Hi,
I'm looking at an '02 Z06. The car has 10k miles on it currently and is a two owner car. One small issue the seller brought to my attention is that the carfax shows a mileage discrepency of about 2k miles.

The current owner owner bought the car with about 5700 miles in 2008. After buying it he brought it to a shop for something (forget what at the moment)...and he said the shop logged miles the miles incorrectly as 3700 by mistake. He said the the guy at the shop was a little old man and turned out to be a hack and never went back to him. This was back in 2008. Since then the owner has gotten inspection stickers etc and mileage shows correctly all the way up to the present which is now at around 10k miles. He said he didn't even realize this happened until just recently when the dealership ran a carfax on the car as he was considering trading it in before he listed it for sale privately. Anyway, he brought this mileage discrepancy to my attention as i was looking at the car and showed me the car fax. i don't have a copy of the carfax at the moment and just working from memory but working on getting a copy.

I'm thinking this isn't a big deal, but figured i'd ask others for their opinions before pulling the trigger on the car. Don't want to run into any issues when i go to sell it some day down the road.

Paul

 

2k miles would be a non-factor to me. If everything else checked out I would pull the trigger.

Reggie

 

the fact that he brought it to your attention and showed it to you seems like he's above board. if its sound mechanically (as in get it inspected) then you should be good to go! 2k miles sounds like someone fat fingered an entry. you could use that to negotiate a 30 day warranty or maybe a 5 day return just in case?

 

I had a mileage issue when I sold my Charger SRT8. The dealer who serviced my car wrote in the wrong mileage and threw it off. So when i sold my car, the Carfax actually said it had more miles. I think this is fairly common, and Carfax is a PITA to get them to fix something. I really hate Carfax. They are often incomplete, so it doesn't help the buyer. And the littlest thing can get flagged and put on the Carfax and kill resale value. I prefer the good ol days when you inspected a car on a lift with your mechanic.

 

If this is the car you want, negotiate a price contingent on an inspection by a shop you choose. If all checks out; buy it. I wouldn't get too wound up about a Carfax report unless it is reporting major damage and the seller isn't being up front with you. In my mind, the seller pointing out the discrepancy, speaks volumes about him.

 

Thanks guys. I should definitely have it inspected. The only things i saw
were one minor paint blemish (little bigger than ball point pen tip), trunk release button doesn't work (maybe a fuse??) and minor rash on two rims. I'm thinking this is minor stuff that i could probably address for 500 or less. Hopefully everything else will check out ok mechanically. I'm not going to let the carfax thing affect my decision.

 

Carfax is FYI only. I've seen several mileage discreptancy listings on Carfax. All it takes is for someone to enter the mileage incorrectly once and it's flagged. I would NOT let that determine whether I purchase (or not purchase) a car. I've seen many cars with damage from wrecks over the years and the crashes never appeared on the carfax report.

 

It doesn't sound like a real problem. Now if it was 20K, that would be a problem.

 

As mentioned, he was stand-up enough to let you in on the issue and the fact it is just a few K miles... I'd pull the trigger if you feel it's "the one". Good luck.

 

Get a notarized document from the seller about the discrepancy if you want, but I wouldn't worry about a 2K mile difference - especially since CarFax has been known to have things wrong about a car before.

 

Used to be you took an uncle or somebody that knew cars when looking to buy one. Today we have these BS services that people pay for with mixed results.

I'm facing a mileage deal with my project car I bought at salvage auction. The idiots at Progessive recorded KM instead of miles on the salvage title. They were suposed to fix it with the Maryland DMV but what I got is a title that says 115,000 (not actual mileage) on the front and 71,000 miles on the back. It's a keeper anyway but it would be nice to have the correct mileage. We'll see what PA decides to put on it when I apply for the new title. Worst case I have photo evidence of the mileage readings at the time I bought it.