It's not illegal to reset the odometer if you alert the buyer that the mileage is not the original mileage. It's illegal to misrepresent the mileage as being original. My state has a box on the back of the title that you can check to indicate that the mileage is not the actual mileage and another to indicate that it has rolled over 100K. If your state has that option just check the appropriate box and you are covered even if the next buyer doesn't re-title it and just resells it.
run your elec drill on the cable.set it to stay on.average how many miles in an hour then let it roll for your calculated time.could be a while depending on where your starting.just wondering why.new build?
Depending upon how it is made, you can remove the retaining brackets for the wheels on the back of some of them and just turn the odometer wheels to where you want them and then replace the retaining bracket. Thats how I did my old Fairlane years ago.
I'm not certain this is 100% correct. You are absolutely correct on the misrepresentation of "actual miles" regarding the transfer of title, but resetting the odometer ( I believe) is still technically considered "tampering and/or altering" it, and is illegal. I doubt anyone will be jailed over it (unless you do it to commit fraud), but I'd hate to see someone get in serious trouble because they assumed it was OK. Just be careful...
And how many drills do you think he will burn up before it rolls over. Even at 100 mph it would take 10 hours of running to get 1000 miles. Do you think your drill could run for days on end?
Many decades ago at the dealership, there was a sticker to show at what miles the speedo was replaced with a new "zero" one. The sticker went on the door jamb.
I sure miss the old days when you could drive down Jerrome Ave. and just look for the guy pulling the little red wagon. There was only one number that was important and that was the very first number. You could just say make the 8 a 3 and before you could take 15 steps down the sidewalk he would call you back and say that's $15.00 dollars. Before you could get in the car there would be another customer right behind you waiting for his services. This was the car I towed the race trailer with and the crazy part is each time we adjusted the millage I swear the car ran better!!!!!!!!!!!! Jimbo
I've done that when putting a used speedometer in a fresh build. I would have to believe that is what Oldnuts is referring to. I imagine he has a freshly built car that he wants to start out with 0 on the speedometer the first time it leaves the confines of the garage (or what ever) that it was built in. Not everyone is trying to get over on someone every time something like this comes up. But years ago my dad traded in one of his cars with about 80,000 miles on it and a few weeks later he happened to see it at a gas station and the guy who had bought it told him what a great car he had bought with only 35,000 miles on it. He said he had a hard time keeping his mouth shut on that one but never bought another car off that lot. Oldnuts, in most areas there is a shop or individual that does speedometer repair and one of them could clean the speedo and reset it for you if you don't want to tackle it yourself. http://www.google.com/search?source...braska+&btnG=Google+Search&aq=o&aqi=&aql=&oq=
mr48 is about correct. i took the speedo in my 64 f100 all the way apart to clean and paint it and made the mistake of not jotting down the milage before i took it apart. i dont have any intention at all of selling the truck or misinforming anyone i just made a simple mistake and i figured the easiest way to go is reset it at 0. its been on jack stands for a few months now getting a new suspension. thanks for all the help guys. oldnuts
First mark down the odometer reading. Next depending on what type of speedometer you have the odometer usually can be manually reset. If there is a black spacer between the digit tumblers it is VERY hard to reset to zero. Early ones are a breeze. I tried the drill trick....went through two drills but I got it back to zero.....just to sell it.....electronic ones can be reprogramed. YOU will have to declare the original odometer reading on a sticker visible on the end of the door or door jamb. Federal law...Nebraska law as well.... If you run it in reverse make sure there is a glass wall behind the car and it is sitting on cheap jackstands.......
I was a car dealer for 38 years before I retired last year, We had a standing response for people who would ask " are you sure those are the right miles " we'd say " I know they are the right miles, I just put them on there this morning ". That said, it is against the law to " adjust " the odometer, Although in Wisconsin we have a 10 year odometer exempt law, any car over 10 years old is exempt from a disclosure statement, they dont care what the odometer reads now or in the past, if it's 10 years old you're on your own.
Another valid reason to clock an odo is when you've replaced the speedometer and you want the same odometer reading as you had on the old one, as was the case when I replaced the cluster in my DD with one that had a tach. I don't think speedometers like the drill thing, though: mine is a lot jumpier than the old speedometer, and it overreads by 20%. It could simply be that my new speedometer is actually older than my old one, and/or that I've got the wrong cable drive gear.
Some "used car" dealers got popped for doing that in motown some years ago... Yeah, they went to jail... Bastards!!
It's only illegal in Ct if you do it to defraud someone. As long as the buyer is aware, it is legal...
yes ive got the ones with the lottle black spacers and it is difficult. im gonna keep trying and hope for success. thanks for all the help guys. oldnuts
As is the case in all states and in federal law. The law always reads something like "odometer tampering WITH THE INTENT TO COMMIT FRAUD". Besides, how is resetting the odo to zero any different that installing a brand new speedo with the odo at zero? All titles I've ever seen have the box to be checked indicating that indicated mileage is not actual. That gets out of the "intent to commit fraud" problem.
I had my speedometer repaired at our local speedometer repair shop and he had to put a new odometer in the assembly. All he did was annotate on the receipt that the odometer had been replaced then put the original mielage in the receipt. He said that changing it was only illegal if you were intending to defraud a buyer. Our state doesn't require a sticker on the door so I put the receipt in my title folder.
Bingo. The key and only key here is the reason you want to set the odometer to zero not some one's idea that it may be illegal to do so. It is only illegal if you intend to defraud a buyer. And if you had a fresh build with a fresh engine and everything else on the vehicle was freshly rebuilt and or redone why the hell would you want a speedometer with xxxxx miles reading on it instead of zero to start with? So you can say "Oh, this is a 60,000 mile car but I changed everything on it when I rebuilt it"? I've sold a bunch of cars and trucks over the years that were over 10 years old and never once had the dmv raise an eyebrow about mileage. Newer car three or four years old it means something but on a car over 20 years old it doesn't mean beans unless you are selling a stone stock survivor as a low mileage car and are asking a premium for that reason and can document the mileage.
All the little number wheels rotate on a commom shaft, right? Remove the shaft from its mounts very carefully so as not to send little bitty parts flying in ALL directions. Slide the number wheels ever so slightly apart from each of the black plastic seperaters then turn each wheel to the desired number. I strongly advise you to only concern yourself with one wheel at a time as you might loose your grip on the tiny assembly... Little round parts roll very well and can prove to be very difficult to find. ...This is only an estimated guess at how this process could be accomplished as I, nor any of my known aquaintences, have any first hand knowlegde of this kind.
this dealer bashing is really getting old and boring. It's WRONG no matter who does it but plenty of "civilians" have done the same thing over the decades to get a better trade-in price. recently a local farm implement dealer, who leases combines, had an instance where a farmer leased a unit, brought it back prepared to pay for the hours used on the hour meter. Problem was, the implement dealer had an additional hour meter in a hidden location, so when the "honest farmer" disconnected the visible hour meter for part of the time he used it, the difference was readily detectable. I suppose the dealer was a "bastard" for catching an "honest" customer trying to defraud him. Ray
Federal Law makes tampering illegal regardless of intent. Prosecution has typically only been enacted when intent to defraud was the intention, but any tampering is illegal. 49 USC Sec. 32701 - among the many regulations of the statute, this one explains it STATUTE- A person may not disconnect, reset, alter, or have disconnected, reset, or altered, an odometer of a motor vehicle intending to change the mileage registered by the odometer; You'll notice that it does not say anything about fraud or intent although that is covered as well in other parts of the statute.
I know there is a federal statute reguarding sales of a vehicle. At least it was a federal warrent that they busted all those folks in Lebanon, MO on back on the '80s. I am not sure that the warrent was for rolling back speedometers or just general interstate fraud. do know that rolling back speedometers was used as evidence against them. I would think that state wise it would vary from state to state. I know for isnatnce in MO the mileage at the time of sale is stated on the title. That came about after the great rollback masacre in Lebanon. But I also know that on our older cars it shows mileage exempt on the title. It is also perfectly legal to change the speedodemeter in a car and it does not need to be certified or verified by the state police or any state agency. But in another state with more strict vehicle liscensing laws it may be entirely different. I would check into it somehow in whatever state I was in to be sure.
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