Missing miles?

[gramey]

During my usual trawl of ebay, I know I need to get out more, I came across this ad and I thought I might give this a look as I have to go to Colchester tomorrow anyway. It looks clean and tidy and the price is enticing especially given the miles it's apparently done. The only trouble is that it had 13,000 more miles on it in April 2015 than it did in April 2016 according to an MOT history check?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/mercedes-/112544369307?hash=item1a342aca9b:g:ZFoAAOSwdYlZo9by

 

[John Laidlaw]

Run away very fast !

 

[00slk]

Maybe a typo when entered its mileage during the paper work, 56 maybe instead or 76? Worth checking the car out anyway, looks alright in the pictures

 

[00slk]

Run away very fast !

Oh John!!!!!!

 

[nicholas15]

Service history should give a guide on mileage as a cross check to MOT

 

[LostKiwi]

I wouldn't look at that anyway. If someone can't be bothered to write a description of it I wouldn't be bothered to look. Why's he listed it 4 times?
Also his history looks odd... 12 months on eBay with 7 feedback some time ago yet 3 vehicles on sale now?

 

[Craiglxviii]

I'm with Mr L. Run for the hills!

 

[umblecumbuz]

Every sensible dealer checks a car's provenance and history before buying for resale, so either this guy will know of the mileage discrepancy and the reason for it - or he has clocked it himself.

Be interesting to ask him!

 

[John Laidlaw]

Indeed! With all respect buying an SL can be a difficult enough journey without introducing mileage uncertainties to the mix.
Patience, knowledge and many many viewings will unearth the right one....

 

[John Laidlaw]

In fairness to the current seller, the issue has been between the MOT 28/4/15 (76,542 miles) and 13/4/16 (63,144) when presumably someone else had the vehicle. At 24/3/17 it shows 69,004..OP already mentioned this. Unclecumbuz is correct though, any dealer should have checked and therefore know the reasons
Mileage issues are flagged as said
Oddly 3/5/14 the MOT mileage was 45,473 so it covered 31,069 miles in the year until 28/4/15?
Very very suspicous in all respects!

 

[d215yq]

Ocam's razor: Car does about 6-9k a year each year. Has it continued to do that 2014-2017 with a typo being made on the 2015 MOT (76k instead of the real 56k).

Or has it suddenly been used to do 31k in a year and then someone has thought that's too much and after MOTing it and having the high mileage recorded decided to clock it?

I know you have to be careful when buying a used car but I wouldn't worry about the mileage on this one.

A car with no description isn't great but I've noticed recently when selling things (not cars but other stuff/renting out rooms) that (probably due to the the availability of Watsapp and general decline in common sense/being able to note something down and think for themselves) 70% of people just ask questions that are already answered in the description anyway so maybe for this reason he's decided not to bother?

 

[00slk]

There always worth a look if you haven't got to travel far
That way you will get a good knowledge of what's good and what's not.
I spent quite a while looking for another 500 and lots were sold before I could view (they were in my price range) but the ones that I did manage to see at cheap advertised prices were not very nice cars and you will be surprised just how much a quality car like the R230 can deteriorate even with low miles
I do a lot of internet trawling and have noticed many of the 500's that I inquired about have been backup for sale or relisted, there is one that I was keen on last year, its still being advertised.
We bought our 500 unseen for 6k off a dealer and travelled 300 odd miles to collect it, we were told by the dealer what issues it had and found he was pretty accurate with his description (a lot of invaluable information was given to me before buying this car, came from this forum so I had a little insight on what to ask the dealer ) and it turned out to be one of the best I have driven so far and has given us 20,000mls of virtually trouble free motoring, mind you he did neglect to tell us about the MAF sensor issue. We were very lucky with this car and it has turned out to be a nice one

 

[Wighty]

What about when an mot was done , the car had been left reading in Km,s rather than miles after a euro visit ??? .

 

[00slk]

That's happened to me with my old classic, it's in kilometers and the mot guy has entered it in miles, so the mileage reads very suspicious. My Jag to was in both K's and miles and that too has upset the mot history checker. Though didn't effect its sale last year.

 

[Sasha94]

Could be a typo, but why wouldn't you correct it as the owner?? The dealers advert is also truely awful. Why do they think ads like this will sell?? SL's are such complex beasts, would anyone buy one as blind as you would be with that advert?

 

[LostKiwi]

When we bought our SL we bought the first we saw - not from desperation or impatience but because we had enough info and knew what we were looking at from researching it well.
Our SL has taken us to France twice, done a lot of local trips in the UK and generally until recently been excellent.
Even the recent issues with it have not been unexpected as one of the things we knew about before purchase was the wiring harness would need replacing. We got two years out of it before it was time to do it so I'm OK with that.

Our 210 was the second one we looked at - again from research before looking and knowing what to look for and what we were prepared to accept for a given price.
Tat car has been pretty much trouble free over the past 22k miles with only a crank sensor (known at purchase time), air con compressor (known at purchase time) and wheelbearing in that time (aside from a couple of silly £20 fixes for niggly stuff).

Our third MB was purchased without so much as driving it, but we did trust the PO implicitly.... (and he didn't let us down).

 

[John Laidlaw]

When we bought our SL we bought the first we saw - not from desperation or impatience but because we had enough info and knew what we were looking at from researching it well.
Our SL has taken us to France twice, done a lot of local trips in the UK and generally until recently been excellent.
Even the recent issues with it have not been unexpected as one of the things we knew about before purchase was the wiring harness would need replacing. We got two years out of it before it was time to do it so I'm OK with that.

Our 210 was the second one we looked at - again from research before looking and knowing what to look for and what we were prepared to accept for a given price.
Tat car has been pretty much trouble free over the past 22k miles with only a crank sensor (known at purchase time), air con compressor (known at purchase time) and wheelbearing in that time (aside from a couple of silly £20 fixes for niggly stuff).

Our third MB was purchased without so much as driving it, but we did trust the PO implicitly.... (and he didn't let us down).

Strangely my 3rd was also bought without even a test drive, was also an SL and trusted the PO implicitly ...hmmm how strange!

 

[Sasha94]

When I bought the CLK it was the first one I saw as well, but the only reason I made the appointment for that one before the others was the advert was well written, well photographed and included all the history, all the details you want to see about the car to make a decision. If I went to see that car I'd want to use the mileage discrepancy and terrible advert to my advantage. I'd scare the dealer with the horror stories of all the bits that can go wrong with an SL. They soon cave in when they realise the lovely looking Merc pulling admiring glances at the side of the road could end up giving them a massive headache.

It's one thing to buy from a private seller, a trader is a different matter I suppose. The vendor of my CLK didn't want it on the forecourt at retail price because it was too complex a car for them to be condfident putting a warranty on it and we all know how much simpler the CLK is than an SL!!

 

[Richard Moakes]

My recently purchased ML500 has a perfect HPI, apart from one MOT performed at a Mercedes Dealer where they entered the odometer reading in KM. All happened so long ago I cannot correct it, but it's very annoying and ruins an otherwise unblemished record of regular increase in miles each year.

 

[Wighty]

76000km is 47000miles . Which might explain that first big jump in mileage .