Toyota Auris - Advice please - Second hand car MOT km/miles?

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Sun 2 Jul 2023 10:12
Toyota Auris - Advice please - Second hand car MOT km/miles? - Gorrinuk32

Hello!

Would very much appreciate some advice. I put a deposit down on a second hand car at what seems to be a reputable dealer. The car isn't suspiciously cheap or anything of the sort, but when they had done an MOT on it this week the mileage went down! So the history is now something like

October 2018 - 18500 miles

October 2019 - 25000 miles

October 2020 - 29000 miles

August 2021 - 33000 miles

August 2022 - 38000 miles

June 2023 - 27359 miles (!)

I rang the dealer and he told me that this is because all the previous MOTs were done in kilometres, and they had changed the odometer to measure in miles. He sent me a letter on official Toyota headed paper that says the car "has had the computer set to km and the mileage recorded on both Service and MOT history has been in km. True mileage at the time of writing is 27355".

This seems like a plausible explanation, and converting the other distances to miles suggests a normal history. Should I be worried about this?

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Sun 2 Jul 2023 10:21
Toyota Auris - Advice please - Second hand car MOT km/miles? - Adampr

It all sounds reasonable, except for why it was in km in the first place. Is it an import?

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Sun 2 Jul 2023 10:24
Toyota Auris - Advice please - Second hand car MOT km/miles? - Gorrinuk32

I don't think so? I saw on a website somewhere that Japanese cars sometimes have their odometer in km by default?

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Sun 2 Jul 2023 10:27
Toyota Auris - Advice please - Second hand car MOT km/miles? - Adampr

I don't think so? I saw on a website somewhere that Japanese cars sometimes have their odometer in km by default?

I think that's unlikely. If the odometer was in km, I would expect the speedometer to be in km too. The previous owner, unless some kind of metric obsessive, would surely have raised that.

A quick history check will flush out whether it's an import, but that would be my guess as they're getting popular again due to second hand prices.

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Sun 2 Jul 2023 10:32
Toyota Auris - Advice please - Second hand car MOT km/miles? - Gorrinuk32

Just checked online - doesn't seem to be an import. The speedometer is in both miles and km, but the odometer is just a number on the screen so I guess it's plausible it could have been in km? I was thinking of giving the Toyota garage that wrote the letter a call to see if they remember changing the odometer from km to miles.

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Sun 2 Jul 2023 10:47
Toyota Auris - Advice please - Second hand car MOT km/miles? - catsdad

On my Civic it was easy to change from km to miles and vice versa. I did it when I took the car on holiday to Spain and reset on my return. If the Auris is the same it’s no more than a couple of clicks and no garage is likely to recall such a simple change.
The garage seems to be honest in its advice. Quite why the owner had it set in km is a mystery. Maybe they were a European expat living in U.K. who liked to consider distance covered in km rather than miles.

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Sun 2 Jul 2023 10:51
Toyota Auris - Advice please - Second hand car MOT km/miles? - Adampr

On my Civic it was easy to change from km to miles and vice versa. I did it when I took the car on holiday to Spain and reset on my return. If the Auris is the same it’s no more than a couple of clicks and no garage is likely to recall such a simple change.
The garage seems to be honest in its advice. Quite why the owner had it set in km is a mystery. Maybe they were a European expat living in U.K. who liked to consider distance covered in km rather than miles.

I don't think changing the speedo readings for convenience and how the odometer records distance are the same thing. I would call the garage to check that the letter is genuine and ask why it would have been in km in the first place. It's worth asking the question.

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Sun 2 Jul 2023 10:59
Toyota Auris - Advice please - Second hand car MOT km/miles? - John F

Whetehr miles or kilometers, it looks like just the sort of car a driver, especially a high miler, on a budget should look for; quite old but not too old and with a regular low mileage each year.

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Sun 2 Jul 2023 11:06
Toyota Auris - Advice please - Second hand car MOT km/miles? - catsdad

Adam, you have more faith than me in a garage having an insight as to why the last owner had clicked a setting one way or the other. I thought the letter had come from the selling dealer.

it’s up to the OP but if it were me and it’s otherwise a good car I would continue with the deal.

Edited by catsdad on 02/07/2023 at 11:07

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Sun 2 Jul 2023 11:17
Toyota Auris - Advice please - Second hand car MOT km/miles? - Adampr

Adam, you have more faith than me in a garage having an insight as to why the last owner had clicked a setting one way or the other. I thought the letter had come from the selling dealer.

it’s up to the OP but if it were me and it’s otherwise a good car I would continue with the deal.

I don't believe that this particular setting can be changed by the owner (at least not easily), hence the garage having to do it in the first place.

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Sun 2 Jul 2023 12:06
Toyota Auris - Advice please - Second hand car MOT km/miles? - catsdad

The setting is changeable as a standard menu option taking a few seconds. It doesn’t reset it to zero, it just changes the units.

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Sun 2 Jul 2023 11:08
Toyota Auris - Advice please - Second hand car MOT km/miles? - SLO76
What age is the car and price?
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Sun 2 Jul 2023 11:27
Toyota Auris - Advice please - Second hand car MOT km/miles? - Gorrinuk32

The letter was from another garage that used to have the car - I rang and they said they had a record of having the card but had no further details about the odometer.

The car is 8 years old (hybrid) - for £13500.

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Sun 2 Jul 2023 11:42
Toyota Auris - Advice please - Second hand car MOT km/miles? - SLO76
“ The car is 8 years old (hybrid) - for £13500.”

That’s a lot of money for an 8yr old Auris Hybrid. I know it’s not the same thing but we shopped around and bought a 3yr old 31,000 mile electric Nissan Leaf for the same money.

The Auris hybrid is in strong demand with taxi fleets as they seek to get round ULEZ regulations effecting diesels but I wouldn’t have paid that much for an 8yr old example.

Edited by SLO76 on 02/07/2023 at 11:43

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Sun 2 Jul 2023 11:58
Toyota Auris - Advice please - Second hand car MOT km/miles? - _

That is silly money for the car, but.. silly money is all the rage nowadays.

show us a link to the car to help us give advice

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Sun 2 Jul 2023 12:30
Toyota Auris - Advice please - Second hand car MOT km/miles? - Gorrinuk32

www.windmillautosltd.co.uk/used-toyota-auris-bedfo...2

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Sun 2 Jul 2023 12:42
Toyota Auris - Advice please - Second hand car MOT km/miles? - SLO76
It’s a good model in a good colour with low mileage and service history. Ask why this small backstreet dealer has managed to get his hands on it. Places like this buy from auction and why did the main dealer who took this in want to offload it at auction? I suspect the mileage discrepancy (which is probably honest enough) has been the reason, this will also be a problem when you come to trade it in or sell it on. That it’s absolutely top money, even beyond approved used Toyota main dealer money means I wouldn’t be buying, despite the car itself probably being absolutely fine.

Edited by SLO76 on 02/07/2023 at 12:44

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Sun 2 Jul 2023 12:31
Toyota Auris - Advice please - Second hand car MOT km/miles? - sammy1

For the very reason you are asking the question here you will have trouble selling it on Toyota letter or not. I agree the price is way to high for what it is. You can do a lot better with £13500

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Sun 2 Jul 2023 13:05
Toyota Auris - Advice please - Second hand car MOT km/miles? - Gorrinuk32

Thanks all for your advice - the dealer offered me a different car that does not have this issue for a lower price so hopefully that has all gone well!

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Sun 2 Jul 2023 13:17
Toyota Auris - Advice please - Second hand car MOT km/miles? - badbusdriver

It does look a very nice example in a nice colour with very low miles, but £13950 does seem on the high side!. That it has such low miles shouldn't by itself be swaying you towards this example as they are very, very reliable.

I've been looking at 2015 Auris hybrids on Autotrader and, allowing a (what I would consider still reasonably low, and nothing at all to worry about on one of these) 80k miles upper limit, they start off more than £3k less than yours.

Then looked at the mechanically identical Lexus CT200h, there is a 2018 2 owner example with 68k miles for £13990. Also looked at the (mechanically identical) Toyota Prius and while a little tricky trying to sift through the imports, it would seem £14k would get you into something the same age as the Lexus.

Going back to the Auris and looking for the youngest example (up to 80k miles) available with a £14k budget?. A 2018 car in Icon Tech trim in blue with 69k miles for £12200.

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Sun 2 Jul 2023 12:52
Toyota Auris - Advice please - Second hand car MOT km/miles? - Bilboman

Could it have been (pre-) registered in Ireland (or even Cyprus or Malta) and for some reason shifted to the UK before finding a first private buyer? Just a thought.

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Sun 2 Jul 2023 17:24
Toyota Auris - Advice please - Second hand car MOT km/miles? - Bromptonaut

Could it have been (pre-) registered in Ireland (or even Cyprus or Malta) and for some reason shifted to the UK before finding a first private buyer? Just a thought.

I wondered that too though I'd have expected the speedo, unless a digital jobbie, to have a primary display in Km and secondary miles in that case.

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