CASE STUDY: THE TAXI THAT TOOK US ALL FOR A RIDE

If you want to find a clocked car, look no further than an old taxi. The fact that the Toyota Prius we found advertised on a leading website was a 2010-reg with a convincing 180,000 miles and that its history check gave the odometer reading a clean bill of health didn’t deter us one bit. This car had ‘clocked’ written all over it.

On this point, we have to be careful. The term means a deliberate attempt to conceal a car’s true mileage. The advertisement certainly didn’t suggest the mileage was other than accurate and no mileage disclaimer sticker – a recognised way of alerting buyers to a reading that cannot be relied on – was visible in the pictures of the car. In addition, when we first spoke to him, the dealer didn’t mention the mileage. It was only when we asked him if the reading was true that he revealed the previous owner had had the odometer changed and he suspected the actual reading was closer to 200,000 miles. And some. When we examined the car’s MOT history at gov.uk/check-mot-history, we found a record of clocking that horrified us. For example, at its MOT test on 2 July 2012, which it failed, the Prius was recorded as having done 75,482 miles but at another test on the same day, which it passed, it was recorded as having done 34,998 miles. By 23 December 2016, it had done 185,210 miles but at its next test on 23 June 2017, 71,057 miles. On 18 December 2018, it was recorded as having no odometer and therefore no mileage reading was reported but still it passed the test. It passed its next MOT on 17 June 2019 with an odometer reading of 144,187 miles. We ran the Prius by Motor Check. Not surprisingly, it flagged a major discrepancy in the car’s mileage history and backed it up with a graph showing the steep falls in its mileage and allowing the true, underlying trend to be predicted. In fact, the company reckons the Prius’s real mileage is 400,000.

We asked Experian, the vehicle data company that gave the Prius a clean bill of health, how it could have done so in the face of such damning evidence. A spokesperson said: “We look to combine the most relevant and trustworthy data sources in order to help our clients understand the mileage history of a vehicle. In this case, our data did not flag any mileage discrepancies. However, we will continue to work with our partners to address any areas of concern.”