These are the second-hand cars most likely to have rigged odometers

Buying a second-hand car is always a risky action, especially if you don’t do it through official channels.

The high price of cars, increasingly stagnant salaries, and the labor problems of the pandemic, mean that many people choose to buy second hand vehicles.

The problem is that there are dishonest sellers who manipulate the mechanics of used cars, to hide defects or to rejuvenate them.

The most common form of deception is manipulate the odometer, reducing the kilometers traveled so that it seems that the car has been little used.

It is a more common practice than we imagine, because it is not easy to detect.

As explained by our colleague Noelia López an Auto Image, the british website CarVertical has carried out a report in which it has studied the data of 700,000 used cars reviewed between November 2020 and 2021.

These are data from several European countries, which do not include Spain. But it can serve as a reference, given the large volume of vehicles studied. And it is very useful if you are going to buy a car abroad.

The report is quite worrying. Indicates that 16.1% of all second-hand vehicles have the odometer manipulated. But it is even worse with some specific vehicle models, where the percentage exceeds 30%:

As we can see, 33.6% of all BMW Second-hand M5s sold, one in three, has a tricked-out odometer.

Other models exceed 30%, such as the BMW 7 Series, the Subaru Outback, the BMW 6 Series, or the Audi A8. There are at least twenty models that reach 20% handling.

As the report explains, it is not that these cars are easier to modify. What happens is that they are the most demanded, and that is why they are tricked more.

Diesel cars are also handled more than gasoline cars, because they usually have more kilometers.

Luckily, as Auto Bild explains, this practice is more difficult to carry out in Spain in 2022, with the new Guarantee Law just approved.

From now on, any breakdown or deception not disclosed at the time of the second-hand sale, that occurs before two months, the seller of the car has the obligation to fix it.

What’s more The warranty on used cars increases to two years.