help explaining hour meter read - 23,465 hrs

[z0lt3c]

Hi Guys-
Looking for some help, I picked up a 2003 Escalade AWD today from a private party. Had it checked out by a local dealership... also the present owner knew the former owner had a decent stack of service paper work on the vehicle since new. It has 80,200 miles on it with a clean carfax and autocheck and service receipts to match. However, not much mileage was put on in the past 3 years, and it's been stored outdoors, in NJ it's whole life, and used by a family with three kids, so it has some wear and tear.

Everything checked out OK, it was priced right for the condition IMO, so we did the deal and I am driving home today and I realize I never checked out the hour meter. Low and behold it's sitting at 23,465 hours (not a typo). I am not quite sure what to make out of this, obvious it is not anywhere near the expected value given the milage on the odometer (~2650). Even if you apply the 30 mph rule, it still equates to almost 700K miles.

I don't know if I just got sold a truck with rolled back odometer or if maybe there is just some problem with the hour meter. Really the only plausible explanation is that he rolled back the odometer and meant to set the hour meter to 2346.5 and got the decimal point in the wrong place??? Did I just get screwed?

Thanks,
Z

 

[rockenthebowtie]

Don't think you got screwed chances are he had the cluster replaced and in doing so the mileage and the hours need to be programed into the new cluster by a technician and he type 0'd the wrong hours

 

[z0lt3c]

I took it to my local Chevrolet dealer today, a different dealer then did the PPI. They discovered in the warranty history that the vehicle had it's instrument cluster replaced, under warranty around 60,000 miles by a Buick dealer in PA. This means they would have had to recode the mileage and hours into the new cluster and could explain when the mistake was introduced. They also said there was an odd "gauge scan" performed after the cluster is installed which is not typical given the standard R&R procedure.

I guess I feel a little better, the seller swears he didn't roll anything back and I believe the guy. We did the deal in the front yard of his house while his kids watched and the truck was actually in his wife's name. Not the typical setup for odometer fraud.