Mileage fraud takes place when a vehicle’s odometer has been tampered with to lower the number of kilometres a car has been driven. The crime of mileage fraud affects the public at large, by artificially elevating the cost of used vehicles, sometimes by thousands of Euros. It is a crime that is also estimated to affect up to 40% of used cars in Europe. As fighting mileage fraud in one country often ends up shifting the problem to neighbouring countries, an international solution must be found.

The FIA proposes 4 steps to effectively tackle mileage fraud:

• Encouraging all Member States to consider the manipulation or tampering of an odometer as an offense and effectively enforce their legislation
• Preventing tampering technically through revising vehicle type approval legislation or getting a voluntary commitment of the vehicle manufacturing industry in the European Union
• Setting up a European electronic platform to exchange mileage data – in compliance with data protection legislation – making mileage data broadly available to European citizens buying motor vehicles, in particular cross border
• Supporting specific campaigns by the European Commission and Member States aiming to raise citizens’ awareness about this issue when buying a used car