Hey guys, I'm a soon to be G35 owner (by one means or another, force if necessary) and the current car I plan on buying has some issue with the odometer on carfax. It is being sold through a private seller, who I feel confident has given me all available information he has and although I don't know him I trust what he is telling me. He purchased the car through an Infiniti Dealership and the issue seems to have happened while they owned it and leased it. The current owner told me they told him it was a single owner lease who had the car and eventually upgraded to the g37. When looking at the carfax it appears that the first owner drove the car for about 5k miles per year, for 3 years but all of a sudden the mileage jumped up 3k miles in a month, 15252(3/20/09), to 18414 (4/22/09) then back down to 15045(8/20/09) 4 months later. I could understand someone logging in the wrong info, such as misreading the 5 for an 8 but I still don't get why the initial (3/20/09) reading is higher then the (8/20/09) I assume that means there would have had to been 2 typos, which seems unlikely. Would a Infiniti Dealership be involved in anything like that, I assumed that a dealership such as that would be legit? Anyway i am just trying to wrap my head around this and have already paid the guy 500 to hold the car for me so I hope it works out. Thanks.



P.S. When the current owner asked the dealership about the issue when buying, they told him it was most likely human error on their part when recording the miles.

 

I say keep looking around might be something better out their.....

 

the speedo could have been replaced or something? Shouldn't the car be salvaged title by now? Insurance usually salvage cars where the speedo was tempered with.

 

It just had its factory tires replaced with 26k miles on the odometer. The Infiniti dealership who sold the current owner the car certified that the odometer was correct. He's going to contact them tomorrow to get all the service records and figure out what is going on. I don't really understand it, there has to be some logic in this somewhere.

 

I'd walk away. There are plenty of G35's floating around out there without any glaring issues like this one. Unless you can get a trusted mechanic to look over it and get a killer deal from the seller, there's no reason why you should settle for a car with a potential problem like that. Buying a used car is always a risk, but at least you can minimize it by buying one without a potential problem already.

 

i'd say keep looking as well

 

Ya, I mean I'm already in it 500 so ideally I would like to get this one but obviously the problem is not something I am just willing to accept. I just don't understand how an infiniti dealership could be selling cars like this, don't they certify the mileage? I feel like its an injustice to the current owner.

 

yes it looks like it has been roll back. After the "error" happened, the numbers were increasing consistently.
i heard some people can program the digital odometer to whatever number you want. I also had friend who leased a mercedes and roll back the mileage to avoid penalty.

 

It still doesn't seem consistent with how the original driver drove, to drive around 5000 miles a year and all of a sudden drive 3000 miles in a month seems odd. Also it isn't consistent with the fact that the original tires were still on the car when the odometer read 27000. If it was in fact rolled back how could the infiniti dealerships certify that the odometer was correct? All services were done at their place of business, is that fraud?

 

Nothing fancy is needed to roll the odometer on the G. Pick up the gauge cluster from an accidented car and swap it. Change the ECU and voila, it's done. A dealer would know how to do this easily. Not saying he did it but...
Also, I'm sure you could get your $500 back. I once put a $500 deposit with a dealer for a G but wasn't happy with how much he was jerking me around (not going to get into it here). The dealer said he wasn't going to refund the money since he had "already spent time with me and allowed me to take it for a test drive". I wrote Infiniti Headquarters, called VISA to do a chargeback for "merchandize not received", contacted my local newspaper and submitted a small claim in court. He finally backed down and refunded the money.

 

Get your money back and walk away. G35's aren't a rare car or a collectors car, so you have other options.

I bought a used 06 coupe, and I did the best that I could to uncover any problems before the purchase. When I inspected the car I was able to point out all the little imperfections. I realized that the car had a minor fender bender in the front, but that all the internal frame structures were still the original ones. The salesman was totally clueless.

Also keep in mind that if the car really did have some type of rollback, this very same Infiniti dealership could deny you any warranty coverage.

 

i say screw it because when you are selling the car in the future, you are going to run into a hassle like this and you would have to explain to every potential buyers.... PITA

 

IMO the consistency doesn't have much to do with it. I went from driving my G 200-300 a month for about a year to about 500-600 a month now. Got rid of my old DD since I paid lots of money and put lots of work into my G35 and not driving it and showing it off finally seemed dumb to me, not to mention the extra cost in maintaining 2 vehicles was stupid as well.

I'm not saying Carfax is lying, but it's not necessarily the most reliable source of information. There are mistakes ALLL THE TIME with Carfax; in fact I think there are a few sites dedicated to people sharing these problems and trying to get them to change their policy or whatever. Either way, since Carfax has become such a standard in the automotive industry, right or wrong, this situation is going to bring up a lot of problems in the future if you decide to sell it. But if you're like me, I'm driving my G35 until the wheels fall off so I couldn't give two ****s about what Carfax says about my car. In your case since you're the buyer, I'd rather be safe than sorry. There are a ton of G35's out there, you just gotta look for the right one =)


EDIT: To answer your question about the fraud stuff... If a dealership certified a car and knowingly sells it to you rolled back, that's grounds for lawsuit. They wouldn't do that.

 

or the owners could have swapped out gauge clusters w/lower mileage.. but doubtful. gl with your purchase..

 

It would be more likely for someone to take a car with 50k moles and roll it back to 20k. It doesn't make sense that someone would take the risk to roll this cars odo back so few miles. IMO, it's probably a mistake. With that said, I agree with the previous post that said you're going to have problems selling the car when that time comes. The next buyer will be as weary as you are about the situation. My advice would be to stay away from it and get your money back.