The importance of a pre purchase inspection.

[Zephyr]

Friend of mine wanted a car for his son.
he found a pretty decent E39 520 with some nice options, no rust (it is not a “thing” in Greece) and colour in pretty decent condition (sun is a “thing” in Greece) so he asked me to get my tools (laptop and ecu scanner) for a little pre purchase inspection.
The i-carsoft (handheld tool) popped some stored codes that were not alarming so having inspected the car in and out we were satisfied with the overall condition, (new tyres, refurbed wheels, clean title, “mot-ed” without any warnings and were ready ti shake hands with the seller.
and then… i tried the PaSoft that I have in my laptop…. And this came out…

the seller declared that he had no idea if a cluster has been changed, nor did he had any suspicion of someone tampering with the odometer but as he is the fourth owner, I can not blame him directly for mileage tampering.
Anyway the deal is off… even if this car looked as it really had the low mileage recorded in the first window…

 

[Stevo7682]

On a z3 that would put the tamper proof dot on the dashboard beside the mileage display to indicate that the mileages doesn't tie up in all the cars stored areas ( think there is around a 78 mile variance before this occurs)
Stephen.

 

[Zephyr]

In E39 also. But this one was nicely done… i dont know how they did it, but no dot was lit.

 

[Stevo7682]

Sneaky

 

[Jam03]

Friend of mine wanted a car for his son.
he found a pretty decent E39 520 with some nice options, no rust (it is not a “thing” in Greece) and colour in pretty decent condition (sun is a “thing” in Greece) so he asked me to get my tools (laptop and ecu scanner) for a little pre purchase inspection.
The i-carsoft (handheld tool) popped some stored codes that were not alarming so having inspected the car in and out we were satisfied with the overall condition, (new tyres, refurbed wheels, clean title, “mot-ed” without any warnings and were ready ti shake hands with the seller.
and then… i tried the PaSoft that I have in my laptop…. And this came out…

the seller declared that he had no idea if a cluster has been changed, nor did he had any suspicion of someone tampering with the odometer but as he is the fourth owner, I can not blame him directly for mileage tampering.
Anyway the deal is off… even if this car looked as it really had the low mileage recorded in the first window…

View attachment 247747

What exactly does the PaSoft do to be able to see two sets of data for the car?

 

[Zephyr]

Compares whatever values are stored in different modules and cross references them.
here we see the instrument cluster on the left and the ecu/anti theft on the right.

 

[t-tony]

What does other history tell you, MOT, mileage at owner changes etc?

Tony.

 

[Zephyr]

it was imported from France and back then, there was no obligation to declare mileage. So unknown history half its life.
No service history in Greece also, just the bi-annual mots that start at 67.000 km and escalate to 150ish showing approx 10 to 15.000 change between inspections.
even a child with a laptop could have changed the values before each inspection, so we backed up on this. On to the next one.

 

[Zephyr]

Even my software can do this at certain modules, just not in the main one.
so, better to be careful and inspect in a more detailed manner and not just kick them tyres and check under the chassis.

 

[Andyboy]

It's simple enough with the right software. This was a thing 25 years ago when E39's had a value and the dot was easy enough to get around.