Carporium director Sachinthaka Nagasinghe sentenced for odometer tampering
A car dealer in New Zealand has been sentenced after being found guilty of tampering with a vehicle's odometer to inflate its resale value. The director of Carporium was ordered to pay reparations and the company received a fine.
Why it matters
This case serves as a legal precedent for consumer protection and highlights the regulatory enforcement against deceptive practices in the automotive trade.
The car’s odometer reading was 150,031km when it was sold at the car auction, but three months later was 119,244km. Photo / Generic
A motorist who paid a car dealer $24,000 for a Toyota RAV4 only discovered the odometer had been tampered with when they took it in for servicing more than a year later.
It was then that technicians noticed the odometer reading didn’t match the car’s recorded service history.
The reading was 150,031km when the car was sold at auction to Tauranga trader Sachinthaka Nagasinghe, the sole director of Sachis Holdings Ltd, trading as Carporium.
But when Nagasinghe sold it to the new owner three months later, the reading showed 119,244km – a difference of more than 30,000km.
The service technicians referred their concerns to the Registrar of Motor Vehicle Traders through NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi.
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