speedometer tampering

Need some advice. Bought an '83 911SC with just under 90,000 miles from a New York dealer--not a Porsche dealer, an independent--and in the process of pretty competely disasembling the car for quasi-restoration, I just pulled out all the gauges and am preparing to remove the dash. The speedometer shows unmistakable sign of having been opened and reclosed: The bezel feels slightly lumpy if you run your fingers around it, and the back of the bezel has been tap-tap-tapped back into place with a punch or something. It's illegal to tamper with a speedo in New York (and Federally, I guess), and the dealer had to attest on the certificate of sale that "to the best of his knowledge" the reading is accurate. The New York certificate of title says the odometer reading is "88,714 actual mileage." It could have been either the dealer or the previous owner--or, God knows, several previous owners ago--who did the tampering.

Question: is this worth pursuing? Has anybody had any experience with something like this? Do you give the car back and get your money back (which I have no interest in doing, since it's in a million parts in my barn)? Does the dealer have to refund you a certain amount? Does the State impound the whole damn car if I complain? Any advice?

thanks,
Stephan Wilkinson

Stephan, thats a tough one, but I too live in New York and I bought an early "S" car in California. Shortly after driving it for about a month, I busted my speedo gear. I then took a shot at repairing it myself with the help of the Pelican repair guide. It worked beautifully, but I should refinish the bezel.

Any number of things could have been done to the guage to make it that way. The guage might have been fogging up and they could have replaced the little rubber ring to reseal it, or someone might have wanted to experiment with a different colored face for the guages and decided against it.

I am trying to find something good about this situation, but tampering does happen, unfortunatley. If the car is a good driver adn it sounds like you are starting to do some restoration work on it, enjoy what you have, hope that the milage is correct and go about your business.

It probably isn't worth persuing, unless you are losing sleep over it and your wife is getting pissed off because you keep waking her up. I've been through this stuff before also, as you can see!

Good luck with this one, but I wouldn't go too crazy if you have already checked with motor vehicles. Chach any past service history because a good shop will usually write down the service date, VIN # and current milage of the car.

Its possible that the odo was opened for repair, but, unfortunately, given the facts that you present, my out of the blue, gut feeling guess is that your odo has been tampered with.

Why? (1) The purported mileage is very low for a car that is 17 model years old. (2) I presume that you have no records for the car. (3) Independent dealers for some reason are always the ones getting busted for odo fraud (not all are bad, I'm sure there are many good ones, but when you hear of odo fraud, its always seems to be the smaller to mid size independents). (4) if the odo was legitimately repaired by a shop for legit reasons, it would have been documented with a sticker and other documentation. (5) you are doing a "quasi restoration" on a car that purportedly was only driven 5,000 miles per year. Such a car should not usually need any restoration. (6) odo tampering is very common on older Porsches, because it adds lots of value and is very, very easy to do.

There actually are lots of things you could and should do. All cars have a "paper trail." You need to follow it and find as much documentation as possible. This would include the Department of Motor Vehicles (when the car's title was ever transferred, the mileage would have been recorded). I would start there. Tell them your problem and they should be able to help. If your state requires smogs and/or annual inspections, the state should also have some mileage documentation. If you have any repair invoices at all, contact the shops indicated for possibly more invoices (I caught a guy once by this method, its a great, funny story).

If your car came from out of state, you will have more difficulty. If this is the case, I would guess that the odo has almost certainly been tampered with.

If you can document that the mileage has been tampered with, I'm sure that the seller would be more than willing to quietly refund your money, and even take back the car if it is disassembled.

Finally, for other prospective purchasers of older 911s, always be suspicious of "low mileage" cars. When I look at "low mileage" older cars, I always go in with the presumption that the mileage is NOT accurate. It is then up to the seller, using documentation, to overcome this presumption. If they cannot, I usually recommend passing on the car, at least to the extent that a premium is being paid for the "low mileage."

911SC's are cars that generally were driven as daily drivers, and tend to accumulate some miles. Any 911SC that purports to have been driven 5,000 miles per year or less should be looked at with a very critical eye.

Steven, I wouldn't worry about speedo tampering. I've owned two 911s, a 1971 and a 1980, and I had to repair both speedos because of broken trip odometer drive gears. One broke at 80,000 miles and the other at 97,000 miles. It seems quite common for them to break and it's necessary to open the case to remove and repair the gears. Good luck!

Your speedo may have been tamered with. Even if the speedo does not show signs of tampering, it is very easy to remove the ground on the back of the speedo and not register miles. My point being that even if a speedo does not look tampered with, there is no guarantee that it reflects that actual car mileage.

John is correct, unless you have an earlier car with the mechanical speedometer, in which case this could not be the case.

It could be the case with the earlier speedometer also, but instead of disconnecting the electrical wire, the cable could have been disconnected.

When I buy an older car, esp. a Porsche (which for some reason seem be be most susceptible to odo shenanigans), I don't rely on the mileage shown on the odo, unless I can reasonably confirm the mileage by documentation, i.e. all service records since the car was new (which tends to show a pattern of mileage). Other factors should be considered, like the sellers circumstances (is he the original owner, etc), the condition of the car should match the purported mileage, are there any "stories" about the car, etc.

The condition of the car cosmetically and mechanically (via leakdown and compression test) is really more important than purported mileage on old cars, I think.

I appreciate the comments that Brian made, but when you are buying a collectable car, I would venture to say that we should all do our homework. All you have done in this case is state the obvious, but there is no reason to fudge an odometer on a car that has no recognizable difference in value, regardless of the mileage. After my having had 22 Ferraris (not a misprint), 1 Lamborghini, 1 Maserati, 7 Porsches, too many Jaguars and Alfas that were all very collectable, why screw with the odometer when you can just replace the speedometer? I had already had a lengthy conversation with Stephan, who posted the question for this topic and based on the paperwork that he had, it appears to be correct.

Your first reply on this matter in this area were also way off base. I see that you are a lawyer. You should know that you should never assume, which is something that you did do with regard to milage and condition of a car the age of Stephan's car. You did not take into account that this car is in the Northest where cars of this type are normally not driven through the winter, which immediately limits their yearly mileage, but could give them exposure to salt and other rust creating chemicals. To take this one step further, I currently own 3 Porsches that have very little mileage, all do to the fact that I live in Manhattan and work in Manhattan. I have no use for any cars in the first place and two of them have remained unregistered for over ten years. Not much documentation involved in not registering a car and it certainly eliminates the need for tuneups.

To pass judgement or pose reasonable remarks, one should know all of the facts.

I stand by all of my comments.

I don't really understand most of your criticisms of my comments (if they are indeed criticisms), or your comparison of fudged mileage on Ferraris and other collectable cars to a 911SC. A 911 SC is not really a "collectable" car by almost any reasonable standard.

Your statement that to "pass judgement [sic] or pose reasonable remarks one should know all the facts," and that "you should never assume," is generally correct, but not really applicable to things such as communications on Internet bulletin boards. On the Internet, people generally pose broad questions, with scant details and "facts," which in turn result in generally broad responses, which by their nature are based on assumptions. Of course, this necessarily limits the usefulness of the response, but most people know to take Internet "advice" for what it is worth. For those that are unclear on this concept, you will notice I specifically and carefully prefaced my comments with "given the facts that you have presented, my out of the blue, gut feeling guess is . . ." If someone would like me to fully analyze a matter such as Stephen's, I would be happy to do such an analysis, taking into account all of the facts (as you suggest), at my standard hourly billing rate. For free one gets somewhat less.

I generally would not take the time to respond to a post such as yours, but yours was a borderline personal attack (i.e. "As a lawyer, you should have known etc."). I think that all of my assumptions in my first post were and are reasonable. I too have lived in New York, and am very familiar with the seasonal driving patterns there. And in my experience, low yearly mileage Northeast Porsches are usually (please note the word "usually") in pristine cosmetic condition, because they have been stored all winter and only driven on sunny spring and summer days. For example, I doubt that your "3 Porsches" that have low mileage are in need of a "quasi-restoration" like Stephen's car. The condition of your cars probably is consistent with their low mileage, which, given the facts presented by Stephen, did not seem to be Stephen's case.

Brian, deepest and sincerest apology, I did not mean to come across so strongly and I hope you accept this as a handshake. I agree with your comments for the most part and I am not sure what set me off. I was going to write to your e-mail directly, but I thought you deserved this on the forum. Hope to talk to you soon... when I am in a better mood; now is definitely a better time!

Respectfully,

Marc W.

Marc, your gracious message is genuinely appreciated. Your handshake is most heartily accepted and reciprocated!

Now back to cars . . .

Brian

Hey,
911SC's are not collectable?
Take a new 911 for a drive its so quiet you'll feel like you are in a Lexus
Porsche has lost touch!


[This message has been edited by jryerson (edited 04-16-99).]

[This message has been edited by jryerson (edited 04-16-99).]

[This message has been edited by jryerson (edited 04-16-99).]