Odometer Rollback in Costa Rica?

Conventional wisdom in Costa Rica is that ALL dealers roll back the odometers. I’ve checked the archives and read the responses about odometer rollback and am still unconvinced that a small used car dealer (10 cars on the lot) in Costa Rica would be able to roll back the odometer.
BTW: Cars sold via dealers come with government mandated 30 day warranty on engine and drive train. FWIW. :slight_smile:

Newer cars can be rolled back with a laptop, so probably somebody could go dealer to dealer, offering up his ‘services’.

It’s very difficult to accumulate high mileage in Costa Rica…There are not that many paved roads…Rental cars might be the exception…Odometer fraud is by no means limited to Costa Rica…

Very few of the cars in Costa Rica actually come from Costa Rica.

True…Every single one is imported and has paid a VERY high import duty…

And accumulated miles elsewhere.

If it’s a USA car you can run a carfax on it and see what the last mileage was before it left the states.

Carfax depends on state inspection records for it’s mileage numbers. Only about half the cars in the U.S. are subject to state inspections…

Besides, today, car dealers have learned that used car buyers are willing to pay astounding amounts of money for high-mileage cars!

Caddyman: Been a while since you’ve been to Costa Rica? There more “paved” roads by far than dirt/gravel. OTOH, paved means a slalom course of potholes. There even is a multilane toll road from San Jose to the Pacific.

So I guess the consensus is that “yes” odometer fraud is possible/probable in Costa Rica? Just doesn’t seem like a shade tree mechanic’s operation… but the idea of a “service” is a good one. One I shall explore with exuberance. :slight_smile: