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Car Forum / Driving, Maintenance, Tuning / Maintenance and Repair / January 2008

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Is the odometer turned back (Scion tC)?

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Bender - 26 Jan 2008 02:43 GMT
I'm looking into buying a used Scion tC but it's a 2005 with only 8500
miles on it.  I can't believe he's only put that many miles on it.  How
can I tell if he's rolled the odometer back?

Thanks in advance
Ashton Crusher - 26 Jan 2008 05:28 GMT
>I'm looking into buying a used Scion tC but it's a 2005 with only 8500
>miles on it.  I can't believe he's only put that many miles on it.  How
>can I tell if he's rolled the odometer back?
>
>Thanks in advance

Unless you can find something in writing, like receipts for an oil
change at a higher mileage, it would be very hard to tell.  But some
signs would be if the tires were worn more then they should be for
such low miles, or if they were not the original tires at all but had
been replaced.  I have seen that at used cars on dealer lots years
ago... the odometer said 15,000 miles but it has a brand new set of
tires on it.  And it's "never been wrecked" yet the hood has been
repainted.  

If you pull one of the front wheels you could look at the brake pads
and see how worn they are, at 8500 they should have very little wear
but you'd need to go look at a new set of pads first to be able to
judge this.  There isn't much else that wears out fast enough to use
to tell.  A well maintained two year old car with 8500 miles won't
look appreciably different then one with 85000 miles on it.  That's
why dealers got away with turning back odometers, turns a high mileage
cream puff into a low mileage cream puff for $10.
sdlomi2 - 26 Jan 2008 06:17 GMT
>>I'm looking into buying a used Scion tC but it's a 2005 with only 8500
>>miles on it.  I can't believe he's only put that many miles on it.  How
[quoted text clipped - 19 lines]
> why dealers got away with turning back odometers, turns a high mileage
> cream puff into a low mileage cream puff for $10.

   For a # of years, some mfg'rs (Chrysler was 1st I learned about.) have
the "true" miles logged into the car's computer & will show it, upon
accessed by its dealership--regardless of what the numbers show on the
odometer.  A friend and business associate of mine had a Jeep franchise,
bought a "local(in another town)trade-in", with ~32K miles, from another
Jeep dealer, and sent it into his own service dept. to repair a warantied
item.  Service's computer system immediately determined the car actually had
~80K on it, which of course eliminated warranty-repair.  Turned out the
original 'individual' owner had gotten the odometer "cut" before trading it
to the unsuspecting dealer.  Do you wish to spend a few bucks at the Scion
dealership?  HTH, s
Steve W. - 26 Jan 2008 16:09 GMT
>> I'm looking into buying a used Scion tC but it's a 2005 with only 8500
>> miles on it.  I can't believe he's only put that many miles on it.  How
>> can I tell if he's rolled the odometer back?
>>
>> Thanks in advance

Well run a carfax on it and see what they say. They at least have the
mileage of every time it was registered. Not sure if Toyota set up the
Scion to show true mileage on a scanner or not.

Signature

Steve W.
Near Cooperstown, New York

Life is not like a box of chocolates
it's more like a jar of jalapenos-
what you do today could burn your a.s tomorrow!

Hachiroku - 28 Jan 2008 03:30 GMT
> I'm looking into buying a used Scion tC but it's a 2005 with only 8500
> miles on it.  I can't believe he's only put that many miles on it.  How
> can I tell if he's rolled the odometer back?
>
> Thanks in advance

sdlomi2 gave you the best answer. Toyota can tell ANYTHING from the ECU:
highest engine revs, mileage, oil change interval, etc.

However, it may just be it only has 8500 miles on it. Mine has only been
out once since November. Unless the roads are absolutely clean, it stays
covered in the carport.

I used mine this summer for a job with a lot of travelling. I use my
Supra, too, but on long trips over 92 degrees I take the Scion. That
bumped the mileage to 18,000. It had 11,000 when I bought it Sept '06.
It's a 2005 also. So it may just be, like me, he drives it for fun and not
as an only car.

Also, my Mom's 86 Camry has a whopping 85,000 miles on it...
z - 29 Jan 2008 22:31 GMT
> > I'm looking into buying a used Scion tC but it's a 2005 with only 8500
> > miles on it.  I can't believe he's only put that many miles on it.  How
[quoted text clipped - 16 lines]
>
> Also, my Mom's 86 Camry has a whopping 85,000 miles on it...

Yeah; my mom's Aries has like 60k on it. i don't know what year it was
made, but they stopped making them in 89.
Harry Face - 30 Jan 2008 16:37 GMT
A friend bought a 2005 Malibu in Florida from somebody at a mobile home
park. It only had 10,000 miles on it.

If its a digital odometer I think the mileage is saved in the main
computer of the car.

Good Luck

Harryface
 
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