FTO AUSTRALIA

Just a frustrating thought.

The FTO (and the imported car scene all together) in sydney has been corrupt by shifti mechanics and importers who are constantly re-winding the odometers.

So, the way is see it, they have set a corrupt standard, which forces the honest to have compete with.

The only way to actually retain the market value of your vehicle at this stage is to re-wind the km reading only as to keep up with the imported and re-wound car's that are coming in.

The honest people are completely disadvantaged by presenting a car with a genuine 100000+ km's.

Dirty business.

just a sugestion for those thinking about buying

ask to see the auction sheet then check the chassis number on the auction sheet against the car and the speedo reading against the recorded reading on the auction sheet.

if they imported it they will have a copy of the auction sheet.

Also it is often easy to tell by looking at the condition of the rest of the car a 50000 Km car should be in almost new condition

I agree. When I bought my FTO in Dec 01 from a dealer, it had 16000 km on it. Even though it's a '97 model, 16k is still too unbelievable. My mechanic, judging by wear and tear of components, told me that it has done approximately 60000 km. Go figure!

personaly if a import dealer
couldnt show me the auction sheet i would go else where

When purchasing a vehicle ask to see if it has a log book and service history.
The log book and service history help to show that the Km's done on the car are genuine and the odometer has not been wound back.

Same pplies if you are selling a vehicle, keeping a log book of each time you drive the car and how far etc will help to sell the vehicle if you ever plan to selll it.

M@

We bought our FTO through Geoff @ prestige motorsport. Similar to J Spec & others where they send you photos & auction sheets for you to choose and bid on.

We looked at about 30 FTO's before we bought ours and I don't think that there was any below about 45,000km on them and good few were around 100, 000km.

Keep in mind that these are 5 -9 year old cars!

Plus km's can be a bit misleading as a guide to a cars worth.

Cars are designed to be run regularly. All the fluids need to be distributed through the systems to keep everything nice and to prevent drying up or even siezing up.

You'll run into much more serious probalems buying a car that's sitting by it's lonesome in a garage for long stretches of time, than you will buying one that's been run regulary and well maintained.

I was told it was pretty hard to wind back the odometer on the FTO cause it's digital. Not an analogue type found in skylines etc. I bought mine with 70000 on the clock and it's a 95 model. It sounded reasonable for a 7 year old car from Japan. If you look at australian cars, commodores and falcons etc, a 95 model will have anywhere from 120000 to 200000 km's on the clock. This to me is pretty realistic considering most people would do 15 - 20000 kms per year.

That's the whole point Scott, the cars we have in australia have done atleast 3 times the amount of k's on the imported cars. I don't think is very possible (although japanese might drive less).

I'm not sure about rewinding the k's, i heard it was possible though by my mechanic. But there are other methods which are VERY easy. The FTO's have odometer reading boxes which hold the information. I think that all the jap's actually do is buy a variety of boxes with different k readings and adjust them into the cars ($150Aus or so). It is becoming easier and easier in Australia because fto's are virtually becoming a high volume import, there are so many of them around.

I think I read somewhere recently that Australian drivers drive the most amount of Km's per year per driver.
I think the average for an Aussie car was 15,000 km /yr ?

Naturally a car that has done over 100,000Km will have a lot of wear and tear that may or may not be noticeable.

M@

I purchased my car at 112,000 kms which I considered to be very high. My mechanic told me that the mechanics are great and nothing bar the replacement of my timing belt, which could have been done previous anyway, needed replacing or was suspect. We all know very little about the japenese lifestyle and hear conflicting reports on general use and the reasons for the fledging used car market there.

We get so wrapped up in making sure that Japenese imports have low Km's but I must say I'd much rather a 112,000km car from japan than a lower 60,000km on an australian built and driven car. The days of me putting my foot down on a Commodore and waiting a good 3 seconds for the power to kick on and for it to think about what gear to be in are long over.

However, if you're going to spend good money on a 60,000km import I suggest taking a good hard look at the condition of the parts and things like seat wear to be sure you're getting what you pay for. One thing is for certain, the new regulations introduced to imported cars should weed out the dodgy dearlers from now on.