Why do dealerships lose/destroy vehicle records?

[Evan]

They don't want anything incriminating showing up. More importantly, most people don't care about a service history. They'd trust a mechanic looking at it more. That's why every dealer has an 11,000 point presale checkup.

There are a ton of other reasons...
-takes too long to deal with
-people can fake that shit (then someone can claim false advertising)
-does that affect value?
etc.

+1

If there are service records, and conversely lack-of-service records, a customer could try to hold the dealership to those records so it becomes a liability.