Police in N.B. are investigating the previous owner of a pick-up truck sold in Toronto last July, after it was discovered that the digital odometer had been rolled back by nearly 200,000 kilometres.
The vehicle, a 2014 Dodge Ram 1500, was sold for approximately $27,000 off a small dealer lot in Toronto.
“Looked good,” buyer Mary Blackmore told CTV Toronto. “2014, 97,000 kilometres (on it).”
The bill of sale listed the vehicle’s odometer at 97,136 km. But Blackmore discovered that number was false a few months later, when she took it in for service. The Chrysler dealer checked the vehicle’s ID number and determined that the true mileage on the vehicle was 288,111.
Outraged, Blackmore contacted the dealer, who told her there must have been some “clerical error” with the odometer reading.
“This is no clerical error,” she said. “Come on, are you kidding me?”
Blackmore contacted CTV Toronto’s Pat Foran, and with his help, the Ontario Motor Vehicle Industry Council was brought in to investigate. OMVIC soon determined that the vehicle had once been used by a road crew in New Brunswick, and that its odometer had likely been tampered with before the vehicle was sold to an auctioneer in 2015.
“The dealer in New Brunswick obviously took it in on trade with 97,000,” Terry O’Keefe, of OMVIC, told CTV Toronto. “They sold it through an auction. The dealer here in Ontario bought it in good faith with 97,000 km. So the dealer here didn’t know it had a rolled back odometer.”
Blackmore says the dealer allowed her to return the truck and refunded her money, as well as the loan she took out to pay for the truck.
“That nightmare is behind me,” she said.
OMVIC reminds used vehicle buyers to make sure they get a vehicle history report and the provincial ministry’s used vehicle package before closing a transaction. They also recommend getting your vehicle checked by a mechanic you trust.
Anyone caught tampering with an odometer could face fines or jail time.
WIth files from CTV Toronto
