Let me begin by saying I know I am in a bad spot with the car and that it may not be worth as much as I paid or anything at all. I am okay accepting that fact but I want to know if there are any other possible ways to fix some of the problems with the car before I assume the $5000 loss and scrap it at a junkyard.

I purchased a 2006 Honda CR-V for $5000 from a private seller and don’t know the next steps for seeing if it I am a case of odometer fraud or if the Carfax is incorrect or what I am supposed to do from here.

TDLR at the bottom is a good quick summary as the details are confusing.

I purchased the car before purchasing the CarFax report on the car.

I purchased it from a private party in good faith that the mileage was correct and it had not been tampered with. I probably would not have even bothered to check the CarFax if I was able to register it through the DMV section of AAA insurance.

I have thorough records of the first owner's paperwork and from the time they purchased the car in 2006 to the time, they had it last serviced on 8/30/2011 at 72,862 before that had sold it in 2011 which is reasonable.

After 8/30/2011, I have no physical records of any service on the car until 7/21/2016 where the Certified Smog Report puts the odometer at 116,342.

The car fax report says that from 10/25/2011 when it had 75,439 miles on it, the next owner then got it serviced again at 161,018 miles on 3/17/2014. Therefore, in 2 years and 5 months they put 85,579 miles on it, which is about 35,600 miles per year on average, which seems suspiciously high but not completely impossible I guess. So like an average of 100 miles per day for 2 years and 5 months. I am not sure about that part.

Then after that, the next CarFax record of it is on 1/12/2015 where it had 196,959 and then on top of that the next time that it was serviced there was another discrepancy where the mileage was 191,958.

I don’t know if the Smog Test that I have is somehow falsified or if some of the CarFax information is inputted incorrectly or if I have a third option that I am not seeing.

The most recent owner also registered the car at 72000 miles when he registered it last month on 7/22/2016 with the DMV. Which is completely nonsensical.

The car currently has the plates that it says on the registration from the DMV from 7/22/16, which do not match the plates from the smog certificate from 7/21/16.

On the title the owner did not say the car had the odometer tampered with and that he would be under “penalty under the laws of the State of California” if the information is not correct.

The owner is probably long gone because he was able to get the cash and run. I have no idea who to call or what to do from here to even try to not be out the $5000 that I have saved up trying to buy a car.

TDLR: From my knowledge, the car I bought for $5000 goes from 0-72,862 from 2006 to 2011 then jumps to 116,342 when the seller got it smogged on 7/21/2016. However, from what the Carfax says, it has multiple reports from multiple owners of it being past 116,342 and I might have paid for a car that had the odometer tampered with. What do I do from here from a legal standpoint?