BBC’s ‘The One Show’ featured the growing epidemic that is car clocking. At HPI we continue to see odometer discrepancies on 1 in 20 of the reports we issue – that’s a 3% increase on 2013.

HPI and the BBC investigate

Car clocking describes the practice of artificially reducing (or increasing) the mileage reading displayed on the vehicle instrument panel. A dishonest seller will ‘clock’ a car to increase it’s market value or make it easier to sell.
We estimate that there could be as many as 486,000 vehicles with a false mileage on UK roads*. Aside from the fact that you could be paying thousands of pounds over the odds for a clocked car (both in the purchase price and future maintenance bills), the safety concerns are very real.
Shockingly there are over 70 mileage correction firms operating in the UK. The BBC exposé shows just how widespread the problem is and records one car clocker saying;

I do professional footballers…bent coppers, strippers, drug dealers, gypsies…across the board, it’s everybody

The Cost of Clocking

The infographic below shows how a reduction of 45,000 miles on a Volkswagen Golf could increase the value of it by more than £2,000. Unfortunately for the buyer, a raft of unforeseen maintenance bills are sure to follow as the normal service, maintenance and repair schedules are not followed.

At HPI we want to ensure that anyone considering the purchase of a used car is not caught out with a false mileage reading. Our national mileage register has over 170 million readings that car clockers cannot interfere with making it a great first line of defense.
If you have any questions about car clocking get in touch via Facebook or Twitter, leave a comment below or call us on 0845 300 8905
Happy driving,
Priya

* Based on 7.15% of the SMMT total of 6,806,187 cars sold in 2013 being clocked