With effect from last Friday, Transport Malta has made it mandatory that the mileage of cars imported into Malta is printed on the vehicle’s logbook to ensure that a person buying a used imported car is aware of the odometer’s reading at the point when the vehicle was imported.
But while the new rules bolster checks when a car arrives in the country, there are considerable problems regarding the tampering of vehicles’ odometers before they leave the UK.
When a vehicle is imported into Malta, its declared mileage has been verified by an authorised agency approved by Transport Malta.
This follows new rules that came into effect a little over a year ago and that provide that an Odometer Certificate of Authenticity be presented at registration stage. Under those rules, importers of used vehicles from an EU member state are required to submit a certificate of authenticity issued by a body approved by the authority showing the vehicle’s authentic odometer reading at registration stage.
The rules are meant to deter tampering with odometers and ensure that the registration value and tax are calculated on the correct mileage.
Transport Malta has approved local companies to carry out odometer verification for vehicles coming into Malta from the UK – today the main source market for imported cars – based on a methodology involving the verification of mileage with third parties.
That, however, does not necessarily mean that the odometers of imported vehicles have not been tampered with before the vehicle was exported from the UK.
Back in February, the London Sunday Times carried out research into the issue, and had found that more than 50 companies across the UK are providing a service through which they can change the mileage on their cars for as little as £90, depending on the model, despite the fact that it could lead to the future buyer of the vehicle being defrauded.
The service is advertised as a “discreet and reliable mileage correction”, which can reduce a car’s mileage by thousands of miles/kilometres, and in the process increase its resale value, sometimes considerably.
And in the UK there is nothing illegal about the practice, which gives the service an umbrella of respectability. There, changing a vehicle’s mileage is only illegal if the owner sells the vehicle without informing the buyer.
The motoring industry has reported a surge in vehicles being “clocked” and executive and luxury cars are reported to be the most affected, with more than seven per cent showing mileage discrepancies.
A vehicle’s mileage can be recorded in at least four different locations in the vehicle, including the ignition key – but the “mileage correction” services offered cover all the bases. The operation takes as little as 20 minutes and the mileage can be set back to any desired figure – even zero!
Equipment used for clocking vehicles can be bought online, with a hand-held ‘mileage correction tool’ that plugs into a vehicle’s data systems on offer for as little as £329.