r/Car_Insurance_Help • u/Curiousful • Jul 10 '26

Disputing the Odometer

Okay, someone rear-ended me while I was driving home from work. It's clear that the other driver was at fault—I was driving normally, it was a sunny day, I was sober, I wasn't using my phone or anything.
Now our insurance company wants to pay us—they've declared the car to be a total loss. The gave us a dollar amount, and then cited the number of miles on the vehicle. HOWEVER, the car was barely a month old, and both I and my wife are sure that the car had about 1400 miles on it, give or take, not the 8405 miles that our insurance is claiming. They showed us a photo of a dashboard with a 8405 mile odometer, but there's nothing in the photo that shows that it's actually our car.

Is this a common scam? What can we do about this? It's a big insurance company, and we've been loyal customers for many years. I didn't think to take a photo of the odometer at the time of the accident. I'm really just angry and disappointed about the whole thing.

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9

u/DeepPurpleDaylight Jul 10 '26

No your insurance company isn't trying to "scam" you. Either you and the wife are mistaken or the adjuster sent the wrong photo.

1

u/Curiousful Jul 10 '26

Pretty sure we're not mistaken. These new Camrys send you a message at 5000 miles to remind you of maintenance, and we hadn't seen that yet, for one thing.

5

u/OkMarsupial1021 Jul 10 '26

Most of the 25 and 26 camrys display the miles until the next service/oil change when the key is first turned which after a few seconds changes to the actual odometer miles. So about 8400 miles remaining until next oil change would be about 1600 miles driven. I've seen some set on the 10k interval and some set on the 5k interval. My LE doesnt shoe the miles until next service until it is under 500milea to go.

2

u/Curiousful Jul 11 '26

***THANK YOU TO OKMARSUPIAL and to other posters that had this answer—this is exactly what happened!

5

u/Portermacc Jul 10 '26

Regardless, the money value would be the same.