We’ve covered the basic tips on how to buy a used car well above. Unfortunately, not every seller is completely above board and not every car is as it seems at first glance. That’s why we’ve prepared this guide to help you avoid the worst of the second hand car buying pitfalls and scams that can leave you out of pocket.
Clocking, cloning and cut-and-shuts – what to look out for
These are some of the worst-case scenarios that can trap unwary buyers in the second hand car market, but with care the risks can be avoided.
- • Clocking is the criminal practice of misrepresenting a used car’s mileage by tampering with the odometer on the dashboard. It’s done simply to hide the true mileage of a vehicle in order to increase its value on the used car market. Our guide to car clocking and mileage correction will tell you more.
- • Cloning involves fitting a car with copied number plates from an identical vehicle, usually either to hide the fact a car is stolen, or in order that criminals can rack up speeding fines and parking tickets in another owners name.
- • Cut-and-shuts are welded together from the remains of two (or more!) accident-damaged cars of the same type, and presented to buyers as one original – undamaged – car.
Car clocking – the giveaway signs
It’s become harder to spot a clocked car in recent years, as improvements to quality and durability means modern motors hide high mileages very well. However it’s still worth looking out for some key clues:
- • Excessive stone chipping to panels at the front of the car can indicate very high mileage.
- • Significant wear to the driver’s controls – steering wheel, pedal rubbers, indicator switch markings – suggest heavy usage.
- • Worn out seat squabs and chafed seat belts are giveaways too.
Many of these signs can be easily masked by touched-in paint or replacement trim parts, so it’s vital that you check the mileage history on service records and other documents. If you’ve any doubts at all, don’t be shy about contacting previous keepers listed in the logbook.
Avoid buying a cloned car
There’s an easy way to avoid buying a cloned car, and that’s simply by checking that all the numbers match up.
- • Check that the number plate on the vehicle you’re looking at matches the number on the V5C logbook.
- • Check that the VIN/chassis number listed on the V5C logbook matches the VIN plate on the car itself.
Nowadays you can usually find the VIN plate at the base of the windscreen, but on older cars the VIN plate can be inside the driver’s doorjamb, or under the bonnet. To carry out the checks, you obviously need to be looking at a used car that has a V5C logbook. If the vendor can’t show you this vital document, be very cautious indeed.
How to spot a cut-and-shut car
If professional criminals do a cut-and-shut, it’s possible to fool even the experts without an extremely thorough inspection. Unfortunately, however good a cut-and-shut car looks, the car’s inevitably compromised structural rigidity is likely to be highly dangerous in a severe accident. HPI and similar vehicle history checks will reveal at once if a car has been recorded as a write-off, and you can make your own visual checks too. Look out for:
- • Uneven panel gaps and poor paint matching
- • Paint overspray on glass or non-metal trim parts
Both of the above point to accident damage, but not necessarily a cut-and-shut.
