Mileage clocking increasingly common in newer used cars
New data has found that fraudsters are increasingly targeting newer used cars for mileage clocking.
CarVertical analysed data from more than 900 national databases and found that while older vehicles remain the most clocked models there is a growing trend to clock newer models to raise their resale value.
It found that 1.8% of cars manufactured in 2021 showed mileage discrepancies, while the figure fell marginally to 1.5% for models built in 2022 and 2023. Meanwhile, the average mileage rollback among two-year-old cars was 20,000 miles.
The highest average mileage rollback recorded was 64,900 miles for models released in 2002.
Matas Buzelis, motoring expert at CarVertical, said: “Fraudsters often target higher-mileage cars, such as those being used for work and regular commuting, and roll back the odometer and resell them at a premium.
“Another factor at play here is that Britain’s car fleet is getting younger. The average vehicle age fell from 12.5 years in 2023 to 11.8 years in 2024, increasing the number of newer vehicles entering the used car market.
“While this means there’s less miles to roll back on average, it does also mean that there is a greater expense to drivers who fall victim to odometer fraud.”
