Posted on 06/25/2023 10:42:40 AM PDT by nickcarraway
The company, along with Holman Automotive Group, has been accused of rolling back the odometers of thousands of old delivery trucks.
Odometer fraud is big business in the U.S. Estimates say the scheme costs consumers over $1 billion a year. And while it’s largely been relegated to sketchy dealers and private sellers on Craigslist you probably shouldn’t buy from, it apparently isn’t just there. On Friday, Automotive News reports that FedEx and Holman Automotive have been accused of rolling back the odometers of old delivery trucks in a new lawsuit.
Companies like FedEx ordinarily get rid of their delivery trucks when they hit their operational limit, usually around 350,000 miles, but, in the suit, plaintiffs say a scheme involving old trucks started over a decade ago, when FedEx decided to stop scrapping the trucks and sent them to auto auctions instead.
... the lawsuit states, FedEx beginning in or around 2011 pursued another revenue stream by remarketing the fleet vehicles instead of destroying them. Holman is accused of mutually agreeing with FedEx to commit odometer fraud as part of the remarketing enterprise.
FedEx is accused of not only resetting the odometers of the vehicles that sold, but also not disclosing which vehicles had their odometers replaced. Holman, which managed FedEx’s commercial fleet, is accused of selling the vehicles for more than they’re worth due to the incorrect odometers.
One of the plaintiffs in the case is Tom Layton, a commercial truck dealer based in Henderson, Nevada. Speaking to Las Vegas’ KTNV, Layton says in 2017 he sold an old FedEx truck to a contractor in Washington state, who made the discovery and accused Layton of the fraud initially.
“About a month after the sale, the FedEx contractor contacted me and said, ‘hey! What are you trying to pull here? And I said, ‘what’s wrong?’ And he said, ‘I took this into Freightliner and had the vehicle hooked up to the computer. And it has over 400,000 miles. And your odometer says 180,000 miles’.
That’s when Layton says he “found out that the odometer was changed by FedEx, not by any car dealership.”
The suit is potentially on behalf of thousands of people across the country who purchased one of these vehicles. A spokesperson for Holman told Automotive News the company doesn’t comment on pending litigation, while a FedEx rep said the company “will vigorously defend the lawsuit.”
Ditto. If I’m buying something like these trucks, I’m plugging into trucks computer to check codes and history. Something smells fishy.
I chatted with a driver of an “Airport Shuttle”at DFW as he was putting gas in. He said his van had over 750K miles and they rarely ever get switched off. They use(or use to) Large Ford passenger vans with huge desiel engines.
Hard to tell.
Do black live still matter?
Haven’t heard much from them lately.
“I don’t think it would make sense to rollback the odometer just to get a better deal for it when sold.”
Absolutely right. There are many tell-tales about a vehicles true mileage as well as maintenance logs.
If the springs are poking through the seat upholstery, that might give you a clue. As would brand-new seats.
“Do not give this much credence, IMHO...”
I AGREE! This is BS! FED EX involved in clocking odometers?
REALLY? Hold my beer.
There was a youtube video about this a year or two back. It concerned the replacement of the speedometer/odometers in the Fedex trucks. When they failed and had to be replaced the new part started at zero and no mention was made to potential buyers of this fact. I believe the person in the video stated you could tell if there was a replacement as the original part did not have visible screws in the mounting to the dashboard, while the replacement did.
The video included an example of a buyer who encountered this and was more than a little bit upset. He thought he was getting a real good deal but wound up with a worn out truck.
GMTA See post #6.
On a reverse type of fraud. I read that in the 80’s in Russia, when taxi drivers were paid by the mile...The taxi drivers would park their taxies on blocks in their yard..run the engine in gear and add mileage to the car while the wheels were turning and they were getting drunk. Governments are always being defauded.
Lot of cars in the 2000s still kept their mileage in the gauge cluster.
Personal experience - 99-06 Silverado/Sierra and 99-01 Jeep Cherokee. Ironically, both tend to have cluster issues that mean most owners with high mileage will have to replace them. If you buy new, mileage resets to zero. Buy used and it’s a crapshoot.
They can be reprogrammed sometimes, but usually only with the dealer-level scan tools.
I thought Ernie Boch, Sr. died many years ago. He must have trained the FedEx people before his demise.
I don’t know what type of speedometer/odometer they are using but the VDO units we had in our fire trucks for awhile lasted a few years before the odometer LED’s died and the whole unit was replaced.
Not many black criminals have been shot by white cops lately, at least on video.
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