- A used car dealer in Indianapolis is being sued by the State of Indiana for rolling back odometers on at least 216 vehicles.
- The state alleges the combined mileage of the rollbacks was at least 14,058,135 miles.
- The state is seeking consumer restitution, damages, and civil penalties.
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita has filed a lawsuit against KBB Auto Sales alleging they rolled back the odometers on at least 216 vehicles and then sold them to unsuspecting customers. Even worse, the Attorney General’s Office says these weren’t just small rollbacks but massive ones that totaled more than 14 million miles (22,530,816 km) combined.
To put that staggering number into perspective, the average rollback would be 64,815 miles (104,310 km) per vehicle. Furthermore, NASA notes the average distance to the moon is 238,855 miles (384,400 km), so the combined rollback is the equivalent of 29 trips to the moon and back.
More: Government Catches Car Dealer Who Rolled Back An Odometer More Than 218,000 Miles
In the lawsuit, the State of Indiana said the dealership would purchase vehicles at auction and then “significantly” lower their mileage. This was reportedly done by either replacing the instrument cluster or using an odometer rollback tool.
The AG alleges that owners and employees of the dealership violated the Indiana Deceptive Consumer Sales Act, the Indiana Odometer Act, the Federal Odometer Act, and the Motor Vehicle Unfair Practices Act. As such, they’re seeking “injunctive relief, consumer restitution, treble damages, civil penalties, costs and other relief.”
For the damages alone, the state is seeking “three times the actual damages or $10,000, whichever is greater, for the benefit of each purchaser.” The state is also seeking a $1,500 civil penalty for each violation of the Indiana Odometer Act and $5,000 for each violation of Ind. Code § 24- 5-0.5-3(a) and (b), which covers deceptive consumer sales as well as unfair, abusive, or deceptive acts.
While that’s just a brief overview of the lawsuit, it sounds like a pretty solid case as the state’s Exhibit A is a “table identifying 216 vehicles KBB Auto Sales sold to specific Indiana consumers, the mileage of each vehicle at the time of acquisition by KBB Auto Sales (“KBB Acquisition Mileage”), the approximate mileage of each vehicle at the time of KBB Auto Sales’ sale of the vehicle to each consumer (“KBB Sale Mileage”), as well as the date of the sale of the vehicle to each consumer (“Date of Sale).”
It remains to see how things will play out in court, but Attorney General Rokita said “These unethical tactics deceive consumers who buy these vehicles with rolled-back odometers. They wind up with higher-mileage cars and trucks with more wear and tear than they thought.” It’s also worth noting low mileage vehicles command higher prices and that’s presumably what the dealer was after.