The Director of Consumer Affairs has announced new measures to tackle car clocking, writes Patrick Logue.
The Director of Consumer Affairs, Ann Fitzgerald, has vowed to stamp out the practice of car clocking and warned dealers they face closure if they are caught engaging in it.
In a new get-tough policy, Fitzgerald has set up a taskforce and called for "major new legislation" and said resources will be redirected to increase on-the-spot inspections of forecourts. "We can also - and we will be doing this - withdraw a consumer credit licence from a trader who has been convicted of car clocking so they cannot arrange finance, which means they're out of business really.
"For a garage person to do this has huge implications for their future career," she told The Irish Times.
She has asked that the new legislation allow greater sharing of information with other state agencies such as the Revenue Commissioners, Garda and the Department of Transport.
The extent of clocking - where the odometer is changed to a reduced number of kilometres to inflate the price of the vehicle - is unknown.
However some estimates say as many as one-in-five used cars is clocked. "It's a much bigger problem than is realised in the Republic," she added.
Fitzgerald, who was recently appointed Director of Consumer Affairs in the run-up to the establishment of the National Consumer Agency (NCA) early next year, has set up the seven-member task force to report on the issue early next year. She believes motorists who have been victims of clocking must also come forward to her office more readily.
"I want to wipe this out. But we need consumers who have been stung to come to us and enable us to sort it out. Consumers should be very aware when buying a second-hand car."
The ODCA is to bring out a booklet in January advising potential buyers of second-hand cars of the possible pitfalls, including clocking. The task force has already met and "has done a lot of work". It will issue a report in February.
She added that any new legislation should mention clocking specifically and make clocking itself an offence for an individual. At the moment prosecutions can only be applied to companies.
"There is an issue around individual consumers who clock their own cars, if you like. At the moment legislation does not protect somebody who buys a clocked car from a consumer."
Cyril McHugh of the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) said he met Ms Fitzgerald on Monday and was "delighted that she is going to take action. It is not in the motor industry's interest that this goes on."
He said that an estimated 100,000 cars are "sold on the side of the road every year and a significant proportion of them are clocked." He said the SIMI was in discussions with UK firm Experian to provide a car history checker to it members.
The Garda's role in detecting clocked cars has been to react to complaints rather than specifically root out offenders. Finbar Garland of the Garda Stolen Vehicle section said: "It's a difficult one to prove because there is no actual offence of clocking but of selling a car knowing that it has been clocked. It is usually up to the local Garda station to handle," Garland said.
"It should be an offence to interfere with a clock on a car," he added.
The OCDA is currently pursuing 24 cases against car sellers in the Republic in relation to alleged clocking offences. A car dealer in Rathmines, Dublin, was recently fined €400 and had to pay expenses to the tune of €1,100 for selling a clocked car. Since 2005, however, a maximum fine of €3,000 can be imposed. In the North, the fines is £5,000 (€7,420).
"We had a chap a couple of months ago fined £25,000 (€37,000) for clocking vans," explained David Livingstone, head of the Trading Standards Service of Northern Ireland.
"Clocking is an ongoing problem . . . but I think it is pretty much restricted up here to the fringes of the car trade and you don't tend to get it in the larger traditional retail outlets."