Autocriminalist Shelkov named three signs of a taxi when buying a used car

For taxi work, cars that have been restored after serious accidents are often used, and their operation is associated with total savings on maintenance and underestimation of mileage. Maxim Shelkov, head of the Autocriminalist expert center, told Motor magazine about this.

“Economy and Comfort class taxis carry many cars restored after accidents, which were obviously bought at a lower price than the market price. It is quite possible that they do not have airbags. Such machines are often poorly maintained, non-original and low-quality parts and consumables are used for them, and in order to save money, service intervals are increased,” Shelkov listed.

According to him, the main sign that the car was used for taxi transportation is the presence of the car’s license plate number in the “Register of Passenger Taxi”. This parameter can be checked against a publicly available database. It is also an alarming sign if the car put up for sale was owned by a legal entity and the car has no service history or dealer maintenance marks.

“In premium-segment cars, in order to hide the mileage, special chips are often installed, so-called stop filters, which simply “freeze” the odometer readings. The car drives, but the mileage doesn’t increase,” Shelkov knows.

The presence of such a “stop filter” or traces of its installation can only be detected during computer diagnostics of the car, the expert clarified.

Earlier, the Russians were told about the critical problems with the Geely Monjaro’s mileage.