Used-car odometer tampering checks now one click away in NSW

Used-car buyers in NSW now have a new tool to avoid being scammed, with smartphone technology aimed to catch dodgy sellers who wind back odometers and inflate prices by thousands of dollars.

The NSW Government has introduced free online checks for odometer readings on used cars after a four-fold increase in odometer fraud over the previous two years.

In one example shared by authorities with Nine News, one dodgy seller of a used car wound back the odometer – which logs every kilometre a vehicle as travelled since new – by a staggering 400,000km.

A Subaru XV hatchback which had in fact travelled 800,000km showed an odometer reading wound back to 400,000km using diagnostics tools sourced from the black market.

The car was sold by an unscrupulous seller for $32,000, which was $11,000 more than the amount paid for the vehicle when it last changed hands – and an astronomical sum for a car with such high kilometres.

According to data compiled by Nine News, the NSW Department of Fair Trading issued $113,000 in fines and 103 penalty notices in 2021 and 2022 – four times higher than the number of reported incidents over the previous two years.

An upgrade to the Service NSW smartphone app has added access to the last three odometer readings on used cars more than five years old.

The odometer readings are recorded during annual technical inspections, which are compulsory in NSW once a car is more than five years old.

“The last thing you need, if you’ve just bought a used car, one you’re hoping will get you around the city safely, is to find out that someone’s tampered with the odometer and you’ve paid too much for a vehicle given how far it’s been driven,” John Graham, the NSW Minister for Roads, told Nine News.

Jihad Dib, the NSW Customer Service Minister told Nine News: “You can look for spikes. You can look for anything that has been untoward. And of course if you’ve got any concerns you can refer that to agencies as well to make sure that they investigate.”

Unfortunately, outside of NSW, most Australian states are not able to offer the same historical odometer data because annual safety checks are not compulsory in most other jurisdictions.

It is worth noting newer cars will not show odometer readings on the Service NSW smartphone app because annual safety inspections at registration-renewal time – when odometer readings are recorded – are not required for vehicles less than five years old.

The advice from experts when buying cars less than five years old is to check the vehicle’s service history, contact the workshop that signed-off on routine maintenance if you suspect the log book has been forged or altered, and consider paying for a third-party pre-purchase vehicle inspection, such as those offered by the NRMA.

“Don’t buy a car unless you’ve got a logbook, unless you've got a service history, unless you’ve got proper registration papers,” Mr Dib told Nine News.