Mileage 'Clocking'

I've just bought a 2004 996 with quite low miles, 65k. It has a stamped service book and all the mots show the mileage to look accurate. A friend earlier today says he thinks the last 5 years (less than 700 miles) looks dodgy and said that he thinks the milage might have been adjusted. Is there any way an independent or main dealer can check in the car to see if its been adjusted ? Many thanks

Not 100% sure but don't think you can. Tell your mate it's more common for a 20 year old 911 to only have done 700 miles in it's latter 5 years of its life than it is finding one clocked. Probably best chance you have is to look at the date on the tyres. If they're 5 years old, then the mileage is correct.

You can scan the the ecu it says how many hours the engine has run for that will give you and indication. Basically with this info you can work out the average speed. If average speed is 40-50 mph over the life of the car then that’s probably a true Reading but if it works out to be 10-20 mph average then there is something an mis. Unless it’s spent all its life in London traffic Also you can check the condition of the seats steering wheel etc. mine has a few shiney patches at 130k but no rips of scuffs

You can check the MOT history at https://www.check-mot.service.gov.uk/ which will give you the car's mileage at each test. That will show pretty easily if there's anything dodgy going on.

This is the good thing about the MOT history online. It means that any mileage fraud will have to be perpetrated every year prior to an MOT test It would take several years to make a meaningful difference to the value of the car, and hence would need to be done by a long-term owner with access to 'mileage correction' equipment. Even if this was the case, 700 miles in several years is as much of a question mark for potential buyers as would be a further 40k, albeit for different reasons.

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low mileage over 5 years, quite normal MOT and service history checks out then should be all good Your friend needs to provide better evidence to support his opinion

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Unless you have a second speedo that you can swap in/out in 5mins on the air-cooled cars. You have to be very very careful provenencing the mileage with these.

Check the ECU for "hours" and work out the average. 40mph is probably right , you can't change the hour meter.

Mileage clocking usually takes place in the first 3 years as there is no MOT to check and that’s when it will at it’s most lucrative. You must be very happy with the condition of the car, so “put the idea to bed” and enjoy

all quiet from @pudpelham ?

My Turbo did a similar mileage in 15yrs ! It was in storage /collection. I bought it with 8300miles on it 2yrs ago. The only problem I had was the fuel sender unit in the tank had corroded quite badly and not working due to lack of fuel.

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The above is correct but I'd suggest that 30-40 is the the likely average speed to expect for a UK car unless it's done a lot of motorway miles. It's actually quite difficult to average 40+ over a long period of mixed road use.

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This ie average mileage used as a conversion in the UK is surprisingly low. Most modern cars can actually give you this data ie using one of various trip meters avaialble for long term use. I seem to recollect that "back in the day" a factor of x27.5 was used to convert engine hours to miles as a "sense" check to see if the recorded mileage of a car in the UK was about right or should raise alarm bells to explain a signficant variances ie was it used out of the norm eg 60,000 miles in one year the 27.5 should be higher as it would imply more than average motorway use. I remember looking at car back in the day where the hours of use / recorded mileage showed a factor of 35mph average but the car generally did not "feel right" with general wear and tear. I think I was told then that 35 was too high for the car and it had likely been clocked. As stated above clocking is more likely in the first 3 years ie lease cars with mileage penalties. I once knew of a Lambo that was clocked back too far and the owner spent a week trying to put some mileage back on it Of course aircooled porsche are measured in the thickness of the storage dust (there are a few tricks that you can check for )

For Ref: the above car has been clocked every year for the last few years (as seen in the MOT history) showing the car has done 300 miles per year. The correct mileage is about half a mile!! It's still running on 2* petrol.

I definately did 6 miles in it last year (I moved it back home to the garage from storage after building works. It even had a wash to reset the "dust" mileometer Edit: wrong pic I just got excited at seeing it again