A question for the owners straddling a new year.

[wai]

I've found in researching it all that BMW and MB tend to do this trick a lot and deliberately don't get anything complied until its being delivered so some people have really old cars. Subaru also do it. Quite a few consumer groups and auto clubs warn about it though, with them now being told to show total driveaway price, this might be the next target as they really should just use build date.

This is generally done by makers who have a relatively slow turnover but need to have stock on hand to be able to satisfy a customer who is about to hand over a large amount of money.

By rights, the date on the compliance plate should no longer be used, just the build date, but even here, some unscrupulous dealers will claim the compliance date as the build date when it suits them. The practice of using compliance dates stretches back to the days before build dates were shown and you needed a code-breaking degree to figure it out from the chassis number or VIN.

Maybe this needs to be brought before the ACCC so that there is only ever one date for a vehicle. But then, dealers being dealers could start using "first registered" as a new means of claiming the vehicle to be newer

Mind you, they is nothing basically wrong with an older build car where the specification has not changed, just that the price needs to be adjusted appropriately. In my case, I specified '11 build and compliance dates, and I did end up with them as such, but did get the oldest car matching the other items I specified.

I can understand dealers wanting to shift the oldest stock as it costs them money, and I can certainly understand buyers being miffed at ending up with a car that is older than they were led to believe. This is where it is up to the buyer to do as much homework before seeing a dealer and making a check list to be sure that they do not miss anything.

[K1W1]

The practice of using compliance dates stretches back to the days before build dates were shown and you needed a code-breaking degree to figure it out from the chassis number or VIN.

Not really. The information is not and never has been secret and was widely available to anybody who wanted it as far back as the early 1980's that I know of and probably even earlier. When I used to sell cars in the USA in 1982 we used to go through the VIN with owners and explain what the various numbers meant as a way of confirming that the vehicle was what they thought it was. These days it is a case of spending 2 seconds on a Google search.

[woofy]

Surprisingly the sales manager has been pretty helpful, it was something I should have clarified more, and I did get an awful lot off the price so I'm not that upset. Was more annoyed that what I had used for my HP agreement and initial insurance setup was wrong, but that was the fault of the finance/accounts guy at the dealer who I already knew was a grade A tool and completely incompetent.....I'll just have to grin an bear the insurance premium hike....its still about $200 less than our 3 yr old Skoda funny enough.