Electronic odometer

Any dealer that sells a car has to specify the mileage on some form. If the odometer reads a lot different than that, to heck with the 'Peaple's Court', go to a real court. There have been laws about odometer tampering for years. If the 'dealer' took it in trade, there should be several ways to find out what the mileage was when the dealer got it.

Can you spell 'fraud'??

daestrom

I know about two models from experience. In the mid-80s Chrysler digital instrument cluster, the odometer reading is stored in a memory chip on the back of the cluster. There is a factory tool to remove the chip so that it can be installed in a replacement cluster. I suppose a dishonest dealer who had a matching low mileage chip could swap them to sell the car, then put the correct high mileage chip back in for delivery. It's risky but possible if the paperwork matches the car and the buyer doesn't read carefully. After that, it becomes a case of whose word you believe.

When the dealer replaced the cluster in my 2004 Chevy pickup last spring, it took two days since they had to send the mileage and hours to a factory shop that programmed the new cluster then shipped it to the dealer by overnight express. I presume this is a more tamper-proof design, and the right security codes must be sent to the cluster before it accepts any overwrite commands to stored data.

Mike

Its possible (but not likely) that the odometer may have switched between one of several trip counters and cumulative miles. I don't think its likely, since I don't know too many people who would let a trip odometer accumulate 30K without ever resetting it.