November 4, 2002
The weak Canadian dollar, the wide-open border created by the North American Free Trade Agreement and Americans' hunger for low-priced, late-model cars and light trucks has created a temptation that's hard for some car dealers to pass up.
Law enforcement agencies in Spokane last week broke up what they say was an organized ring of Canadian and Washington State car dealers who had been turning odometers back on vehicles brought into the U.S. from Canada.
When Canadian cars are imported, the odometers must be converted from kilometers to miles, which creates an opportunity to tamper with the reading and shave thousands of miles, thus raising the market value of the car.
Prosecutors say consumers in the Spokane area have been bilked out of as much as $1 million, and it's thought that the shady practice is on the rise all across the northern U.S., from Maine to Washington.
Many of the vehicles involved quickly find their way to central and southern parts of the U.S. Two wholesale dealers in Virginia were indicted in July and a Florida dealer is being prosecuted for allegedly tampering with mileage on cars imported from Canada.
The Spokane investigation began when a consumer bought a "low-mileage" used pickup truck and began having serious problems with it. A mechanic examined the truck and said it appeared to have much more wear on the drive train than the mileage would indicate. He checked the truck's history and learned that it had been driven thousands of miles more than he had been led to believe.
Officials say they began checking other vehicles sold by the same dealer and found that "most" of the cars he imported had odometer rollbacks.
Most of the vehicles were expensive trucks and sport utility vehicles. Some had up to 50,000 miles taken off the odometer.
It's estimated that a dealer pockets an additional 10 cents for each mile that is rolled back -- or $5,000 for a 50,000-mile rollback.
