# Mileage "Correction" Tools



## banglenot (Feb 10, 2004)

I'm interested in car #2 as a new toy, likely a recent Jag XK or XKR. With these, a couple of years in gets a huge amount of depreciation off, and often low mileage. Always wanted one, but very cautious about the accuracy of any car that reads a low mileage.

So: how much can you believe an odometer nowadays?

When I was growing up, we looked for mismatched numbers on the old rotary odometers. Now with electronic systems, we have to count on the difficulty of reprogramming the odometer display memory.

There's a bunch of tools out that purport to allow rapid odometer reprogramming, with video of doing it in less than a minute:

http://www.xcardiag.com/wholesale/dp3-digiprog3-odometer-correction-tool-v482-best-price-1572.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZsbKQhnuRg"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZsbKQhnuRg (on an Audi)

Also rapid reprogramming of Jags, BMW and so forth, without triggering tampering indicators

So, here's the questions:

1. Do these things actually work? Has anyone actually seen one being used?

2. If they do, is there any secondary way to check mileage on the car (other than the usual physical wear and tear items that we always use)? Any electronic tools that can check the odometer Eprom for a rewrite history, for example?

3. Or, is a reasonable carfax accumulation history the only way to "confirm" the mileage is accurate?

Do any professionals in the biz have an opinion on these things?

Thanks


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## mr_bean (Mar 20, 2009)

1. Yes, I've heard they work but I've never seen one being used
2. Yes. The mileage is stored redundantly in the DME. HOWEVER, if the person who is reprogramming the mileage knows what they're doing, they'll make the change there too. 
3. Carfax is a joke. There's no way to be absolutely certain that the mileage hasn't been tampered with. But, if you're buying a CPO BMW the dealer has done their due diligence and gone through the service history of the car. They'd likely pick up on a large mileage discrepancy.


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## banglenot (Feb 10, 2004)

Good point on one of the XK Boards was to use the manufacturing date on the stock tires and the wear level for them to compare to the odo. These sometimes get less than 8K/year on them due to the age and wealth of some of the buyers. So, if it's a 3 year old XK/R with 24K miles, the tires should be about 3/4 down to the wear bars.

Same thing's true for the stock BMW Conti touring. They last about 30-35K (maybe 40, at most) before the wear bars show.

They used to be better about 10 years ago -- you could still return your lease with the original tires and get away with it. Now, you're pretty much guaranteed to have to replace them at the end of the lease.


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