Can odometer status on the title be altered or false?

[Andrew Luu]

Hello,
I am looking at a 1972 911 with a euro 2,7L touring coupe with no sunroof. The title and the odometer say that it only has 53K miles on the engine. However, the interior and exterior looks very bad. Is there a way to purposely falsefy the odometer status on the title? to sell the car as a low mileage vehicle?. Thanks.

[rstoll]

Andrew, anything is possible. Have you registered with carfax? I think you can get a 30 day carfax account for $19.95. Though not foolproof, it is better than nothing. You can run potential candidate's vin numbers for a month. Weed out the dogs. Happy hunting!

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Robert Stoll
83 SC
83 944

[Jack Olsen]

Yes. The system is only as good as the weakest link in the chain, and department-of-motor-vehicle employees are not always culled from the head of the class.

Carfax won't do you any good on a 72. It doesn't go back that far. I'd have whoever does your PPI check for tell-tale signs of age and wear. Maybe someone on this board could come up with a handful of things that could be checked, like tree rings, to approximate a 911s mileage?

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Jack Olsen
My Rennlist page • My Pelican Gallery page • My Porsche Owners Gallery page

[tsniu]

I have often wondered mysel about odometer readings.

I live in California where I believe -- although I have not bought a used car in the last 10 years -- that you ARE REQUIRED to provide an odometer reading to the DMV whenever title passes. I don't know when that requirement was instituted, but it would appear to limit the opportunities for abuse.

Under that system, it would seem the most one could fraudulently accomplish would be reset the odometer to some number higher than the last number recorded with the DMV and claim that the car was a garage queen when attempting to resell. This assumes that the DMV tracks these odometer readings as one would expect should they require mileage numbers on resales, prior and present.

In any event, and I know that the more knowledgeable on the list could correct me on this, but I would suspect that this sort of odometer fraud would be limited to the older mechanical systems since I suspect it is much more difficult to roll-back an electronic odometer.

But, geez ..... what a tough way to make a buck through deceiving people about the mileage on a porsche! Regards. Tom

[Jim T]

On a '72, THERE IS NO WAY TO VERIFY the mileage.

If you had service records from day 1, and they consistently showed 2500 miles per year, I guess that would be pretty good proof.

But you can't rely on DMV records, Carfax, etc. etc. to verify the mileage on a car that old.

Even in California, you don't have to verify the mileage of the car when you register or transfer title. They don't check anything. You could write anything for the mileage when title transfers, or the car is registered. And even that is only a fairly recent requirement.

With an old car like a '72, its condition, not what the odometer says, that matters. Leakdown/compression on the engine, condition of the paint and interior, etc.

[Adrian]

Carfax only goes back to 1983. Any car that is more than ten years old is exempt on the title. Period. ALL 911s are rolled back. FACT. Forget about the mileage, have the car checked out at a shop.

[Britwrench]

And you have forgotten the most common reason for inaccurate odometer readings;
owners who disconnect the speedo, happens all the time.

[Bill Douglas]

Read the documentation as garage/workshop recietes will show the milage at the time, so you should be able to work it out. 911's are made of good quality components so a car with 53k miles should look near new.

But it doesn't mean it's a bad car to be hiding a few secrets. Buy it on face value - get a good engineers report including compression, check for crash damage etc.

[Formerly Steve Wilkinson]

Pull the speedometer out. You know how easy that is to do with a butterknife and two fingers, right? Take a look at where the bezel is sealed against the rim of the can, to hold the faceglass on. If it's absolutely smooth, as though pressed in place by an automatic rolling device of some sort, the speedo has probably been untouched. If it's the slightest bit rough, as though pried open and then carefully tap-tap-tapped back into place with a small hammer and a punch, somebody has been inside the speedo, perhaps to make a common repair to the plastic odometer gear or perhaps to roll the mileage back.

Stephan

[VenezianBlau 87]

First off, I would not discount an eBay purchase. The more you look at, in person or online, the better. Even in Atlanta, GA, there are only a handful of '87-'89 Carreras from which to choose at any time. It seems that these fall into two categories: The 60-80K and 120-130K bunch. 60K seems to be a popular mileage figure "chosen" by sellers. I now put no stock in mileage except as a mark to gauge the expected condition of the car. I used CarFax to weed out a couple of prospects. However, the mileage history was often missing since, in most cases, mileage was not noted at new title issuance, even within the first ten years.

My eBay purchase has a maintenance history that supports the continuity of the odometer readings. But, I was more concerned about finding an unmolested '87-'89 coupe under $20K. In practice, the eBay transaction and person-to-person transaction have the same level of risk, just the steps in the transaction are reversed. Of course, you'll incur some travel expenses to visit an eBay purchase. I would'nt purchase one without PPI in person.

Lastly, the electronic speedometers take about 2 minutes to switch out and there is one gear in there that is very prone to fail regardless of any intentional rollback.

Good luck and enjoy your search, I actually had alot of fun looking.

Bob Sauerteig

http://www.pelicanparts.com/cgi-bin/pmpre/pm.cgi?login=VenezianBlau_87&action=display&

[Rot 911]

Well you know one thing isn't original: the engine. The correct engine in a 1972 should be a 2.4 not a 2.7

Kurt V
72 911E

[MRM]

To answer your direct questions, yes, it is very easy for a reasonably bright and motivated seller to change the odometer and mileage statement on the title. This is one good reason to look at every odometer reading as interesting but not perticularly important unless independently verified or correlated with other information.

But the PO may not even need alter the odometer to under-report the mileage. Porsche odometers are notoriously weak. My 84 cab was represented to me as having 52,000 miles, with only 20,000 driven since 1990. Well, that may be true, but 1,000 miles into my ownership, the odometer stopped working. It comes and goes without warning. Two years later I have "54,990" miles, and holding.

Wayne's 101 projects book details an odometer repair project because odometer failure is so common. Something about the plastic worm gears in them fails easily.

So the odometer reading may be unaltered but still be only a fraction of the car's actual miles.

[Joe Bob]

First off, a Carfax report is good back to 1980 on a Porsche. Tht's when they went to the standardized VIN numbering system.

A California car has it's mileage reported every other year a smog check is done. IMHO it is more reliable than mileage recording at sale. The sale mileage is not independently verified while the smog mileage is verified by a licensed technician.

On a 72, a simple broken cable and a lazy owner will not record thousands of miles. I had an old 73 VW that never had a working speedo.

Old California cars carry a premium, less rust. Might want to explore out here, and drive or ship it back.