Odometer "correction"

Lots if its possible to do some dealers will haircut

Hmmmmm. Digital Odo's. If i remember correctly, it has be do-able for a while on some vehicles, however - the main computer in the vehicle retains the original speedo reading. seen it done with a toyota - low milage, checked on the toyota plug-in computer, and it showed the true story.

I thought the LCD would only show what was stored in the computer.

Right up untill they get caught by the paper trail.
Just to explain.
When dealers buy cars they get a jap/english/american Vehicle deregistration form. This has a whole bunch of information on it but a big part of that is the odometer reading.
Then as the vehicle crosses the border the odometer reading is again recorded by a gubbiment fulla who puts it in the big computer.
THEN the car goes to compliance to put it on the road.
You can imagine that BIG alarm bells go off if the three numbers arent (basicly) the same.
Yes they can increase slightly of course. But if at any stage they decrease theres BIG trouble.

Years ago I had a 91 E36 BMW (a pretty early digital odo) which had the cluster replaced under warranty at just under 11,000kM and so the odo always read 11,000 short.However, the blokes at Team McMillan reckoned that the ECU showed the true milage when read through the diagnostic connector.Dunno whether that's true or not.

OK, a lot of myths around. I heard one about a dodgy dealer replacing a cluster with one from a lower ks vehicle and watching horrified as it went straight to the same figure that was on the old one.
It was a good story.

I can tell you one story from personal experience. swear on a bible true.
Many years ago(late 90's) I had to pick up a car from a wholesaler in penrose. He had just had a new shipment of merc's arrive from Singapore. 5 out of 6 of them had a second instrument cluster sitting in the boot. -That wholesaler is long gone and its well before a lot of the border checks we have today were in place,
Just to clarify--he would import cars then sell em to ussupecting dealers.

Those were the days with the 100,000km oil filters eh!

Yep and the regrooved tyres and the newspaper filled pooed up pillars and.

They are wound back before you buy . The paper trail starts there . The Japs have been winding cars back by 100,000 to 200,000 kms for years !

The WORST cases of ODO winding have been commercial vehicles in New Zealand.Wheweee have those suckers been hit with the lekkie drill
I don't know how anyone selling a mid 90's hiace can say the milage is genuine and keep a straight face

It does happen and Im sure it happens here in NZ too. How many disconnect and fiddle their odos here to avoid getting punished by the diesel tax .

Could a dealer say with a straight facethat the odo is genuine on a 8 year old Jappa . ie; 2004 Toyota Platz
Sedan, 6,000 kms, 1,500 cc, Automatic,
$ 10,989.

Did you know the car and family personally .

Dont throw stones !

Im not sure about all electronic speedos but i know for sure with jeeps the km's are stored on the speedo and body control module. If you plug in a lower km speedo the bcm will automatically reset the speedo to the higher number

One of the biggest urban myths still persisting out there is of the "wound back" Japanese import. In short, "that was then, this is now". Back in the Eighties and Nineties, odometer fraud was common- perpetuated by Kiwis or their agents post-purchase in Japan, when there was a purely paper-based trail.

Since the early part of the last decade, almost every import into NZ from Japan (I'm not talking Singapore here) has had an odometer verification inspection performed in Japan prior to export- in brief, to protect an unsuspecting importer from seizure at the NZ border by Customs (yes, there is a statute within the Customs bylaws on forfeiture of vehicles found with tampered odometers). The practice of odometer fraud virtually dried up overnight. That's not to say a majority of vehicles prior to to this WERE wound back, just that the minority that were, by their NZ buyers or directed agents, had up till then remained virtually undetected.

Since then, several significant changes have occurred.

One- the advent of digital odometers as the standard. While it is possible to alter a digital odometer at face value, most modern vehicles with an ECU and integrated circuitry "retain" the reading and basic vehicle data within the "brain" and at a number of key diagnostic points around the vehicle. I'm not sure of the count points on a Japanese car, but a 2001-2002 BMW, for example, can have as many as seven different encoding points- so even if someone DID alter or change a cluster, to avoid the reading being detemined at another encoding point, the winder would have to relace no less than six other computers and encoding points. Bottom line- not economically viable.

Second- the shift to electronic record-keeping in Japan of the fleet, as Kazbanz has alluded to. At every "shaken" or WOF interval inspection, the odometer reading is recorded for posterity. This also occurs at every change of owner (usually when the car is sold by a dealer or auction house, private-to-private sales are extremely rare in Japan) plus every recall point (the Japanese are sticklers for vehicle recalls, if you check a Japanese logbook / service book you'll find a whole page devoted to space for any recall validation, down to the most insignificant item). So a clear picture of vehicle history is maintained right through to the point that a vehicle is "deregistered" for export, at which time, once the appropriate fees and taxes (if any) are paid, a "deregistration certificate" is issued. (used to be called an "export certificate"). This records and displays all those odometer intervals, just like a VIR report here in NZ does.

Third- this information is also used by the auction houses to determine the validity of a vehicle's milegae prior to sale (as there is no desire for comebacks, bearing in mind prior to auction, there is no telling whether an export buyer or Japanese domestic buyer will purchase the car). Any vehicle that shows a discrepancy in mileage, for whatever reason, is flagged as such within the auction catalogue and entry sheet. Usually, it's for vehicles like GTR's, etc, with changed clusters, from a 180kmph speedo head to a 320kmph head- or a broken cluster in a "normal" car where the faulty cluster has simply been swapped out for a used replacement, with no effort made to disguise the fact.

Fourthly- and you really need to have spent time in Japan observing the automotive industry to understand this- there is simply no incentive within Japan to alter the odometer reading of a vehicle for fraudulent purposes. (more to come)

Fourth- continued- the size of the Japanese fleet is simply mind-boggling, and the devaluation factor of used cars considerable. It is simply neither economic, nor physically possible, to alter the odometers ofsuch a significant portion of this fleet, when the value of a seven-year-old-car travelled 70,000km is not a lot different to one travelled 140,000km- the condition of the car, the colour, te extras, and the remaining "shaken" are the drivers of value to the Japanese market, not the odometer reading. It's only us Kiwis who get hung up on mileage as an economic barometer. Millions and millions and millions of used cars are sold every year in Japan, at that market sweet spot of 5-8 years of age. Fraud on this scale is just not plausible, when on the whole, there is no economic reward in doing so. (bearing in mind that NZ takes just 70-80,000 of those per annum.)

Fifth- again, you need to go to Japan and spend time there to appreciate this- there are plenty of cars (usually company cars) that have travelled BIG mileage up for auction every week. 200,000km+ isn't uncommon to see. Out of an auction of 10,000 cars a day, Kiwis simply don't price those cars to buy. On the flip side, there are plenty of ultra-low mileage cars for sale too- like the 6,000km Platz. And in the middle, making up the majority, is stuff travelled between 40-90,000km. As a buyer, you simply target what you wish to buy ad pay accordingly. Usage patterns in Japan differ enormously from NZ, for starters, in Osaka and Tokyo, where the vast bulk of all NZ's imports are sourced, both large many-million cities, public transport for the population- the workers if you like- is excellent, efficient and affordable. Most Japanese n these areas commute by public transport and leave the private car at home for the weekend. In contrast, although the urban streets are free to use, congestion is an issue, parking, even more so, land is a valuable commodity in a nation mostly uninhabitable mountains. The expressway system (motorways) are brilliant- super fast and (usually) very efficient, but this comes at a cost- road tolls are high, around $8-15 a trip on most short systems, more for longer. A few years ago we drove from Osaka via Kobe across the Seto-Awaji Bridge, around the island and back across a series of bridges and causeways to the west over the harbour, then back to Kobe. I used my credit card to pay (as most did at this time) and nearly died when I got the final bill- some $400 in tolls for a five-hour sightseeing trip! For the urban Japanese, use of your own car during the week doesn't make a lot of sense. And for the elderly (Japan has one of the oldest and still rapidly aging populations in the world) driving and car ownership is a very local, short-trip luxury. Plenty own cars, few use them regularly. Your example of a 6,000km Platz is quite common to see as a result. I bought a 2004 Demio a few months travelled 11,000km, it was quite literally like a brand-new car inside, outside and underneath, complete with a full service history showing regular services every six months, in some cases only 4-500km between services!

Times have certainly changed, and with them, the practices of old. Like I said, that was then, this is now, odometer fraud ex Japan is pretty much wiped out, and a number of years ago at that.

Oh, and one final point- Kaz is correct, the biggest area of odometer fraud in NZ is NZ-new vehicles, especially light commercials, but also lease vehicles, wound back or having intermittently disconnected odometers, by NZ'ers. I have personally seen a worrying number of late-model vehicles (we're talking up to 2011 here) with odometer disconnect devices fitted, or altered mileage. In the case of light commercials, especially diesels, this is to avoid paying Road User charges. In the case of lease vehicles, here in NZ we have some fairly prohibitive lease terms- like 15,000km per annum for example- with hefty penalties incurred if a vehicle exceeds the agreed mileage point at the contract break time. Solution- intermittent odometer/speedo disconnection. Thankfully, at least THAT aspect appears to be on the decline (thanks in part to relaxed lease terms) but diesels are only getting worse. Again, this is not anecdotal, this is from my own professional observation. Forget the infatuation with the Japanese, it's the Kiwis we have to worry about.

You're right with that mate. We're our own worst enemy. It was the Kiwis that started winding back the odometers before we even started importing Japanese vehicles.

Good informative post, westwyn. Thanks. I read in in toto.

Excellent info westwyn, confirms what I had thoughtand observed for some time.

Im clearly missing something here. What stones are you implying I'm throwing!
Ive been in this industry a long time.As a result seen "what goes on"
I stand behind my statement firmly. The WORSTcases of odometer tampering are mid 1990's commercial vehicles in NZ.
Why! First of all theres the idiotic emission laws that put a big hole in the available fleet of specifically diesel commercial vehicles.This has meant tradies have been forced to hang onto their vehicles for longer or rent/buy new/near newvehicles
Second diesel tax is based on milage so there is a strong incentive to wind odometers back or disconect odo's
Third in the late 1990's digital odometers became more and more predominant in the commercial fleets making odo tampering a lot more difficult.
Fourth the simple economics of resale in THIS country for used commercial vehicles with low milage.
Compare that to Japan with many markets happilly buying their late 1990's to mid 2000's commercial vehicles (you of course realise that we are only the 6th largest exporter mof used cars from japan and in commercial vehicles we are a long way below even that ranking) There is no incentive for them to bother.
Basicly kiwi's are their own worse enemy.

More like they were being wound locally long before the Japs were even making cars at all. It always made sense to do so in a market that was as restricted as it used to be and the prices of used vehicles was stupidly high. There is no denying that early used imports were being wound to order by NZ dealers and importers, in the late 80's when those shiny Starions, Preludes and RX7's were coming in I remember looking at entire yards full of cars that had done 35-55km regardless of how old they were. I mean come on!

Work at import yard we didnt have the vehicle customer wanted sogot one from wholesaler with 60,000on clock lol half way back yard timing belt light came on lol told boss when got there he said take it back now, rung theguy could hear him puking down phone u dodgey bas@@@d psml buger for that dude myboss sat board imvda

I remember looking at an Izuzu car (Lancer in disguise) on a yard in Taurunga that was 4 years old and had done 000070km.Ya what!But hangon all the delivery plastic was intact, tyres jap and new etc.I think it actually was a genuine car.Where had it been hiding for those 4 years!

it would have been car 10 in a fleet buy possibly.

You do get the odd vehicle show up that has done genuine ultra low kms, they are often used within Japans huge industrial complexes and have never been driven or registered/shaken for use on the road.Have seen a Hiace and those 4x4 flatdeck Suzuki ute things that have been like that. You do wonder how many calls the sellers get from ignorant Kiwi tyre kickers saying that 4800km on a 1998 Hiace couldn't possibly correct and its been wound!