Steve95 said:
I am new to imports, and i have what is probably an obvious question, but i need to put my mind at rest!
If the Speedo is showing mph, then will the odometer will be reading in miles? When it was converted, does the odometer from that point onwards display miles? Do without any documentation i should assume that from the first mot the mileage will be in miles?
Hope this makes sense! I have seen a few local cars and the garages are just converting the displayed odometer reading into miles even though the Speedo is reading in mph? No paperwork either to give a clue as to when it was converted.
Thanks guys!
Essentially as John says. Every importer is different.
Torque GT as standard (although you can request otherwise) get the BITMA certificate (which just confirms that the last known mileage in Japan is consistent with the mileage when it arrives in the UK), and they then fit the speedo converter to start the cars speedometer reading in miles from then on out. What they also do is convert the existing odo reading into the correct miles figure (the odo will always show the KMs until the algorithm is overwritten).
Other importers sometimes leave the cars odometer in KMs and also the speedo to increase in increments of KMs (ie dont fit a converter, however from my limited knowledge is rare). This means the whole car mileage will still be in KMs. Similar to what an Irish car may say as they count in KMs too.
The third option is some import companies fit the speedo converter so the car starts registering in miles but leave the original odometer reading on the clocks (ie. Odometer will read 102,000km rather than say 62,000 miles).
On paper it's easy to work out whichever scenario. Its when you get sellers trying to pull the wool over people's eyes (or just dont have the understanding) and they claim the car is something it's not. Often they just take the clocks reading and convert that to miles. Or the cars been odometer reading has bene converted after sometime in the UK and paperwork isn't retained for record.
This is often wrong as 9 times out of 10 a speedo converter has been fitted indicating that at least some of the numbers on the odometer have been miles.
As above also, generally do buy on condition but it doesn't hurt to have a look for a car like Torque GT's for example where the mileage is fairly straight forward.
But also above you'll always run the risk of clocking regardless of what you buy.
Hopefully that helps abit. Lastly, try to buy a forum owners car ðŸ˜