Hi folks, it's official - I now own a '95 Subaru Legacy L wagon. After much research and running of Carfaxes, I located it an hour and a half away from home.

Clean car. Subaru dealership upon request produced printout of service history from 2001. Major services performed - timing belt, water pump, etc. at around 58,000. New tires. Local elderly couple owned car from new - traded it into dealership. Slight scraping on side of front bumper - otherwise straight car. Car sold with 65,739 miles. During negotiations, salesman stressed what a low mileage car it was for a '95 - plus had service records from this dealership documenting services from 2001.

Drove car home - love it - handled great. Today while scrutinizing service records and putting in chronological order - there appears to be an odometer rollback. 2/23/04 - 62,612. 3/10/04 - 65,413. 5/14/04 - 70,001. 6/11/04 - 72,000. 9/1/04 - 64,859. 9/9/04 - 64,860. 12/10/04 - 65,739!

While I feel it's disingenuous on their part - if the listed services were truly performed - I will swallow hard and accept it. Would I have paid less? Maybe a little less - but I still would have purchased the car. I just would have liked to know the truth.

At 9 a.m. today I'm going to call them and bring it to their attention - see what possible excuses they can offer.

Any suggestions on how I should handle this?

Cheers,

jakl

Looks fishy. Odometer roll-back is illegal in most places.

 

Why don't you contact the previous owners, and ask them what the mileage was when they traded it in? That information should be recorded on their sales contract.

looks like bogus numbers. since it's just dealer records, my guess is they'll say someone wrote them down wrong. it's not like this information is used for titling purposes or anything.

 

start sane, but my guess is they'll give you the run around. i am admittedly untrusting of dealerships. try to stay inquisitive and confused before getting irate, particularly if you plan on dealing with them in the future. if you feel you're getting jerked around, tell them you want to know exactly where the discrepancy lies and that you're ready to call a lawyer (just say that, no need to actually do it) and also report them to the BBB (Better Business Bereau). but it will be easy for them to say "oh johnny ray in the back usually forgets the exact mileage between looking at the odometer and walking back to the computer". i'd track down the previous owner and see what she has to say about it. she may be able to verify when and if the car was taken in and the highest number of miles she recalls it having. get a carfax report on it. www.carfax.com i think. that will have some mileage numbers on it. i'd stop into a different subaru dealer and ask for the service records on your vehicle. they may be able to pull them up on their computer. and they may even be able to tell you the previous owners name. might show up on the sheet if they print out the service records before.

Drove car home - love it - handled great. Today while scrutinizing service records and putting in chronological order - there appears to be an odometer rollback. 2/23/04 - 62,612. 3/10/04 - 65,413. 5/14/04 - 70,001. 6/11/04 - 72,000. 9/1/04 - 64,859. 9/9/04 - 64,860. 12/10/04 - 65,739!

 

Any suggestions on how I should handle this?

Cheers,

jakl

The nominalist Franciscan philosopher William of Ockhman states in Occam's Razor that the simplest explanation requiring the fewest assumptions and hpothesisies is generally the most accurate

 

What am I trying to say? Human nature being what it is somebody screwed up some record keeping and didn't want to make the effort to fix their error. Some dealership conspiracy, while not unheard of, is unlikely.

 

Speedometer rollback is difficult and your Carfax report showed no speedometer discrepancies

 

BTW-who is the dealer? I agree with Grosgary, call them up and put somebody's feet to the fire and get an explanation but I think you have a GREAT car.

 

Good luck,

Greg

Thanks Greg, Gary and Gerry, four calls later salesman claims he spoke to service manager. Claims there has been no rollback - mileage is accurate. Says previous elderly couple may have guessimated mileage when checking in for service and service manager never verified owner's numbers.

Good news is he willingly suggested to get me the previous owner's number so I could call and inquire and feel more comfortable with purchase. I accepted offer. He'll call me tomorrow.

I have visions of the salesman's father reading from a script to pacify me. I've become somewhat jaded. I work for the court system - my entire career I've watched people swear on a Bible to tell the truth and lie. I'll keep you guys posted - thanks for the guidance.

Cheers,

jakl

Consider this: if you were going to roll the speedo back, why only roll it 5 thousand? Why not 25 thousand?

it has been a broken speedo replaced with another used one.On a car this old it makes no sense to roll it back a few thousand miles as it affects the value very little. It is still very low mileage at the high rate.

5,000 or 25,000...

 

 

Dosn't matter, because if it was taken care of he'll still see another 200,000

Speedometer rollback is difficult

 

Not on a Subaru Legacy.