suspect that there are people out there who can work around it.
The other bit of info he gave me was that you could remove the cluster completely and still drive the car.

Interesting, that sounds like the Jaguar's system.
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Postby jont » Fri May 22, 2015 2:35 pm


Garrison wrote:
chriskay wrote:
Garrison wrote: Of course, the instrument cluster can also be clocked further times through clocking or changing of the cluster.


As a matter of interest, I've just discovered that you can't change the cluster on my Volvo. The service manager at my local dealer told me that even they can't make the car accept a different cluster, only if you buy a new one from Volvo (£700) will it work and the odometer will be set to the true mileage from the info stored in the ECU. Having said that, I suspect that there are people out there who can work around it.
The other bit of info he gave me was that you could remove the cluster completely and still drive the car.

Interesting, that sounds like the Jaguar's system.

s/Jaguar/Bosch/ (or Conti or Valeo etc etc). Hardly surprising a few manufacturers end up with the same system.
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Postby Pontoneer » Thu Jun 25, 2015 7:51 pm


Garrison wrote:Silk - Please just answer "yes" or "no".

- would you buy an undeclared written off car?
- would you buy an undeclared clocked car?

I bought a car (my Scorpio Cosworth) which was undeclared written off in the advertisement.


Actually , I did the latter .

I purchased a Mercedes 300TE-24 from a breakers yard ; this was on a 'spares or repairs' basis and I onot paid a few hundred for it .

The car was showing 170 odd thousand on the odometer , which was not unreasonable for a seventeen year old car ; it also came with the V5 which showed it to be a one owner car , beyond that there was no history , although it did come with the owners handbook etc and drove very well .

Although I got only the new keeper's slip , within a couple of weeks I had the full V5 showing the address of the former owner , so I contacted him re the history . He told me he had no paperwork , but that the car had been looked after by the local dealership from new and wanted for nothing ; he had ran it as his company car and only traded it in for a new SL on his retirement , and suggested the dealership could verify the history . Since I am also a regular customer at the same dealership , I did exactly that ; however , in the meantime I had happened to drop into a local Mercedes Indy I also frequent , and he told me the mileage wasn't right as he knew the car and it had been past 200K when he last saw it during his days at the dealership some 10 years earlier !

A day or two later , I dropped into the dealership and , after they phoned the former owner , they printed out the service history for me - all the way from the original PDI to the last service 3 months before I acquired the car . It truly had wanted for nothing , including a six grand new engine fitted 18 months earlier at 380,000 miles due to high oil consumption , then a new speedometer fitted just after , with the next record showing 123K then building up to the 170K when I got it - from this , the car had done AT LEAST 430K ! The staff in the dealership all knew the car , said it had 'everything' done over the years and thought they would never see the back of it .

Was I upset or annoyed ? On the contrary : how many other people get to pick up a one owner car with nothing needing done , which drove and looked like new at 17 years old and flew through the MOT , for a bargain price .

I saw the high mileage as something to be proud of , a fitting testimony to the superlative engineering integrity of Mercedes-Benz , and I actually set about winding the odometer up to the correct mileage - only despite inserting my cordless drill into the back of it , it was taking forever , so I gave up .

I had that car for about 18 months , then one fateful morning I was rudely awakened by a car crashing through my garden wall and writing it off against the wall of my house - ironic after it surviving all these years on the road - the errant driver turned out to be uninsured too .
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Postby Carbon Based » Fri Jun 26, 2015 11:55 am


I thought this might be relevant here:
http://www.motortrader.com/automotive-n ... rite-scam/
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Postby Pontoneer » Sun Jul 26, 2015 3:35 am


There was no chance of that happening with my car as described above .

This was the scene I was rudely awakened to on a day off
Image

Image

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Although my car still started and drove , there was no way it was going to be fixed

Image

Image

Image

Since the Toyota driver was uninsured , and the settlement offer from my own insurer was derisory , I ended up keeping the car and breaking it myself , with the rolling shell being donated to the local fire station for the guys to practice cutting up . The parts I sold realised more than double what the insurer offered .
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Postby Pontoneer » Sun Jul 26, 2015 9:00 am


Sorry about keeping the thread going .

The grille was sold , but I kept my badges and they now reside on one of my current cars ( the badge is League of Safe Drivers , as it was pre-ROSPA , when I first did my test ) .

I remember selling the bonnet for a tenner ; can't remember what the grille made , but I did well out of the low mileage engine , leather interior and alloy wheels :)
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Postby waremark » Mon Jul 27, 2015 9:32 am


A Merc from the days when they were well engineered. Sad end.

Ref the link about selling w-offs with falsified history, wouldn't a normal HPI check have revealed the scam to any potential buyer?

When I have bought a used car other than from a main dealer I have done a bit of private research. I have trusted main dealers.
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Postby TripleS » Thu Jul 30, 2015 5:02 pm


waremark wrote:A Merc from the days when they were well engineered. Sad end.

Ref the link about selling w-offs with falsified history, wouldn't a normal HPI check have revealed the scam to any potential buyer?

When I have bought a used car other than from a main dealer I have done a bit of private research. I have trusted main dealers.


My experience suggests that doesn't always work with main dealers. Not all the sharks are on bomb sites, er, I would venture to suggest.

I had disputes with two quite posh dealerships some years ago - one Jaguar, the other Peugeot. They both went out of business a while later.

[shrugs shoulders]
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Postby Garrison » Thu Jul 30, 2015 5:10 pm


Caveat Emptor ...
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