Need help explaining history of a used car? Strange situation

sheananigans8

So the situation...I found a 2014 Mitsubishi Outlander with 6k miles on it at Carmax. It was a good deal for a good car but then I looked up the history on their computers: It had been sold at auction by the manufacturer on December 29, 2014 with 10 miles on the odometer. But now on Feb 19, it has 6k miles on it.

The car does not show any previous owners so I can only assume it was sold to Carmax at the auction in Dec.

So my questions are: Why was this car sold at auction by the manufacturer? Is there anything I should be cautious about when purchasing?

And how did it get so many miles in just 1.5 months?

Thank you, I appreciate any response.

stever

That's a lot of miles for six weeks but not an impossible number. Could be that there was a typo when it went to auction. Usually a dealer takes cars to auctions so maybe this was driven by a Mitsu executive and then the car went to auction and the mileage got messed up. Or the employee took a long road trip.

Can you fnd decipher the manufacturing date? On a Mitsubushi VIN, the 10th character should represent the year of manufacture and the 11th character represents the month. Or look at the tire information placard on the door jamb. The date of manufacturer should be listed there too.

Mr_Shiftright

What history did you look up? Was it CARFAX?

isellhondas

The numbers CARFAX uses for odometer readings are often incorrect.

Mitsubishi has a very weak dealer network in the U.S. to the point very few exist. It's possible the manufacturer had to resort to taking some cars to auction when a dealership closed.

Carfax isn't foolproof. Not even close.

jayrider

Does the car have the full factory warranty ?

houdini1

Have you tried just asking Carmax what the history is?

boomchek

Yes very possible it was a dealership that shut down and Mitsubishi took back unpaid inventory and auctioned it off. Mileage could be due to the fact that car was driven across a few states, used as a loaner car for another dealer, or that the 10 miles might not have been correctly entered into the system.

stever

I like the unpaid inventory analysis.

sheananigans8

Thank you for all the help. I clarified it with Carmax. It turns out the 10 miles was when the car was registered with the DMV in the beginning of it's life. The car was driven by an exec at Mitsubishi then sold at auction with the 6k miles (cannot be sold as new with more than 3k miles). So this is actually a pretty sweet deal.

isellhondas

Just know you may have trouble finding a dealer to do any warranty work.

Resale is lousy too but if you plan to keep it a long time that won't be a big deal.

These aren't bad cars. Mitsubishi just never thrived here in the U.S.

stever

Hard to say - Mitsu didn't pull up stakes like Suzuki did (in spite of the 0-0-0 financing fiasco) and they have new product coming down the pipeline. Their sister companies have deep pockets, and they have lots of years of experience worldwide building cars. The company sure had a spotty reputation with the coverups in the '00s. They were warned again a couple of years ago about recall issues. (Reuters)

The Mitsu/Kia dealer here has a good amount of inventory and a lot of drive-by traffic. An Outlander caught my eye last week while I was looking at a Soul.

Mitsubishi's Future Plans Include Hybrids, Major Model Overhaul

isellhondas

Oh, they are HUGE in other countries!

Heck, they brought the Zero to WW2!

My BIL has an Outlander that's about three years old and he loves it.

I would imagine a great deal could be found on one a couple years old.

stever

You're right though, dealers are scarce so it'd be nice to have one close by for those times your indy mechanic is stumped or doesn't have the right factory tool.

boomchek

isellhondas said:

Just know you may have trouble finding a dealer to do any warranty work.

Resale is lousy too but if you plan to keep it a long time that won't be a big deal.

These aren't bad cars. Mitsubishi just never thrived here in the U.S.

Nor did it in Canada. I remember few years ago in 2013 I believe one of the Mitsu dealers was advertising a brand new Galant, 2011 model, that's been sitting on their lot for 2 years.

isellhondas

At the last Seattle Car Show, they didn't even make an appearance.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if they pulled out of the U.S.

boomchek

They were here in Vancouver at last year's auto show.

We actually had a repo'd 2014 Mitsubishi Mirage on our previous lot. Only had 2000kms on it or somthing ridiculously low like that. Original owner bought it $0 down and never made a payment and it got taken away after 3 months. We got it from the bank and sold it for about $6k less than a new one was and the new buyer was happy because he practically got a brand new car with 10 year warranty at substantial savings