Odometer Rollback Scandal

Ferrari uses device to roll back mileage, salesman accuses | Daily Mail Online

 

Part of that is poorly written and researched and I hope does not reflect the content of the actual suit. Having the equipment to change the reading of an odometer is not only common and legal, it is in fact required by law in many cases. It is how you use it that can be legally problematic.

 

Bud Root is highly regarded by the local Ferrari crowd. I was wondering why he was let go--and rehired. Now I guess I know why.

 

Just saw this too. Hopefully this proves to not be true or Ferrari will have a big problem with a class action lawsuit to deal with and bad reputation for the brand. I'm guessing the whistle blower is just upset that he lost his job over his GM's now wife.

 

Your answer is a bit cryptic. Do you mean to say it's okay to use the device to restore known mileage to a repaired chip or LCD readout, but not okay to roll back the miles?

For operators of the DEIS tester, I think Karate Kyle (not Spiderman's uncle Ben) says it best:
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From that article it is not clear if the odometer rollback was sanctioned by Ferrari corporate and the dealership, or if it was a rogue effort by a dishonest mechanic. It appears to be the latter since other techs apparently blew the whistle.

Also, I bet anything that Root isn't as innocent with regards to participating in the rollback and the fraudulent sales tax evasion.

 

If it's true, it's not just Ferrari that has trouble. Every Ferrari owner's F cars will now be suspect.

If its true, and maybe even if it's not, Ferrari may need to provide some kind of certification service to its owners that can prove that their particular cars have not been rolled back.

Whatever the merit of this, I hope Ferrari realizes this is a problem for its customers and that they need to get out in front of it, pronto.

 

I ordered an F12 through Bud. After waiting for months, I was contacted out of the blue by a very nice young woman, Noelle, who seemed to me to be new to the ordering process. My order was a bit complex, and I've had issues with a prior order, so I cancelled. Now, I get it. Fascinating.

 

I have to disagree. As described well here the problem is systemic.

Bottom line is indeed it was authorized by Ferrari Italy and remains their responsibility to ensure what they are authoring is legal and ethical. Thats the whole reason such an authorization process exists. It does beg the question how many other times has this been done. Ferrari should have to make this public. Rolling back odometers is highly illegal.

http://jalopnik.com/ferrari-accused-of-allowing-illegal-odometer-rollbacks-1792798588

 

Having just dealt with my own "fake news story" in the last 6 months I'm not going to say this is a real problem or not.

I just say "accused" and "alleged" do not mean anyone did anything wrong. It's a claim. It could be true and it could be false.

That being said it should be investigated and if it turns out true, it's pretty despicable to screw the next owner at the benefit of the first.

But that's IF it happened. I'm not convinced.

NOW --- the "out of state registration" one could really come back to hurt the dealer if true. That has nothing to do with FNA either. But if the dealer knew the out of state registration was fraud and went with it, that's a big problem. The question is "IF". In fact it may not be fraud at all.

 

That would be my argument that it's not true. Where's the benefit to Ferrari? I don't see one.

To the dealer I see a higher profit. But it means nothing back home. And, if they have to approve it, why would they if there's no upside?

Lastly, a few hundred extra miles on a LaFerrari would not make its value change much --- certainly not $1M. But change it to ZERO? First that would easy to find out if it was tampered and second no new Ferrari comes with zero miles. SO, the article has some obvious errors.

 

I don't think its some scam involving ferrari just that they made the situation possible and apparently didn't have apropriate oversight. I'd guess there haven't been many odometer roll backs but it would be interesting to know the actual numbers.

 

This article makes no sense.

Here is what is alleged happened.

Root (the sales guy) finds out there's a way to roll back an odometer but it takes Ferrari's Spa's permission by an internet connection. (I'm not even sure this is true or as easy as it sounds but let's roll with it)

Root tells the ex head of Sara Lee (LaFerrari owner) about it but says "be weary of low mileage cars" because of it. So, he's implying it's being done already? How does he know?

The LaFerrari owner then is supposed to have asked a mechanic to do the procedure and he'll pay him cash. (Ok... so how does he convince Ferrari to go along???)

Then later the car comes in for service and some other techs spot the different numbers (which would easily appear in the car's service records). The techs then say ROOT is the guy who did it.

Then Root is fired but he claims it's because of age discrimination. But, he alleges in his age discrimination law suit he knows all this stuff the dealer is doing. (Ok... WHY? What does age discrimination have to do with rollbacks? Or is he actually using blackmail against the dealer?)

Then Root files another lawsuit against the LaFerrari owner for his asking the mechanic to do a rollback. Why?

Does any of this make sense? It doesn't to me.

 

No idea when or why it's ever allowable by the factory to roll back the odometer. Is there any possibility that Ferrari acknowledges that at this million-dollar level of car, any extra mile detracts value, so miles accrued by service techs who test-drive after service/repairs are allowed to erase those miles? Then unscrupulous techs take it too far?

Zeroing miles at the dealership means there may be a dozen or less on the odometer when the car gets back home, which I imagine is mouthwatering to future buyers.

 

Roll back? No. But set an odometer I can see if it's defective. So I can see a mechanism to do it. In fact, all cars have to have this ability. Its the falsification bit that needs to be explained if it happened at all.

Don't tell me someone somewhere isn't going to see that suddenly a car's complete records are changed overnight and everyone is going to look the other way. I don't buy it.

 

I wonder how the odometer roll back affects the ECU. Does it wipe out any data from before the rollback? How does it record engine events at certain mileages (unless it's based on date)?

 

It's very easy to see how you could bring the car in and say it needs service to part "X" which would conveniently involve the odometer to be fiddled with. People have all sorts of scams to get warranty or insurance to pay for stuff and for something as lucrative as this it seems unsurprising that would be a nice payoff for a mechanic willing to play along. I don't think we are talking a roll back from 10k miles back to zero, but just a little nudge because 7 miles looks a lot better than 700. It's just a little nip tuck on Taylor Swift to keep everything fresh, not like a Jocelyn Wildenstein job.

And why shouldn't Ferrari play along? If being low miles drives the price of a LaFerrari on the resale market up by another $1 million then it helps drive the demand for the next "must have" super car and the mystique of the brand that makes cars that only go up in price.

I bet there are folks on this board who could post about their own experiences with this sort of thing if given an anonymous account... Nobody is going to talk about it publicly here any more than you would about being balls deep in your kids nanny at the PTA meeting

 

Sounds crazy seems like it would pop an immediate red flag on car fax which would be a bigger issue.
I know BUD root and visit him every month just to say hello he seems to be a real Ferrari enthusiast I even saw him at cavalino last year and we were discussion an old 250 series Ferrari forget which one but he knew finite details on these old cars .. and is quite knowledgeable of the new ones of course he seems like a straight up guy to me..
I do not deal with Ferrari of palm beach as it is not my dealer .. There must be a LOT more to this story..sounds very strange...

 

The beginning and the end.

Matt

 

Bud seems to me to have invested most of his adult life in Ferrari and, in my limited experience with him, seemed to care a great deal about the marque. I liked him. I suspect many here would speak highly of him.

I can only speak to one of Bud's allegations - that his clients were handed over to someone claimed to be the GM's girlfriend. That's exactly what happened to me. I ordered an F12. Bud suddenly disappeared, and out of the blue I was contacted by someone who seemed to have no experience with orders. I wasn't happy about that; it felt extremely unprofessional. I cancelled my F12 order.

I agree with Rob and others that it makes absolutely no sense for the factory to roll back odometers.

 

There's really no reason to be able to control the odometer outside of the factory IMO. Nothing good can come from it. All it does is subject someone to fraud.

Even if you have a new engine, I'd consider it misleading to reset the odometer because the other 99% of the car has a lot more miles than the engine.

What possible reason could there be for setting the odometer back?

 

There could be legitimate reasons to "set" the mileage on cars such as replacing a bad gauge. And I could see why Ferrari would want to control that process. I can also see how it would be tempting to abuse the system. But it should also be easy to spot any difference since they record the mileage every time the car is in for service.

Not sure how people think they can get away with stuff like this but I'd also be willing to bet it happens more than people want to admit.

 

Please explain to me why this guy is suing the owner of the car in question.

It makes no sense at all!