rolling back odometers isnt cool

I would be surprised if they didn't have to. At a minimum, it would have to be reported under the car's VIN records for protection for future consumers.

 

The systems that were in other brand mainstream cars, could not be reset to zero using the cabin controls after a certain milage, usually around 200. It was to facilitate dealers moving cars around after delivery, trading and delivering them to other dealers etc.

I remember seeing a 1996 Mercedes S Class being "properly" clocked in 1999. A laptop was pugged in, in the engine bay and for some reason I can't remember the gauge cluster was pulled out. The car was clocked in about 2 minutes. Only a few years earlier, Quentin Wilson and BBC Top Gear were pushing for a change in the law, on behalf of consumers for cars to be made "unclockable" and he sat in the driving seat of an XJ40 Jaguar, which had one of the first digital mileage counters and described the technology as foolproof and suggested that all the other brands must incorporate the technology to end clocking.

Also, as I said in another thread, in many cars it was easy to turn off the mileage counter, sometimes by removing a fuse. In one particular BMW, removing a particular fuse, turns off the fuel gauge, rev counter and mile counter, and you can still drive the car normally - for years .............

 

Wow that's crazy. I just happened to find a Ford GT for sale and it says it only did 125 miles the last 3.5 years with its most recent owner in FL. There are several videos and photos of this car racing and driving around in that time frame, too. I don't believe the mileage advertised on the car now so this issue must be a lot larger than I thought.

 

This feature is available and used on many makes of cars by dealerships here in Australia

 

It’s like it’s a big secret. You never hear anyone talk about it, but I first saw it nearly twenty years ago. It’s manufacturer clocking though I guess it’s not very serious since it’s only a few hundred miles.

 

If a car is ten to fifteen years old unless it has a tiny mileage where you can clearly see it’s low mileage, then you can only trust the mileage based on the owners and the history.

If someone buys a 3 year old car with 30,000 miles, drives it 20,000 miles a year for three years but turns off the mileage counter for 6 months of the year it will read 60,000 instead of 90,000. And if they get it serviced every year and put it up for sale it will be a 2 owner car with full service history.

 

I didn’t want to mention the car model in case I give someone the info to do it, but it’s probably better people know because the cars are already out there........

E46 BMW’s, say an M3, all you have to do to stop the mileage counter from adding any further miles is remove a fuse. Plenty of other examples too. Bear in mind when perusing the classifieds.

 

That's good to know. I've been looking for a clean low mileage E39 M5, but I'm wondering how accurate those are now. Obviously the super low mile ones are clearly like new as you say, but the others I'm not so sure about. I think I rather go for a higher mile car and spend the savings on rebuilding it myself...I'm not interested in the sub 10k mile ones that go for crazy money as I want to drive the car.

 

Just got contacted by a law firm about class action suit for the rollback. Ferrari was very short-sighted to allow this practice. Hope to hear more info about the severity.

 

Sounds like the ambulance chasers have been dispatched. Wonder who the attorneys are defining as constituting the "class?"

 

these guys are going to owners as well as shareholders of "RACE"

 

If I understand right - the rollback cannot be done after 310 miles (500 km?) So as somebody said - theoretically you can drive to 309 miles and reset (repeat?)

Some comments that some other ECUs in the car has full cumulative mileage? Still a lot of unanswered questions. Again, very bad if this was truly sanctioned by Maranello.