Odometer Rollback Is On The Rise

As I get older I tend to not care as much about mileage on a car. I've seen low mileage vehicles that are complete pieces of #### and I've seen vehicles with a couple hundred thousand on them that look amazing. I don't even really care much about receipts or invoices since I never hold onto them for my own vehicle anyways. I can't write it off so why bother cluttering up a desk drawer?

Besides, I could drop a brand new long block into a 15-20 year old pickup and it's not going to change its value in any appreciable amount regardless if I have paperwork for it or not. It's a $2000 vehicle with a worn out engine and it's a $4500 vehicle with a reman long block. And that long block is probably $10k+ if a shop puts it in for you.

 

I wonder if it’s still this way on modern vehicles. Maybe they have some software the driver can configure in the ECM to compensate for different tire sizes without throwing the speedometer/odometer off. Seems like if you go doing that on a semi-truck it could have some business implications if the odometer started recording more or less miles than were actually traveled. Like if you based your IFTA reporting on the odometer rather than an ELD GPS.

 

Some years ago, I went a bit oversized (285's as well...) on our 1998.5 Dodge Cummins; we took it into the dealer and they calibrated the odometer/speedometer to regain accurate readings...

 

Phone ELD's in semi trucks?

Guys running paper logs on 3406's?

What is old is new again.

 

Yep. In the ECM it’s named “speed calibration”. No joke.

 

Yep, gear changes require software changes since about 2018 I believe. For semi's

 

You’d also have to do that if you dropped down to 255/70 drive rubber from 295/75?