craig_vette

Since I'm in the market for a C5 FRC, I'm just curious if any of you have ran into this problem and how prevalent you think it is. I watched a Youtube video last week about it and now it's like I see red flags everywhere. I'm not sure if it's over analysis on my part or justified.


I appreciate your honest feedback.

Thanks,
Craig

jcgunn

I don't see it as a problem when buying a C5. The cars are all more than ten years old. There is just not a lot of money in rolling back the clock on a car that old. Now taking a 2015 C7 from 66K to 2K is another story...

roadbike56

If you believe the guy in the video, then my former C5 would be categorized as a rollback, but it wasn't. It was somebody else's daily driver that I bought. I only drove it for less than 2K each year I owned it for 3 1/2 years. I was in a high travel job, drove a beater jeep to the airport, came home, and drove the Corvette if I wanted to and if the weather was nice. People do not conform to his mold, especially with high powered, expensive sports cars. Some folks buy them, put them in a garage. While the 300 miles a year seems low, it happens. Also, consider that unless you roll back a C5 a ton of miles, it doesn't make much difference. A nice car with 30K will sell for about the same as a car with 50K. Maybe if you have a 80K car and roll it back to 30K, but that's a big risk because the wear and tear will show on a 80K car. And how much would someone gain, maybe $3K or $4K. BTW, in many states it's fraud and a felony if you get caught rolling back an odometer.

Tusc

From a technical perspective, it is virtually impossible to effectively roll the odometer on these cars.

You could change the cluster out though, and the new one would read the miles of whatever it came out of, but the odometer info is also stored elsewhere and a gm tech would flag this quickly when serviced.

Likewise, it appears that you must go to gm if ever you need a new odometer. They flash the odometer when new and no one appears to be able to modify them after that.

Seems like the general risk of rollback on these cars is low.

And yes... Sadly, some owners never drive or use their cars. Lots of garage ornaments out there.

zachaeous

I know from experience that a new cluster is not available from GM. The local Chevy dealer had to send my cluster in and it came back unrepairable. I purchased a cluster off ebay and installed that in the car. I made a note of the original miles on the cluster when removed and the miles on the replacement cluster and put that info in in the records for my car.

I am not going to try to fool any one when and if I sell my c5. I have every record from day one on the car with mileage recorded.

It is possible to turn back the odometers on these cars, because the place that repairs the clusters, if they have an exchange, sets the mileage of the original odometer on the replacement cluster. In my case they did not have an exchange and therefore had to try and repair my original.

There is a video on YouTube showing a person changing a Lexus digital readout odometer to match the miles on his car. It would be the same for the c5 if anyone wanted to do it, I do believe.

10 year old cars in my state are exempt from reporting mileage as well as the neighboring state where I purchased the car from.

If something is made someone else will figure how to beat it if there is a need.

The best defense is still a good pre-purchase inspection of the vehicle even if you have to pay a professional to do it.

Good luck with purchase.

Phanni

Exactly!

You could get a cluster out of a wrecked car with lower mileage, however.

Vetteman Jack

Just my opinion, but I do not think odometer tampering is that big of a problem with the C5. Not much really to be gained from it. When looking at a potential car to buy, just see what records are available and match them up with the mileage on the car.

laurent_zo6

It's a Federal offense (felony) http://www.justice.gov/civil/case/fe...ering-statutes

More common is the scam of putting the VIN of one car on another.

1Willy1

guys the reality is you can roll back a car so easy its shocking

there are companies that do it legally for $100 or less, as they call it "odometer correction"

Like if you bought a used cluster and wanted to have the mileage "corrected" to match your cars real mileage, but of course it can be used by anyone and have your mileage read anything you want.

yes its easy, yes its cheap, and yes its something to keep an eye out for.

1Willy1

http://www.ebay.com/bhp/odometer-correction

Here you go , just a few examples

You can even buy the electronic tool to do it for only a couple hundred bucks , the law isn't doing anything about it, even on my Lexus forum we have vendors offering the rollback, oops I mean "odometer correction" service in public forums

dadaroo

Mr. Sam