Need help with car history 1981 eldorado, check the carfax

[cadillacmike68]

when I got the car it needed a great deal of mechanical work, the radiator had brown water in it, the interior is a solid 7 out of 10, the seats are a little dry but clean and complete, no scratches.  The steering wheel is great, but that being said this car was in an accident in 1993, so how extensive was the damage etc.  I believe that a few hundred miles went on the car from 1999 to 2012 because the car was dusty and dirty from sitting when i got it.  The air vents blew dust out of them every time i used the car for the first month or so when i got it.

A car can get all dusty from sitting for only a few months. There's no way it went only 300 miles in 13 year. The engine would have been full of Sludge, EVERY brake line would be leaking, the transmission seals would have let half the ATF out, etc. 

No, it wrapped between 1999 and 2012.

Eric is also correct in that there was most likely a recording error in Georgia when it was entered as 64,000 miles back in the 90s. That error is independent of the wrapping that occurred between 1999 and 2012.

However, there are a Lot of "snowbirds" in OH that drive to FL for the winter every year. That could account for the mileage, in a snow belt state of registration, but probably not.

You didn't state if the steering wheel is leather wrapped or not. If it wasn't, they never show wear. What about the carpets and the pedals?

I think the odometer time limit is 10 years for the feds, so that car is long over anyone caring about the mileage legal requirement.

If you like the car and it runs and drives fine, I would not worry about it.  You could spend a lot of time and effort attempting to track down info & history and in the end, it won't matter.  It's a 37 year old $3500 car.

My 2 cents

David

Many states have more stringent requirements.

I agree you have a solid $6000.00 car! I love these eldo.

The OP's car is not a convertible

[smokuspollutus]

There are too many variables in the usual ways to detect “true” mileage. Brake pedal/seat/steering wheel/carpet wear, stone chips, burnt out bulbs, radio knobs, etc. are all dependent on who used the car and where they used it, not necessarily how far it was driven. They’ll make the distinction between 100,001 miles versus 1, but isn’t worth much outside of tire kicking.We have two scenarios,

1. The car sat (I would assume 13 years of sitting would have came up while talking to the seller, though I doubt it would be such a mechanical mess as a result) and had a shoddy repair performed at some point in it’s life; be it cable replacement, bulb replacement, digital display servicing, or on something else in the dashboard that required the cluster be disturbed.

2. The car didn’t sit, and the cable broke, someone tampered the odometer, or replaced the cluster. If they were careless enough to leave the screws out in re-assembling, I think you’ll be able to tell pretty easily whether or not the cluster was opened, or the cable replaced. If the cluster itself was replaced, a 1981 digital speedometer is a one year only item; fat display segments with no digital MPH/KMPH indicator. Were they careful enough to track that down, Ferris Bueller the mileage to close enough to where it was last reported, and forget to screw it in?

This is not a question that can be answered from an armchair. But, we know you have seen, driven, and inspected the car 100% more than anyone here and feel that it could have sat between 1999-2012. Coupled with no evidence of inspection/registration in that period, I would believe it did just that, and there’s nothing here outside of a reporting flub in 1999. Now, if you remove the cluster and find every screw holding it together stripped and greasy fingerprints on the inside…well, that’s a different story!

[Eric DeVirgilis CLC# 8621]

There's no way it went only 300 miles in 13 year. The engine would have been full of Sludge, EVERY brake line would be leaking, the transmission seals would have let half the ATF out, etc. 

Not correct on the sludge issue. Sludge does not appear out of nowhere simply by a car sitting dormant - even for prolonged periods of time. In fact, I recently saw a car that had been sitting in a non-climate controlled building for 45 years - no sludge.

Cases of prolonged disuse are not that uncommon in older cars either, such as when an owner becomes incapacitated, ill etc but nevertheless will hold onto the car until some point where a decision has to be made.

In the case of the '81 Eldorado here, I freely acknowledge that nobody can really know with absolute certainty what the mileage is - which is pretty much the case of almost any car- at least in theory.

The only point I am attempting to establish is that there is nothing in the vehicle's history report that affirmatively proves the mileage has indeed been tampered with either.

As David King noted above, none of this will really matter in the end. The car is what it is.

[cadillacmike68]

Well, does a single report mean I access all the records? And Carfax shows 14 records where as autocheck shows 19.  The lens for “information center” has been crooked since I got the car, and recently the bulb for the cruise control went out, so went i went to change the bulb, all the screws for the speedometer are missing.......

Perhaps someone Added the digital dash at some point... Who knows. I still do not think it sat for 13 years with only 300 miles. How were the tires? did they rool perfectly, or were they all flat spotted when you first got it?

By the way, FL has no annual inspections so while it was in FL there would have been no carfax or autocheck picked up "records".  That's why there is nothing in either report. I've been here over 20 years and none of my cars ever kicked out a carfax "event" other than first titling them.