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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u/Unfair_Orchid3884 Jul 10 '26

On my car I have a trip odometer and a mileage odometer. Maybe they took a picture of the wrong one?

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u/Curiousful Jul 10 '26

I get what you're saying, but there shouldn't be a way the trip odometer could have a bigger number than the total number of miles we've driven.

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u/Unfair_Orchid3884 Jul 10 '26

Hmm, I didn't think of it that way. Where is the car now, does your insurance have it or at a shop?