How Do You Tell If The Car Has Done Big Kms?

[GTR-N1]

I'm an old timer - and I've owned lots of cars, most of which are second hand.

I've been thinking about what evidence there might be, that an import's mileage may have been doctored.

So I wondered if I could think up 10 tips which collectively, would tell the buyer that perhaps the odo has been wound back after all.

I'll try. I guess I'm assuming that there've been no accidents (so I've ignored looking for doors dropping a little on opening etc), no rust & services have been done.

1) sun damage to the steering wheel

2) wear and tear to the steering wheel

3) lots of key scratches on the ignition barrel

4) worn bolster to the driver's seat

5) sun damage to the windscreen wiper arms

6) stone chips

7) looms/wires to the coilpacks have gone stiff/rigid

8) what's coming out of the exhaust

9) compression testing

10) in the old days, we could put a wooden dowel between your ear and the crankshaft pulley bolt and listen for clackety noises - but I'm not sure about our cars. I know that worn BMW VANOS clatter can still be picked up this way.

Oh well, I've reached 10 - I'm happy with that - but I'm still wanting to learn about any more out there?

[Crackfox]

my car ticks 1 and 5 with just over 90,000kms . Hopefully its cos it was parked under the australian sun for 4.5years not cos it has 200,000 on it

[TRB-001]

those are good things to check but sun damage is more time in the sun and not kms....

a good one that i look for in worn carpet around pedal box

others are;

smuff marks from getting in and out of drivers seat

coolant bottle colour is a really good indicator especiialy of service history

gear knob wear

slack in the gear box

amount of dirt etc build up in the engine bay....(i saw a 1996 r33 the other day with genuine 40000kms on it and it really did look brand new!)

[GTR-N1]

^^^ thanks!

Someone on another thread mentioned (and it makes sense)

* worn pedals

Another had mentioned

* faded, warped or shrunk windscreen mouldings

[Yts]

also if the odometre doesnt line up exactly, and a few of the numbers are a little slightly higher/lower than the staight line, that is a sign that it has been wound back

[FLN75S]

A quick look at the undercarriage can help also if there is oil leaks from the diff, gearbox, motor this is usually a sign it has a done a few km's

[warps]

I'd ignore anything to do with the sun. That's more a function of how much time it's spent parked in the elements than actually driving. Assume an average of 40km/h, then a car with 200,000km will have spent 5000 hours being driven. This is a small fraction of the 20 years (over 175,000 hours) some of these cars have been on the planet, so the sun's effect during "drive time" will almost be negligible.

Carpets and pedal rubbers can be replaced.

Seats can be retrimmed or replaced.

If you can drive the car, you will get a feel for how tight everything is. That is probably the safest way to tell the age of the car. By all means, the other items listed (worn mats, pedals, gear stick, seat etc.) give an indication, but can be easily masked over.

[saliya]

I'm an old timer - and I've owned lots of cars, most of which are second hand.

I've been thinking about what evidence there might be, that an import's mileage may have been doctored.

So I wondered if I could think up 10 tips which collectively, would tell the buyer that perhaps the odo has been wound back after all.

* _any_ markings on the car indicating kms in excess of the odometer.

e.g. on the inside of the petrol flap; service sticker on inside of windscreen that is more than the service interval; timing belt/other "this was replaced at" sticker under bonnet; etc.

* Service history if provided.

I've also found that general condition of all under-bonnet hoses is a good one; yes, hoses can be replaced with newer items but it seems to be too much of a PITA and/or too expensive.

Cheers,

Saliya

Edited February 10, 2010 by saliya

[NISSAN GTR]

Most important is heat damage from the engine ! with GTRs the intake plenum will have some black flecks of paint miss on it 100,000km you can usually tell if it has high ks as most of the paint will be missing . Some stock rb26s have the paint scratched off or repainted or replaced, give them a miss unless the rest of the car is in great nick or its been modified already ! Check out for sticker marks on the filter box and cam belt cover , in japan when a car has its 100000 km service and they replace the cam belt they leave a sticker on the cam belt cover on top , even when this is removed down the track you should still see the imprint - therefor if the speedo says 60000km you know its done 100000 +kms

Perfect and not so perfect

[Kujotk]

also if the odometre doesnt line up exactly, and a few of the numbers are a little slightly higher/lower than the staight line, that is a sign that it has been wound back

Thats why I always suspected my car had done allot more km's than it says, but other than the front bar that i still havent repainted, the car looks and feels like new and has the exact right power as a freshly produced engine should have. the gear knob and accelerator peddal have been changed to a burnout metal peddal and a nizmo gear knob, steering wheel looks too new, seats were in great condition (passenger was never used) but in spite of these things being all "fresh" my speedo didnt line up properly. I always thought these were sus but after 2 and a half years of using it as a daily driver I still havent had a problem other than a clutch and new coil pack, i just changed the timingbelt early incase, but as far as the car feels and drives like, maybe it was the original kms?

Pod, turbo back exhaust (de-cat), 9psi boost and spikes to 10 on an original 14 year old factory turbo and a front mount and i got 195.5rwk (all of which are untunned)

Without the decat it got 192.5rwkw about a year earlier.

When i first got the car it only had a cat-back system with compliance cat and a pod and it still got 160rwkw where as other r33's with the same setup as me on the day were only getting 125-145rwkw. one gtt got 145rwkw for a complete dead stock car, the only other car to get a decent power run out of the little or no modded cars (which is right on target for gtt power when it first came out of the factory stock.

So for me atleast it looks like the km's dont line up but either it has been knocked somehow internally or played around with or it is just alittle fault from nissan.

Either way km's arn't the only way to decide on a car, i could nearly destroy an engine in 5000km if i wanted to, and all it would show is 5000km on the odometer, where as a 60 000km car could have been looked after from the beginning, had its oils done every 5000km, never seen a track ect.... if you have driven enough cars around in your life you should be able to pick the ones that are good or bad mechanically without even having to refer to the log books and the odometer ect.... your gut instinct is usually your best tool when it comes to used cars.

Km's are only an indicator of a cars condition, how the car drives is much much more important than numbers, however if you have evidence the odometer has been tampered with, then bargain harder for it if the car drives well, you might aswell get the cheapest price you can anyway

[GTR32G]

I always look at the Bolts and Nuts on the Engine and Suspension, can always tell if they have been removed after the factory have done them up. Even can tell if body panel have been off and on like bonnet, guards and so on.

[mad082]

as someone said above, sun damage comes more from how much time it has spend outside than how many kms it has done. if someone parks it in a garage on weekends and in undercover parking, and just generally takes better care of it it can look better than something that is half the age.

unfortunately these days it is hard to tell. it is so easy just to buy a new cluster off ebay and stick that in you don't even need to bother fiddling with the odometer to wind it back.

also kms doesn't mean that much. if a car has been used for highway driving then it will have high kms on the clock but the engine may have only done as much work as something with half as many kms that sits in traffic for half an hour a day. a car driving round town for 3 hours would probably put more wear on an engine that is driving for 3 hours on the highway, despite the fact that it would've only done half the distance. the engine itself would probably do more revolutions driving round town due to reving higher when acceleration, etc, but just the tyres don't turn as much.

[bozodos]

RE: dirt in the engine bay etc.

Due to living in a country area which is windy and dusty my engine bay is f**king filthy now, and I've only done about 20000km in it from when it was clean as new! It's really bloody hard to get it all out, especially around rubber seals etc.

[NISSAN GTR]

Edited February 11, 2010 by NISSAN GTR

[TALBO]

Also engine bays can be cleaned as can underbodies, not really a true indication imo. When I got mine, the engine bay was spotless with 93XXX on the clock.

[Mr Eps]

i can tell when my knee puffs up and i get butterflies in my stomach.

no really. im only joking.

you CAN'T TELL when it's been done. numbers matching up?? that's crazy, there's no way that every single number can match up to the exact millimetre after spinning around so many times

only way *we* can find out, is trace the VIN number in japan and see with their governed kilometre updates

there's advice on this entire simple process in the imports section...

but realistically - the odometer reading is a number - would it really make you love you car any less??? it's STILL the same car it was yesterday...

[Ten Four]

Most important is heat damage from the engine ! with GTRs the intake plenum will have some black flecks of paint miss on it 100,000km you can usually tell if it has high ks as most of the paint will be missing . Some stock rb26s have the paint scratched off or repainted or replaced, give them a miss unless the rest of the car is in great nick or its been modified already ! Check out for sticker marks on the filter box and cam belt cover , in japan when a car has its 100000 km service and they replace the cam belt they leave a sticker on the cam belt cover on top , even when this is removed down the track you should still see the imprint - therefor if the speedo says 60000km you know its done 100000 +kms

Perfect and not so perfect

Mines done 66k kms and the previous owner bought it at 30k kms as mint. Does have the plenum scratching and my engine has done 6000kms since forged rebuild. Told me it was done on purpose to keep it looking low key (just over 400awhp atm, bay looks stock except pods and strut). I do believe him though. Dash, no bubbles, original R32 GTR steering wheel with 1 tiny mark, seats no wear, original mats no wear, original g/box and hand brake boots showing slight wear and original gearknob has seen better days. I'd be inclined to believe the 66kms figure....

Edited February 11, 2010 by Ten Four

[gersfan]

A lot ( not all ) import shops repaint the plenums on gtr's anyway so I don't think it's a great indication.

There is no sure way to tell.

[KezR33]

Not a Skyline but one thing to be wary of in the Supra are cars with less then 100,000km. It's very easy to pull the digital odo off and snip the wire that lights up the first digit. So a 180,000km car will only read 80,000km. There have been many tears on the forums when a "valuable, low k" Supra suddenly clicks over to read 00,000km.

Personally, unless its a real performance car (like a GTR) I assume most imports have done around 10,000ks per year, and I look for cars that match that number. I'd rather a 15yo R33 GTS(T) with 150,000 on the clock than a 15yo R33 with 70,000km on the clock. Low ks just scare me off.

[Kujotk]

Not a Skyline but one thing to be wary of in the Supra are cars with less then 100,000km. It's very easy to pull the digital odo off and snip the wire that lights up the first digit. So a 180,000km car will only read 80,000km. There have been many tears on the forums when a "valuable, low k" Supra suddenly clicks over to read 00,000km.

Personally, unless its a real performance car (like a GTR) I assume most imports have done around 10,000ks per year, and I look for cars that match that number. I'd rather a 15yo R33 GTS(T) with 150,000 on the clock than a 15yo R33 with 70,000km on the clock. Low ks just scare me off.

wow thats an easy way to get extra $$$$ for your supra lol. But if it drives well what more could you ask for?