Indiana car dealer accused of returning odometer 14

The state accuses dealers of lowering the odometers on at least 216 cars and then selling them to unsuspecting customers

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita filed a lawsuit against KBB Auto Sales, accusing them of lowering the odometers on at least 216 vehicles and then selling them to unsuspecting customers. Worse, the attorney general’s office says these weren’t just small rollbacks, but massive rollbacks totaling more than 14 million miles (22,530,816 kilometers).

To put this staggering number into perspective, the average back-mileage per vehicle is 64,815 miles (104,310 kilometers). Additionally, NASA notes that the average distance to the moon is 238,855 miles (384,400 kilometers), so the total rollback is equivalent to 29 round trips to the moon.

MORE: Government nabs car dealer who returned odometer with more than 218,000 miles

In the lawsuit, Indiana said dealers would buy vehicles at auction and then “significantly” reduce their mileage. This is reportedly done by replacing the instrument cluster or using an odometer rollback tool.

The attorney general charged the dealership’s owners and employees with violations of the Indiana Deceptive Consumer Sales Act, the Indiana Odometer Act, the federal Odometer Act and the Unfair Motor Vehicle Practices Act. As a result, they are seeking “injunctive relief, consumer damages, treble damages, civil penalties, costs and other relief.”

For damages alone, the state is seeking “three times the actual damages or $10,000, whichever is greater, to the benefit of each purchaser.” The state is also seeking compensation for each Indiana mileage violation. Schedule Act imposes a civil penalty of $1,500 for each violation and a civil penalty of $5,000 for each violation of Indiana Code Section 24-5-0.5-3(a) and (b), which covers deceptive consumer sales and unfair, abusive or deceptive conduct.

While this is only a brief overview of the lawsuit, it sounds like a pretty solid case, as the state’s Exhibit A is a “table listing 216 vehicles sold by KBB Automotive to specific Indiana consumers, and KBB’s The mileage of each vehicle at the time of acquisition” vehicle sales (“KBB Acquisition Mileage”), the approximate mileage of each vehicle at the time KBB Auto Sales sold the vehicle to each consumer (“KBB Sales Mileage”), and the date the vehicle was sold to each Consumer(“Sell-by”).

The outcome in court remains to be seen, but Attorney General Rokita said: “These unethical tactics deceive consumers who purchase vehicles with rolled-back odometers. They end up with cars and trucks with higher mileage than they did It’s more than they thought, and there’s more wear and tear than they thought.” It’s also worth noting that lower mileage vehicles come with higher prices, which may be what dealers are after.

H/T to Wish TV