Hey all, I found a 993TT at a great price with some problems cosmetically outside, but pretty clean inside, but PPI has not been done yet.

NOW GET THIS!
My problem is that, the dealer trying to sell me the car gave me (pushed) a fantastic price but after some general research a-la CARFAX, I found out that the car was first inspected and smog (PASSED) in NY in 98 (YEARS LATE AS NY requires annual inspections), but the car was on the road since late 95 (obviously its a 96TT), when it was inspected the first time, there was 21,000 miles on the car, a year later another inspection was performed and the car had 24,200 miles, and a in 2000 the car had 25,500 miles and finally in June 2001 the car was inspected the last time in NY with a final mileage reading on CARFAX of 28,995 (NYS DMV).

NOW GET THIS...The dealer is selling the car saying it only has 27,300 miles on it and the odometer does read this, but it completely differs from the CARFAX report. I haven't bought the car, I've only made a verbal agreement over the phone that I would consider it at that price and was going to go to the dealer this morning to take one final look. I know I should probably stay away from the car, but it is very reasonably price, I just wanted to know if I have any recourse for the false or fraudulent advertising? Another problem on my conscience is that I told someone that I would sell him my car to purchase this one, and although there was no promise, I would feel very bad that this person got screwed after getting so excited about owning a 993.

I know I can hook it up to read the actual miles on the DME but then again, that could have been changed as well. I will check the bolts under the seat for this too. Any help and advice would be appreciated. It could be that the dealer also took the car into trade and did not know about this, but according to one salesman, the car was serviced there and another salesman said I don't know where it was serviced...both have been with the dealer the same amount of years and were working the deal together. Also, this dealer is a Premier "awarded" dealer...whatever that means. :-)

Is there anything I can do? I want the car but not that badly, but I really want to make this dealer pay if they are trying to defraud customers! Thanks in advance for the help and advice. The list is invaluable and great.

Kind regards,
Vin

 

vin, I will tell you this, odo tampering is a FEDERAL OFFENSE, as in "do not pass go, go directly to jail!" IMHO if the dealer did not run a "carfax", and bought the car from the previous owner, the previous owner has some explaing to do! I have been in similar stituation, I took a trade in, that had the speedo replaced, customer did not tell us?. we did not run a car fax(our fault), in court, we won a fair amount of money!If I were you I would check that speedo with my own eyes, make sure there was not "paperwork"screw up, (this can happen if the salesperson misreads the odo, to begin with}, show the dealer the discrepency.. Rule of thumb is "if the odo has been replaced for any reason, you must treat the car has true milage unknown" in terms of value, treat the car has if it has 200k on the odo!....harsh yes, reality yep!!Good luck, and remember.....there are plenty of P-cars out there!!!!!

 

Thanks Phil, I did check with my own eyes, 27,345 was on the odometer! No mistake on that, and I know I should/will walk from the deal, but the principle of the matter is killing me, these guys should not be allowed to do this to consumers! I want to write a letter of complaint, but would it do any good? Thanks for the help...anything more would be greatly appreciated!

Regards,
Vin

 

as kim siad, It is just not worth it for a "new" car dealer to screw around with odos!, Plus with many of the newer cars, it is "almost immpossble" to tamper with the odo! I really doubt if the dealer did anything to the odo!, {he or she has millions of dollars at stake} and like kim siad, double and triple check your car fax info, bring it up to the dealer, and I dont mean a sales person, but the general manager, or dealer principle.

 

From my personal experience with Carfax, I know that it is not 100% accurate. I have sold a car to a friend and repurchased it from him some months later. On Carfax,the mileage was recorded as being lower than when I sold him the car. This data is just input by the DMV computer talking to the Carfax computer. If someone transposes numbers during this data input at the DMV, it is stuck in the Carfax data. Also, as stated previously, a dealer, or anyone with smarts, would not go through so much trouble to roll back an odometer just 1k miles.

 

Consider also this, it you get it very good price (I mean well below market) you should think about it. It seem that even if it was rolled back, it can't be much (5000 miles mex. I'd say).

But of course, all this is fishy, when I was looking my 993 I passed two cars that seemed to have roll down odometers.

 

The odometer or speedo could have required replacement. I just had my speedo replaced on a '01 430. The thing was clicking so the dealer ordered me a new one and tried to guess what the mileage would be when I had it installed. The factory sets the odometer to the mileage requested by the dealer.

On the other hand who cares if it has 27K or 31K both are considered low mileage.

 

Carfax is NOT always accurate. When I bought my '96 993TT there was an inconsistent entry in the carfax mileage log. It appears that the state DMV screwed up a mileage entry when the car's title was modified by the original owner. In my case

I did two things to get comfortable that the owner was telling me the truth. First, I reviewed the service records, which supported the odometer mileage. Second, I had the owner sign an indemnification agreement stating the the miles were as shown and that he would agree to pay for any repairs associated with the mileage being innacurate. Could be hard to collect on that agreement but the existence of the agreement and the threat of federal prosecution would be enough to make your typical wealthy Porsche owner fall over himself to make it right. The indemnification transfers to other owners, which is important because I'm now selling the car (see classifieds).

 

Vinnie,

I would not put so much faith in CarFax. I have seen huge errors (car that had salvage title showed clean on CarFax). The mileage pattern is pretty consistent with many of these cars. Lots of miles in the first part of ownership, use falls off and the owner decides to sell/trade. The last CarFax odo could easily be 26,xxx or just wrong.

The dealer should be able to show you some service history which would let you see the mileage pattern. It does not make sense for the dealer to mess with the odo. 1) The legal implications are HUGE 2) If someone were going to fake the mileage, why move it to almost 30k? If it looks like a good deal, get a proper PPI and go forward if it makes sense.

 

Hey all, So I just got back from the dealer, and he told me and showed me the vehicle inspection that was done at their dealership and sure enough the miles were at 28,955 that was entered into the DMV's computers, but he said that the mechanic at the time just took a quick peek at the odo, and made an honest mistake. I don't know what to think, but I'd like to trust the dealer. He did show me all the records for the car as it was maintained at that dealer. Only major problems were power steering leak, regular maintenance was made etc.

The car is a 96TT, I was wondering if there were many problems with these cars versus the regular 993s and a 97TT. I know the 97 comes with a stronger 1st gear, but was that the only change in model years? Thanks again for all the help....I think I'll buy the car and have another dealership hook it up to the scan tool to see if there was any funny business, and if there were, I'd go after the dealer then. It is going to be a certified car with a 1 year unlimited mile warranty.

 

Vinne,

Just a thought, 28,995 is pretty close to 26,995 when you peek in the driver's side window to read the milage...this could be easily mistaken.

If they're dealing and it's what you want, I'd ask them to do the indemnification thing, and go for it!

sean

 

Also, there's some kind of reading you can take from the computer that'll tell you the time on the motor; and there's a standard range of mileage/hours that's the norm. Anything outside that is suspicious. Don't remember what that range is, but you may find it in the archives.

 

Hi,

You could call the 800# Customer Service at Porsche and they could search the car's warrenty history. With the warrenty history you have mileage info for each warrenty work date. If the car was serviced at a factory shop then the warrenty history is very important info that you need.

Patrick

 

Thanks everyone for the help and encouragement...I have and will take everyone's advice and proceed carefully.

Kind regards,