Tracing an imported car's history?

G

Gabriel

Registered User
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504
Hi,

I am about to purchase a car which I have discovered (from Caretell.ie) was imported into Ireland in 2005.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing in itself but I would like to know more about the vehicle history. The previous vehicle registration starts LB...anyone know where this is from? England...? London...? (not sure myself)!

I am not sure at present if the car was imported by a private owner or a dealer. The car would be classed as a 'high end' car I suppose.
 
I actually consider it a major advantage of imported cars (from the UK) over Irish cars that you can do some decent checking up. Check out http://www.hpicheck.com with the uk reg to see if there was any irregularities.
 
Thanks Eurofan...any idea how I get a report? It doesn't recognise my address right now due to being in Ireland.
 
I have yet to be able to speak to the dealer (Car Dealer) in question so I don't want to drop names before knowing what he intends doing. I was talking to one of his salesmen who said he was fairly shocked and p*ssed about it...and I tend to believe it. I don't think he did the clocking or knew about it.

The car in question is a BMW 320 Ci...imported from England back in August 2005. Last check (Jan 2005) HPI said it had 109,650 miles on the clock. They say cocking usually halves miles and this looks like the case right now.
 
Dealer came back to me last night and was very apologetic. Doesn't want anything to do with car and is passing it back to the previous garage! Seems to be genuine enough...which satisfied me...and more interested in keeping good relationship with me than anything else. Also promised me a better deal on my trade in if he could find me another similar car. It's good to see dealers interested in their reputation.

Still don't want to name him though as it's good/bad publicity.
 
that seems very fair, but the only thing i will say that if a garage has a diagnostic machine (most have because of the electronics) it will only take them a few minutes to tell if the car was clocked by hooking the car up to it.

Also the real mileage is still recorded in the computer part of the car, its not deleted.
 
paf said:
Also the real mileage is still recorded in the computer part of the car, its not deleted.
Click to expand...

Not necessarily. The more sophisticated clockers can edit all parts of the ecu and dash systems. Even some of the newer bmw/merc/audi systems where mileage is recorded in three seperate computers in the car can now easily be bypassed.

The only verifiable system is to have a detailed and documentated service history, and by that i mean not simply a stamped logbook (which can easily be forged) but a folder full of receipts where you can independently phone the garages to check up what the mileage was at each service.
 
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