Dodgy car sales on the rise across Melbourne as odometer tampering skyrockets

The state’s peak automotive business body is warning potential buyers to be wary after a recent rise in a sneaky practice by opportunistic criminals.

Odometer tampering is soaring across Victoria.

Odometer crime is soaring with almost half of the state’s licensed traders saying car owners have flogged them ­vehicles after winding back their kilometre readings.

The state’s peak automotive business body said customers ripped off dealers as soaring prices for used cars sparked a surge in the sneaky practice.

While the scam had spiked in the past year, the Victorian Automobile Chamber of Commerce said the level of odometer fraud had been on the rise for two years.

In a bulletin to members, the VACC said the figures related to identified rorts and the number of wind-backs in cars sold privately could be even higher.

Odometer fraud has been on the rise for the past two years.

The body is lobbying the state government to follow the lead of NSW and give buyers free access to historical odometer readings to protect them.

VACC chief executive Geoffrey Gwilym said criminals were increasingly attracted to the low-risk crime because it added thousands of dollars in value to cars that had skyrocketed in price since Covid.

“It’s become easier to do it, and it’s not easy to detect,” he said.

“It’s opportunism and it’s a mechanism through which some people think that they can make money, and unfortunately they do it by ripping off other consumers.”

Buyers have been duped into purchasing vehicles that have had their original odometers replaced with meters from write-offs that had lower mileage readings.

Others have reportedly taken their low-mileage vehicles to their original dealers to be told their vehicle had actually done hundreds of thousands of kilometres more than the odometers said, devaluing them by thousands of dollars.

Mr Gwilym urged drivers to spot readings that looked too low to be true by assessing how much a car’s other features had aged.

“The whole car weathers at the same time,” he said.

“Consumers should be looking for a whole range of signs of wear, the condition of the seats, the condition of the rubber on the brake pedal, the condition of the floor mats.

“If you’ve got a vehicle that’s got a dominant reading of 50,000km on it, and it looks like it’s done 300,000km, it probably has.”

Owners wind back their cars’ mileage to drive up their worth for unsuspecting buyers as lower kilometres suggest a ­vehicle is in better condition.

Victorians caught tampering with odometers face thousands of dollars in fines and up to 10 years’ jail time if found guilty of obtaining financial advantage by deception.

Detective Inspector Julie Macdonald from Victoria Police’s vehicle crime squad said police worked with several authorities to crack down on the issue, but relied on the public to report it.

Potential buyers should ­inspect vehicles for signs of tampering and ask a mechanic to determine a vehicle’s actual mileage, she said.