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Nearly 700,000 cars on British roads are driving around with a lower mileage than a year ago - that's according to official figures obtained by ´óÏó´«Ã½ Wales' X-Ray consumer programme.

It's been investigating the issue of car-clocking and the involvement of so-called mileage correction firms.

Tonight's X-Ray goes undercover to film at two of the firms to see if they're willing to wind back the clock on the programme's cars, even when they're told the vehicles will then be sold.

Mileage correction firms advertise freely on the internet. They say they're there to help motorists who need to replace or reset broken or faulty mileometers. Using specialist computers, the companies claim to be able to re-programme and adjust the mileage on virtually every make of car.

Gareth Rees talks to Rachel

Gareth Rees, an independent vehicle inspector with more than 30 years' experience, said many doubted the need for so many of the firms.

"There's no genuine reason why they should exist," he said. "Modern dashboards rarely go wrong and the only legitimate reason for them to exist is to actually rectify faulty speedometers."

X-Ray found eight mileage correction firms in Wales. It contacted them all and told them it wanted to wind back the mileage on a car before selling it. Three refused, but the other five appeared ready to do the work.

The programme then secretly filmed at two of the companies, taking a different car to each. Between them, they were asked to take a total of 50,000 miles off the clocks of the two cars.

Both garages, Secure-wise in Cwmbran and Rollingmotion in Caerphilly, agreed to change the mileage, even though they were told that the cars would then be sold.

Secure-wise told the programme that it wasn't a problem as long as we didn't guarantee for any future buyer of the car that the mileage shown was genuine.

They said there were lots of cars on the road with the wrong mileage on them, and refused to give a receipt for the work because they didn't want to leave a "paper-work trail." The company has not commented on the claims.

After doing the work, the other company, Rollingmotion, asked X-Ray to sign a disclaimer explaining why the work needed to be done.

The firm, which has now stopped advertising mileage correction on its website, say they acted in good faith, as they'd been led to believe the mileage was incorrect for the reasons set out in the disclaimer.

Gabriel O'Connell, from Brynmawr, is a victim of car-clocking. He travelled to Birmingham and spent £3,500 buying what he thought was a bargain - a 10-year-old Audi A3. He had second thoughts, though, when he got home.

"I paid £30 and had an HPI check on the car," he said. "I found out the car was showing a lot more mileage than 97,000 and had been clocked twice.

"We worked it out that the car had roughly done 297,000 miles, which is the distance from south Wales to the moon."

Last year The Office of Fair Trading carried out a survey of the second-hand car market last year and found 50 mileage correction firms around Britain.

"We have a strong suspicion that many of these companies adjust mileages for illegitimate reasons," the OFT reported. It said it would like to see them either banned or regulated.