Clocking a car, or turning back the mileage of a car, is illegal in Spain as well as in the UK. In Spain it is a very serious offence and will be investigated both by the Guardia Civil and Traffico.
If you suspect you have bought a clocked car, you need to take into to a main dealer. So for instance if your car is an Opel, you need to take it to your nearest Opel main dealer. The main dealer will plug in their lap top to the car’s on board computer, and find out the true mileage. Once the true mileage has been ascertained you will receive a print out which you must keep safe. This is very important.
What to do next
The next thing you need to do is to visit the second hand car dealer, you bought the car from. The dealer should have a complaints book which you need to fill out. It can be filled out in English or Spanish. Tear out a copy of the complaints form and take it away with you.
After you have visited the dealer you need to go to the Guardia Civil and make a Denuncia. This will give you a crime number, and the Guardia take this type of crimes very seriously.
They will start to investigate the matter and the details will be passed onto Traffico. The dealer will be contacted, and fined. The fines are very steep, and can amount up to 1€ per kilometre.
After filing the Denuncia with the Guardia Civil you need to visit OMIC will all the information you have available. A complaint will be filed, and the matter is quickly investigated.
What happens now?
Both the Guardia Civil and OMIC take this type offence extremely seriously. It happened to me, and I had my problem resolved within two weeks.
The response was very quick, and everything was dealt with very professionally. At the end of the two weeks I was allowed to keep the car, but the dealer had to refund the total purchase price to me. They were also forced to pay a car repair bill for a serious fault on the car.
If it happens to you, you should certainly take the matter further.