Car Mileage Story

About a decade ago in Germany, the news folks happened upon a new trend being seen.....resetting of the mileage on cars.  Someone had gone and figured out the method to reset the mileage.  At the time, I watched a public TV documentary where the crew had gone to the Netherlands.....paying some underground mechanic around a hundred-Euro, and in three minutes....he'd reset the mileage....taking 30,000-odd kilometers off to tachometer. The chief purpose?  You could take a high mileage car that was ready to sell, and convince buyers that it had lesser mileage....deserving the better price.

I noticed in the news today, that the authorities in Germany are now convinced that one out of every eight cars sold in Germany on the used market.....are reset on the mileage.  Across Europe, it's become such a problem....that naturally.....they want the EU to outlaw it.

Now, you can sit there and be amused.  Any of the European countries could have outlawed it but it really doesn't mean anything unless you really force the car companies to modify their systems enough that they can't be updated or changed.  So they figure that the EU will have the will-power and strength to accomplish this.  The amount of time for the EU to figure this out and accomplish it?  Well.....being humble here....maybe two years.

It's like talking about e-cigarettes and the desire that the EU 'fix' this as well.  Health experts want more regulation and efforts by the EU to make it undesirable to smoke via the e-cigarette.  They might be able to do it....but you'd be talking about a minimum of two to three years to get something agreeable and passed.

Does the mileage business help that much?  There are three general views of car pricing and mileage. There's the excessive amount....where some guy is driving 40,000 kilometer per year (long-distance driver).  There's the average amount....where some guy is driving around 25,000 to 30,000.  And then you got the 'light-driver' with 10,000 kilometers (more or less).  The light-driver can expect full pricing on his car and probably deserves it....figure a bump up of 500 Euro for a five-year old car.  The excessive-driver?  He'll lose a minimum of 500 Euro (maybe more) on a three-year old car with 120,000 kilometers.  So it does make sense to cut off 25,000 to 40,000 kilometers and hope the guy buys off on your story.