Is there away to know if the distance on the odometer had been altered or reduced from the car computer? I know you can check it from the carfax,but I intend to buy a European prius that has has no records.
Typically odometer reading is stored in multiple computers through the car, not just the ecu & gauges; could be light module, could be transmission controller, every manufacturer uses different methods/locations. A computer with adequate software can change the reading without any traces meaning that only visual inspection will give you an approximate miles on the car. Problem is, just like with women, you can find one with high mileage that looks like it's new and vice versa. Good luck.
when the digital odo was phased in we were told it was impossible to tamper with. turns out to be the opposite. same with smart keys. BTW, toyota is very easy to roll down miles/km, GM, not so much.
I bought my 2015 Prius from a used car dealer. It had 19k miles on it. The first thing I did was take it to a shop to get a catalytic converter shield installed. I asked them to look it over, since I had just bought it. The guy says, "I don't think your car has 19k miles on it..." As alluded to earlier, a visual inspection reveled that the brakes had way more wear than one would expect to see on a hybrid vehicle with regenerative braking. His estimate based on brake wear was 80-90k miles. They hooked it up to their computer and spent quite some time poking around. The only concrete finding was "Travel Mileage After Battery Removed" showing >40k miles. In my case, someone must have reset the odometer at least twice, or perhaps they just dialed in whatever they wanted using their software.
no. yes. both. no= if the odometer is changed no you can't find it just by looking at the onboard computer. see voting machines, smartphones, obd dongles etc yes= if there are outside records of services, insurance write offs, OEM service records etc then yes you can compare the current recorded milage vs what the OEM/issuance says. both= sometimes you'll find a car that has very low milage , the insurance/OEM vin checks agree, but the body and wear surfaces say it's lying. this is probably a vin swapped body. long distance, high commitment sales are a gamble. I've seen cars flipped on fb market (dealers and private sellers) that went from 270k miles to 80k miles in less than a day.
Interesting... I wonder why they didn't bother to mention how these people are tampering with the odometer, especially given that the one they showed is digital. Also, what are the repercussions if they did it on cars less than 10 years old?
1 plug in OBD2 dongle, change milage, clear codes, resell for 2-4k more profit 2 well, first there would have to find a da that cared (politically motivated) enough to prosecute whoever rolled it back. of course, any car lot would blame their mechanic and say "I didn't know that undocumented alien was an undocumented alien or that he was rolling odometers back with my equipment on the side, after business hours" I've caught several privates sellers on my local fb marketplace that went from 275k to 92k (or similar) in less than a day. they're so lazy that they don't even take new pictures for the ad, forget about them paying tax... they're selling cars with "open titles" . it's sleazy, sleazy, sleazy, but an easy profit for them, so it happens
the last one was a nice looking Highlander that dropped from 270k to 95k miles or so, same pictures. when I contacted the original seller, he said "that guy told me he was buying it for someone at his church so I gave him a really good deal. I guess the good deal wasn't enough, he rolled it back and listed it for $3k more than my original price" the new flipper/seller had 30+ vehicle sales... all low milage
Wow... Is it correct to assume that CPO cars from proper dealerships are much less likely to have tampered odometers?
