Tampered Dash Auto/manaul - Blue Plate.

[sunnycoast]

Hi There,

I took a photo of my "Blue Plate" and was wondering if anyone could tell me what the numbers mean? My Car is manual and it seems to have a replaced "auto" dash with auto symbols such as A/T and A/T Oil Temp that dont light up. I dont know why this would be on a manual. It seems my dash was changed at compliance to hide the k's.

I don't know what to do or where to go. I believe my car has been tampered with and need advice. Hoping my car wasnt an auto conversion to manual.

Any help/advice would be good... Had car for over 1 week now and bought it from North Shore Imports in Sydney - Drove it back to QLD. First Aussie owner.

Thanks

Chris

Edited April 14, 2008 by SunnyCoast

[rs73]

FS5R30A is manual transmission so good news your car is not an auto to manual conversion, it originally came with manual transmission with a final diff ratio 4.1:1 (RC41). The auto normally has 4.3:1 final diff ratio (RC43) that was in R33, not sure about in R34 but should be the same I reckon.

The bad news is if you have an auto speedo (does it have a display for gearshift position (P,N,R,D etc) that never lights up or being used?) that mean the speedo has been swapped. Most likely either the original one is broken, or the owner had a Nismo 300km speedo and want to keep it when he sold it and couldn't find an auto speedo, or very likely that it has done more kms in Japan, e.g. done 150,000km then they put a 80,000 auto speedo and make people think it's done a low km.

Good luck - hope nothing else wrong with the car.

[sewid]

That's how they rolled the KM's back on you. Your car has probably done 100,000 more k's than it reads on the speedo.

[sunnycoast]

Thanks for the help so far.

But i am trying to establish if this is legal or if they have broken the law, and where i am to go from here before warning the dealership of my legal activities.

Need help still guys... Car read 49K when i bought it 1 week ago.

Thanks

[rs73]

you probably can't prove anything unless the person who did it is caught red handed swapping the speedo.

what year is the car?? if it's a 98-99 R34 it's hard to believe it's only done 49000km.

anyone could have swapped it, try blaming the dealer/importer they could blame it on the RAWS, try blaming it on the RAWS (but RAWS have no financial gain in swapping it unless they've been looking for a stock manual speedo for their own parts bin), RAWS can blame it on the original Japanese owner. So unless you can speak japanese there's no way you can find out if the japanese owner did it or not.

before you buy the car, have you got a detailed picture of the car in Japan with the speedo, and if it has shown any reading different to what you have? if not then you are out of luck. this is just the risk of importing a car from Japan.

[rs73]

Also does the importer forward you any original service history records from Japan? if the service history is missing, then it's another tell-tale of possible dodgy things, but even if it exist, if the history is patchy then there's no way finding out... 49000km is reasonable for 2002 onwards car, but for anything older than 2001 it's very rare and unless backed by solid japanese service history, there is no guarantee at all.

Welcome to the world of imports.

[sunnycoast]

Ok....so all said and done. And i do appreciate the input thus far.

Do i approach the dealer and ask the question? and see where we go from there? Or do i go above the dealer to else where?

Or is there simply nothing i can do about it/sell my car and move on???

[rs73]

you could try, but depends how you ask the question they would either just shruf off their shoulders or tell you to get lost and to never go back...

selling it again you'll just gonna lost money and just transferring any potential problem to someone else unwary of the situation (if you lied about the reason why you're selling) - which makes you just as bad as the person who did the swap before. just a question of morality here.

if you decide to keep the car what I'd suggest is get the car fully checked out, do compression test, check all plugs, the belt tensions etc, by an experienced mechanic, they'll be able to tell if your car has actually done over 100,000km and your timing belt is about time for replacement... it's not gonna be cheap but at least it'll be faster than trying to get your car sold and hunt for another one which could land you with the same case - wound back km cars from Japan...

I'd say keep it and take it to a mechanic's and have it serviced so it will be reliable. Heck, my 93 gtst had 35000km on it when I bought it in 2003 (10 yr old car), which i don't really trust but that's the one with best condition i've seen inside out so after purchase i had the timing belt replaced about 6 monthes later, and it returned good service and fun to me over 4 years of ownership... even with 230rwkw the engine holds on with no problems...

that's because i had all the required prep done (e.g. full service, check the turbo, careful tuning, new clutch, etc). There should be plenty of good mechanics near you who knows about skylines, the R33/R34 isn't a rare imports these days.

[Munkyb0y]

agreed

its not as bad as it seems. it's just obvious in your case, because of the dash. and a bit of a pain really, coz its the wrong one.

but all of us pretty much realise that our km's arent accurate. so its always recommended you do timing belt and full service on an import. just for peace of mind.

occasionally you'll find someone who brags about their 60,000km s2 r33, and i just think, really? you believe that?

if the car is in good condition, and it runs well, shows no symptons of issues, i'd say just keep it. maybe look into swapping the dash out for a manual dash with similar kms as is on your paperwork.

Edited April 15, 2008 by Munkyb0y

[Equinox]

A friend of mine bought a '69000km' R32 GTS-T....

[autoworx]

ive got a 94 gtr with 70,000km on the dash , full service history and certificates from nissan for all work carried out .car is now 14 years old . i have put 2000km on it its entire aus life.

i had a friend who lived in japan for 5 years , bought a mint gtir pulsar with plastic wrap still on the interior , all books , history .

he put 5000km on it the whole time he was there , ask yourself where are you going to drive your car if you live in a huge japanese city ? your not going to have it as a daily to work and the shops

i had a 96 r33 sedan in recently with 40000km on it , supplier thought it was one of the best he had seen , experienced nissan mechanic inspected it and could not find a single fault . the car was genuinely immaculate and underneath the car you could have eaten off it . every bush and boot was as new . the car was amazing , compression was perfect . possibly it had done 70-80,000 km but i have never ever seen a car in that sort of condition that had done 150,000km.

so it does happen . under some circumstances some cars do very low km.

get the car inspected by someone who knows skylines well . its very easy to tell the difference between a car with 49000 km and 149000 km . if condition is poor and km clearly do not match then take it up further . if condition is excellent be happy and move on

[sunnycoast]

I would like to really thank the posters above for thier time and assistance with this. I really should have known better in the first place. This is my 4th Skyline i have owned and this is by far the cleanest looking r34 around. Perfect paint, Perfect interior, not a ding, scratch or bump anywhere to be seen.

Clutch seems very smooth, suspension is great, engine doesnt miss a beat. I really think it comes down to the look and feel of the car. Like some of you have said above, does the car really look like its done 150,000km's? IMO, certainly not.

I really just wanted to hear what you above had to say about my situation to make me feel better about being all down in the dumps about my purchase.

Thank you very much again, means alot to me.

Christian

Edited April 15, 2008 by SunnyCoast

[Granthem]

Hmmm strange. sadly R34 dashes are pretty easy to swap too

[i want a skyline]

A friend of mine bought a '69000km' R32 GTS-T....

It does happen.

I recently imported a genuine 70,000km 1988 S13 Silvia through Iron Chef Imports.

The car was so clean it should be in a museum. Not one modification at all. Evidently a one-owner car since new (and an elderly owner too).

Further, a couple of dealership stickers in Japanese confirmed the mileage travelled.

[Ultra]

It does happen.

I recently imported a genuine 70,000km 1988 S13 Silvia through Iron Chef Imports.

The car was so clean it should be in a museum. Not one modification at all. Evidently a one-owner car since new (and an elderly owner too).

Further, a couple of dealership stickers in Japanese confirmed the mileage travelled.

Low milage cars do exist in Japan, but are generally exy. The cheaper ones that we tend to import have usually been tampered with...

However recent legislation in Japan has it that the Kms are written on the export certificate now....so there is a document that can (somewhat) prove the Kms history.

[i want a skyline]

Low milage cars do exist in Japan, but are generally exy. The cheaper ones that we tend to import have usually been tampered with...

However recent legislation in Japan has it that the Kms are written on the export certificate now....so there is a document that can (somewhat) prove the Kms history.

Yeah I scored with this one though, it would seem no-one wants low-mileage S13s - 199000Y FOB!

R32 GT-Rs on the other hand...

[sunnycoast]

Hey Guys/Girls,

Appreciated all of the help at the start of the year regarding this, and so far i found the following:

1) Car is genuine in regards to the transmission. Genuine Manual

2) Car has genuine Km's after being worked on and checked by a performance mechanic.

3) Car is in far too good of a condition to be any more than the km's stated on my odometer.

I have had people interested in buying my car ask me about this specific thread, and i wanted to clear up the rumors in regards to the km's on my car.

Thank you all.

Christian