Odometer rollbacks rose 7% year-over-year in 2022, says vehicle data provider Carfax.
Digital odometers are just as vulnerable to fraud as the old mechanical ones were, and Carfax says consumers lose an average of $4,000 in value when they buy a vehicle with a rolled-back odometer, excluding maintenance costs.
“We’re still seeing the number of vehicles on the road with a rolled back odometer rise year-over-year,” said Carfax Public Relations Director Emilie Voss. “It takes con artists a matter of minutes to wipe thousands and thousands of miles off a vehicle’s odometer, and unfortunately these swindlers likely see this unprecedented used car market as a way to make a quick buck.”
The 10 states with the highest number of rollback cases saw fraud increases of between 1% and 15%, the latter in Texas, Carfax said.
Carfax offers a free odometer fraud-check tool.
