I Ran A Carfax On A Vehicle That Im Interested In And Noticed There Was An 'odometer Rollback' Problem And That The Actual Mileage Is UnkNown.

Yet, When I Saw The Car Which Was A 2004 Z06 Vette, The Odomter Worked Fine And Showed A Reading Of 31,000 Miles.

Out Of Curiosity, Isnt It Impossible To Change The Odometer On These Digital Corvette Clusters???

Wouldnt They Actually Have To Switch Computers Or Something In That Range??

 

very well could be an error on carfax's part or an error and typo from the dmv paperwork or a dlr employee at a carfax reporting dlrs service dept. this happens alot lately. you can do some research and get to the bottom of it pretty easy. canadian cars have this happen too when braught to the states and the odo is changed from kilometers to miles. reflects a higher number, than lower when changed.

 

First - CarFax is unreliable, at best.

On my '99 the CarFax shows two issues on mileage - someone when inputting the odometer reading 'fat fingered' them. My actual mileage (to date) is 14,000+, but on the CarFax there are two reports from 3-4 years ago showing 18,000+

Next - the odometer cannot be 'rolled back', but can be re- flashed with different readings.

 

Same here... we have a mileage inconsistancy on our carfax report. I can't remember exactly - but we figured you'd have to drive 24 hours a day for a full year to rack up that many miles between the two registrations. No way..... fat fingers and not paying attention to data entry or something.

 

Posting KM's instead of miles is a fairly common error - if you can multiply the questionable entry by 0.6 and come up with miles that are reasonable for the time period in question, that's probably what happened.

Or, as others have said, fat fingers at the DMV...

 

Had "almost" the same issue with mine. (Bought it in Houston, TX.) Someone accidentaly switched the program and the milage was recorded im kilometers. When I converted it to miles it worked out.

 

But to answer your question, No. You can "rollback" the mileage in a Vette, by changing it with a gauge cluster that has less mileage.

 

I highly doupt it's impossible but have no first hand evidence. In Quebec they don't track milage on vehicles. You can pay $300-$400 and get almost any vehicle rolled back. There's guys that do it for a living. It's quite common to see Quebec cars being sold in this area of Ontario. Heck, they even come in from the US through Montreal.

You can get a pretty good vehicle history in Ontario if you take the VIN to the DVM and pay $10. I know I would never buy a used vehicle that came from Quebec.

Peter

 

There is a computer that anyone can buy (7500 bucks) that can be used to roll back milage on any car.

 

Yep! There's guys that do it for a living pretty much everywhere - I heard of a certain local celebrity who turned his Ferrari back in when his lease was expired, and had his mileage turned back, as he was considerably over what was allowed.... Apparently, these guys have the technology to do just about any car out there, without leaving any "footprints"... they specialize in lease returns, when the lessee is over on the allowed mileage, so they save on the mileage penalty... they charge according to the type of car etc....

 

Just another thought - if I were going to alter the mileage on an '04 Z06, it sure as hell wouldn't be showing 31K...

 

, and carfax can not be trusted 100%

 

I don't think so.

 

I just installed my cluster paint project bezel and related components. I have 2 clusters, my original, and my project setup. All I had to do is switch the electronics from one cluster setup to the other...takes about 20 minutes once they are both on the bench. I kept my original mileage because I am honest, however, it would have been very easy to just use the project electronics (the white plastic piece on the back of the cluster) at lower mileage. It cost me $50 on eGay for the entire cluster ....that's the outer bezel, the clear lens, the cluster itself, and the electronics. So, in short, it is very easy and cheap to do...as long as you find a cluster with fewer miles than your car.

 

Carfax simply reported the wrong mileage, but it wasn't their fault. We have owned our Monte Carlo since 1993, and it seems our inspection station kept keying in the wrong numbers, dropping the 100,000 part of the number, even though it is clearly displayed on the odometer. It's been parked since 2004, but I am rebuilding it now. I ran a Carfax just for the heck of it while I was looking for my Corvette. Here it is as follows.


Date: Mileage: Source: Comments:
08/15/1986 Texas
Motor Vehicle Dept.
Tyler, TX
Title #13021473 Title or registration issued
Loan or lien reported
01/25/1992 63,181 Georgia
Inspection Station
Atlanta, GA Passed emissions inspection
02/11/1998 109,242 Georgia
Inspection Station Passed emissions inspection
02/16/2000 124,439 Georgia
Inspection Station Failed emissions inspection
03/02/2000 Georgia
Inspection Station Passed emissions inspection
02/08/2001 31,516 Georgia
Inspection Station Passed emissions inspection
POTENTIAL ODOMETER ROLLBACK

CARFAX AdvisorTM
CARFAX analyzed the mileage history and the sources of this information. Our analysis indicates a potential odometer rollback. Please verify the mileage with your dealer or a qualified mechanic.

02/15/2002 38,468 Georgia
Inspection Station Passed emissions inspection
02/19/2003 48,967 Georgia
Inspection Station Passed emissions inspection
02/04/2004 55,363 Georgia
Inspection Station Passed emissions inspection
07/23/2004 Georgia
Motor Vehicle Dept.
Cumming, GA
Title #000000026293500 Registration issued or renewed
Loan or lien reported

 

Happened to me. Someone at the DMV put in an extra digit into the odometer reading before I got the car. The mileage was off by over 100K miles, even though the car looks new inside and out. Now I have to explain this error to any potential buyer down the road (which will not be likely since I'll be keeping her)..

 

You can bet whoever designed the digital odometer knows how to reset it and if they do, someone else does as well.

 

Realize old thread but just had this happen to a member that was about to buy an '03 coupe. Good thing he caught it before he sent the money to the seller.

 

i didn't realize c5's were so easy to manipulate mileage. the two most common cars to alter mileage in that i'm aware of are the 90s jeep cherokee and 90s honda/acura. with both it's literally a cluster swap and lower mileage units are everywhere in junkyards.

knowing about how this works is probably one of the reasons i'm such a stickler on leakdown tests when buying older used cars. at least this way if i get lied to on mileage i still know the vehicle wasn't abused or driven enough to cause any substantial wear in the engine.