Mileage problem!

[andyjmac]

Hi all,



Firstly id like to intoduce myself as a new mx5 owner and to say what a great handling little car it is, the only downside is ive not yet had the roof down much cos of the weather!



Having just purchased a mk2 Mazda MX5 import from a garage ive discoverd that the electronic odo is reading in miles and not the kilometers as stated and advertised!! The car was advertised as having done 62K miles and the guy at the garage assured me the odo showed kilometers ie ~100K. Now after checking out a few known mileage routes the odo is recording miles and not Km, ie the car has an extra 40K miles on than i thought!



Where do i stand legally?? Im fairly happy with the car as it is, can i claim some money back to compensate for the additional mileage??



Thanks



Andy

[franv8]

I'm sure that there are better qualified people on this site to answer this, but if you'd specifically asked if the speedo was in km and been told it was, then the 'product' has been misrepresented to you, and I think you'd be in your right mind to demand a refund.



This kind of happened to my mum with an 18 month old MR2 from a Toyota dealer, they'd got the wrong figure on the details on the door, when she took delivery and realised the error, she only wanted £500 back, but they would only accept the car back and a refund for the amount paid.



Don't know if this helps, good luck though!



Also, if the car was a jap one forst, it may be that the first x many thousand were in km's, but now since UK conversion it's reading miles. However on Mk 1 imports it's common justto end up with a 'sticker' or new face, that is calibrated in miles but leaves the odometer/trip in kms.

[chockymonster]

Not necessarily!



It may well be that the odo was km and has just had a speedo convertor fitted without any mileage correction.



I've never changed the mileage on any of the cars I've imported, just fitted a speedo convertor and left the mileage readout alone.

[andyjmac]

the car was first imported in 1998 so i assume that all work with speedo and odo was done at the same time??



My partner had an MR2 roadster import which had the speedo in miles but the odo reading in km, so i thought this car had the same set up, but the odo is definately going up in miles!

[speedychrissie]

my car was imported in 2000 but it never had any alterations made to the speedo so when i bought it it was still reading in km/h and going up in km.



i then fitted a new face to it so that the speedo reads in mph and the odometer has a note by it saying it is still in km.



if you are sure yours is going up in miles then they have obviously misrepresented it.

[andyjmac]

So if i have been sold a car which was not as stated in the advert or what he verbally told me then i shall approach him regarding claiming some money back.



So they question is how much of a reduction would be acceptable for an extra 40K miles?? Even if he agrees to return me some money i assume it will be at the mininmum end. I payed £5k for the car, does anybody know what a further 40k on the clock would do to the price??

[chockymonster]

andyjmac said:

So if i have been sold a car which was not as stated in the advert or what he verbally told me then i shall approach him regarding claiming some money back.

So they question is how much of a reduction would be acceptable for an extra 40K miles?? Even if he agrees to return me some money i assume it will be at the mininmum end. I payed £5k for the car, does anybody know what a further 40k on the clock would do to the price??

I don't know if they have represented it though.
When I imported my car it showed 48,000kms on the clock.
I fitted a speedo convertor that derestricted the car and made the speedo show miles. THe odo then counted each mile traveled but the first 48,000 were kms. When I sold it 80,000 on the clock, the car had only actually travelled 62,000 miles as the first 48,000 were kms.

If you have history with the car then the 1st mot at import will give you an idea of what the car was imported with.

[speedychrissie]

i can understand that that could be the case but it would be difficult to prove it (unless you can find a reciept showing it marked as a certain amount of labour etc)

plus, doesnt that also make it annoying to work out any subsequent mileage? wouldnt it just be better to get a £10 new speedo face in mph but saying that the odo is still in km?