I have recently been doing vast research on my first buy, both imports available locally and those overseas. While at it, I have come across very nice cars in terms of their general look on matters interior and exterior. For the vehicles available locally, I have been requesting for a copy of their log books just to initiate checks on my end. The first check has been logging the vehicle’s chasis details here and comparing vis a vis the details recieved from the seller. I could not believe it that most vehicles have their mileages reduced by ~100k. I had heard about this before, but never knew it was this bad.
On the vehicles overseas, something doesn’t seem to add up or am just paranoid. There are 8 year old vehicles majority on tradecarview that have very low mileages. As low as 10-30k. For an eight year old car, I’d realistically expect way much more than 4000kms/year (roughly 300kms per month).
To the motor car gurus: -
What are the implications of buying a vehicle with tampered mileage? both short and long term
What would you consider as sensible mileage? i.e. at what point do you draw the line and say, vehicles outside this mileage bracket are bound to cost you more or will need this and that sooner? of course this will vary with models and makes.
Have you imported a vehicle for own use? If yes, was the mileage tallying with what you found logged online? of course a couple of hundred kms is still within range.
Are there a range of vehicles that are not susceptible to this form of fraud? Which vehicles are prone to this that one should be extra vigilant?
Genuine mileage for 8 yr old cars should be no less than 60k. Anything less than that is suspect. My professional experience from valuation reports of ‘new’ cars they range btw 70 to 80k but ofcourse their are always afew exceptions but they are hard to come by
You can get low mileage vehicles but only if you import yourself.
Japan huwa na I think annual inspection where motor car details are recorded into a database. Time ya auction it’s easy to compare current mileage and the last recorded mileage time ya inspection and hence know if the owner has tried to doctor the odometer.
But kwa car yards za Kenya ni near impossible.
60K sounds realistic. Have you had cases of vehicles tampered with abroad before or it’s totally unheard of? I have a friend who brought in a 8 year old vehicle that had less than 20k. According to him, that was a steal, but even looking at the vehicles pedals you’d think otherwise.
Got mine directly with 54,000 on the clock and I can tell it was genuine. KEBS siku hizi wako huko pia. And make sure the unit undergoes the radiation test as well
This is very true. I have developed a script that allows access to the various yard auction DB for a friend and he seem all set to roll now. You can actually bid for a car right from the auction yard and it’s quite economical an average of 20-25% savings if you use this route. http://safariautotrade.com Give it a short and revert.
Mazda Axela through SBT. I should also mention that though there is a local office, I never met my agent. Only spoke on phone and paid using UAE Exchange, that forex bureau that has rebranded to Unimoni
Better gari ikona high mileage than low mileage in Japan.
Low mileage means probably it was in garage most of those years or had big issue rendering it toy kwa nyumba. Hizo ni below 50k. Better a car with 100k mileage means it was functioning well there, serviced probably in dealership setup.
A highly used car 150k-200k mileage is a very good car, now the problem is now you will be dealing with maintenance issues here in Kenya rather than servicing the car. Suspension things etc.
A low mileage car below 50k shida yake ni you will be the first to change things but most probably u will do garage service not dealership maintenance thus by time gari inaclock 150k mileage u will see the difference of a kenyan serviced car na Japan serviced car.
But the biggest prayer is the former owner did his part huko Japan kama hakufanya ata gari ya 50k mileage itakusumbua within few years juu things were not changed periodically.
There’s that angle to it but then the key thing negotiating for an ex-Japan car, you get t know the grade of the car and verify it using the auction sheet that they provide upon request.
Unlike Kenya where corruption is the order of the day hence always suspecting the system, Japan has very thorough inspection unit that is usually used to grade the vehicle and assign the score that is always listed on the auction sheet.
I haven’t heard of Japan tampering with mileage. I have a close rela who bought a 2011 crv 2 yrs ago with 17k mileage, I was pessimistic at first but when you drive it you notice the difference immediately. Present day it’s still below 30k and zero issues
You could be right, but then again we cannot just blindly accept even though there are other telling cues such as worn out tyres. Pedals on the other days seem to have seen better days etc.
Yees system works but you think Japan has no crooks because System works huko ata ndio kuna high tech crooks si wakurudisha mileage nyuma ile ambae ni obvious to be seen but all in all the biggest factor is the previous owner kama ni tapeli then you will get issues.
