I'm doing research into buying a new car.

2004 Honda Accord EX coupe
3.0L V6 6spd M/T

The car's odometer at the dealership reads: 23,000 but the CarFax report shows that the car was sold at auction with 97,500.

Is it possible that someone swapped out the gauge cluster, or that the dealership rolled back the digital odometer?

WTF! Haha. Please check out the attached photo of the CarFax!

Now I'm sketched out to buy form this dealer if they're messing with stuff like that. I'd use it as a point to drop the price, but I don't know if the car's safe if they're messing with things like that. FAIL.

Any input would be nice!

 

It is definitely against honda of america's policy to roll back the odometer. Likely illegal too.

I doubt a dealership would roll it back, but you never know.

The cluster could have been replaced with a new one. There would be a sticker in the door jamb (or in some other common area like the glove box) that would have the mileage to add on. There also has to be some legal paperwork verifying the mileage that needs to be added on to the odometer that should come with the vehicle.

The carfax report could be wrong as well. Question the dealer these things.

 

Have you looked at it yet? Does the odometer actually read 23k or you just going by the carfax? If the car actually says 98k miles, then someone simply typed some wrong numbers into carfax.

If it actually says 23k, then don't say anything at first, give the dealer a chance to tell you about the mileage. If they don't then walk away. Or RUN.

 

I would ask the dealer for another "carfax-type" report (I can't remember the names of any offhand, but Carfax is not the only one.)
It would be simple for someone at carfax to have screwed up and typed in the #'s wrong. However, to me, 97,500 mileage sounds more believable for a 6 year old car than 23k does. If it truly has 23k on it, that means the former owner only drove it an average of 3,840 miles per year.
If the owner swapped out the cluster themself (not a dealer) and they used a new cluster, it would have reset the odometer to 0.

 

owner could not have swapped the cluster,,,, when bought at auction car had already been sold by previous owner ,( mileage at auction was 97k , 11 days later reads 22k , So either there was a typing error or there is a shady dealer and if they swapped the speedometer for a legitimate reason ( not working ) they should have told you .. to me it smells like a rotten fish ..

I have seen it a few times where a used car dealer replaced the speedometer with lower miles to get more money from the car or even roll back the mileage..but to drop it by 75k would be absurd ...

IT IS HIGHLY ILLEGAL ...

Is this a reputable used car dealer ?? chk with the BBB in your area..
the other thing,,( looking at the sticker ) is that they flip flopped the mileage and stock #
I would not buy this car till you know for sure what is going on....

 

Thanks for the input. They're kiiiiind of a dealer, they're more of a used car "lot" if you know what I mean.

As for the odometer, I emailed them and they said that it was a typo, since they said that then either they're gonna hurry up and change the miles back, or it is a typo and it's all straight.

Heard it's a pain to roll back digital odometers so the easiest option would be to swap out the cluster.

Reviews are sketchy for this place, so they're my last resort. I'm going to Seattle to check out some cars, and if I don't find any I miiiiight check this one out. Ha.

Thanks!

 

It's not easy to roll miles up or down on a digital odometer. I think dealers have some software that's real stupid expensive & has to phone home to the mothership to change miles.

 

That's what I heard. Guy emailed me back and said that it was incorrectly posted. Probably just a typo.

That's pushing too many miles for me though, ha.

 

I wouldn't buy it, there's way to many used cars out there to chance it. Personally to me it seems like a no-brainer to just run...

 

Kind of my thoughts exactly. Better safe than sorry.