Tampered mileage for one out of three second hand cars bought in Romania

STUDY: Tampered mileage for one out of three second hand cars bought in Romania

Paul Barbu 03/06/2019 | 13:13

One out of three second hand cars bought in Romania in the first five months of 2019 had tampered mileage, according to a survey conducted by InspectorAuto.ro.

For the 1,212 cars included in the study, whose total value amounted to almost EUR 17.6 million and which together had over 192.85 million real kilometers, the tampered mileage totalled 4.74 million kilometres.

InspectorAuto.ro offers the mileage and damage history of a chassis-driven car and has a database of over 6 million records. This way, the buyers can know if they are about to buy a car with tampered mileage, one that has only incurred minor damage or one that was totally damaged.

”This difference represents a fraud of thousands of euros, with buyers paying more than they should for their cars. To the over 4.7 million km missing are added the 2.1 percent of cars with major or even total damages,” notes InspectorAuto.ro.

Tampered mileage – a real danger

Data verified by online platform officials show that 14 percent of the cars included in the study had over 200,000 real km, 51.5 percent between 150,000 and 200,000 real km, 21.8 percent between 100,000 and 150,000 real km, and 11.9 percent under 100,000 real km.

Cars’ countries of origin:

Belgium – 30 pct,
The Netherlands (22.7 pct),
Germany (17.3 pct),
Italy (17.3 pct),
France (12.7 pct).

The average price for a second-hand car was EUR 14,500, while the maximum price was EUR 134,000 and the minimum price around EUR 2,500. The buyer segment with a budget of less than EUR 10,000 is most likely to be deceived, having the highest chances to buy a car with tampered mileage or with major hidden damage.