Digital odometer reset to 0 Miles? $2000 to fix

[Mullick2001]

Alright long story but im gonna make it short. This car started out as a lemon but is now the most reliable vehicle i have owned. I bought from a major chevy dealer in the Minneapolis saint paul area a 2005 Malibu maxx with 124,000 miles

I do all the repairs and maintenance I can on my vehicles myself. I have a detached garage accross the parking lot from my townhome with no electricity. In order to work on my cars I run the vehicles headlights and attach my jumppack to the battery.So at 148,000 miles I performed a top end and cranckcase clean with seafoam. Then moved into the garage to perform a coolant flush, spark plug and wires change , cleaned throttle body, changed oil to synthetic, changed air filter, and rotated tires. By the time i got to the spark plugs which were last the headlights had dimmed and i did the whole plug change with the battery disconnected and a headlamp. Afterwords i went to recconect the battery and start her up. I had a problem connecting the negative and the headlights kept flickering on and off. I then tried to start her and my jump pack had died as well. At this point i had not checked the mileage. I went inside and charged my jumpoack for about a hour and went back out.she started up beautifully so i backed he out and went to change the OLM. I then saw 0 miles on the odometer. My trip odometer is displayed on the radio and the odometer displays nothing else. My trip odometers were still reading there previous values but the odometer read 0. Called dealership and was basically acussed of tampering with the computer by some ignorant tech. It seemed the entire dealership thought it was impossible to happen. After they finally realized i had no reason to do this they said they would look into and called me back. 3 WEEKS LATER! they said " a Gm certified computer technician would have to be brought in to make sure the odometer had not been tampered with per GM and then would be reprogrammed since the original reading should be stored in the computer. This would cost me $250/hr and would take approx. 5 hours. No thank you. I believe i have been locked into this car since i would have a [censored] of a time selling it. I said when bought it i would drive it tell it dies and now i guess i have to. I personally believe the car felt it was getting reborn with all the maintenance and decide to start over at 0 miles for me. I plan to drive this car until the odometer reads 152,000 miles or 300,000 actual miles. If anyone has access to a carfax account I would be willing to show the vin and odometer in a video and show the carfax says last report was 126,000 when the transmission was replaced. the dealership forgot to include my copy in the sale folder. Anyone know of a way to reprogram a odometer?


Here is a pic from soon after.

And the most recent one.

 

[Cutehumor]

they probably put your vin in the database to say your odometer is not accurate. with a "O" on your odometer, starting over, your car value just shot up 1000% put some miles on her, trade her in if I were you.

 

[Mullick2001]

Well she does look very new I take great care of her but unless I go to a third world country and sell it the carfax will do me in. unless I drive her to 175,000 and say I only drove 50,000. As it is I would have to drive 100,000 miles to get back to where i bought it.

 

[Vikas]

You might be able to start calling NHTSA or some federal agency. automatic resetting of odometers will be investigated pretty harshly.

 

[KrisZ]

Why is the second pic showing 20k miles instead of ~124k? Didn't you buy it at 124k? I'm highly confused here.

 

[roadrunner1]

Seems as if this is an issue with Chevrolet form vehichles of this vintage. I have a friend with an '06 3/4 ton truck, same thing happened.

 

[rshaw125]

The correct mileage is stored several places which can be read. If the odometer is not broken the correct mileage can be entered with a laptop,software and cable.

 

[Doog]

Do nothing. As long as you do not attempt to sell the car with falsified mileage you have done nothing wrong. When you do sell the car you must however complete the title work showing the odometer broke at XXX miles on XXX date and the current reading is not accurate. Tell the DB's at GM to jump up a rope.

 

[spk2000]

Not sure how many people actually even use the carfax. If they do they will likely move on and then the next person in line would have to find it. Although on the title you do need to declare actual mileage and falsifying is a federal offense. Someone who has been around cars a while would be able to tell the mileage was off by driving it if it was loose for the mileage, and suspension showed age on it unless replaced.

 

[GreeCguy]

As long as you own the car, you're fine. What you could do when you decide to sell or trade is be honest about what happened, type up a "report" (basically print what you've written here), take said report to a notary public and have it stamped and witnessed, one for you, one for buyer. That way you have proof down the road that this happened and you were totally honest about what happened.

 

[GreeCguy]

One other thing as well, here in Florida, there is a box on the title you can check if you know the miles are not accurate. The cars I buy are usually so old they automatically check the box at the DMV. When you get your new title, the miles on the title are a row of x's (xxx,xxx).

 

[Kuato]

Nothing to worry about since you plan to keep it.

 

[TFB1]

You know what the mileage is so it makes no difference... If you resell, just check the true miles unknown box(it's Fed law to include this on the title in all states)and your butt is covered...

I have one that shows 25K mi more than the car actually has due to a cluster swap, do I care??? Nope not in the least...

 

[SLCraig]

Have never heard of such a thing honestly.
Maybe its common on that model of car? Have you checked some of the Chevy forums?

I'd be blaming faulty software somewhere in the car, I've done similar procedures to you, we all have, and the odometer stays put.

 

[GMBoy]

I just checked my GM service info and the good thing is you can reprogram it simply with a TECH2 scan tool thru the IBCM. If you were near me, I would do it for you.

QUOTE: "The Tech 2 is used to set up a replacement BCM, which includes loading the odometer value that is displayed and stored in the IPC. A replacement IPC will display the previously stored vehicle odometer value, communicated from the BCM, after cycling the ignition or driving the vehicle.

*The odometer programming is integrated as part of the BCM programming procedure. It is not a stand-alone event."

How the Odometer works:

QUOTE: The vehicles is calculated and stored electronically in the body control module (BCM). The BCM calculates and stores the mileage based on the vehicle speed message delivered from the powertrain control module (PCM). The instrument panel cluster (IPC) displays the season odometer information sent from the BCM over GMLAN. The odometer will display 'error' if an internal IPC memory failure is detected or if there is a GMLAN communication fault between the PCM and the BCM.

The driver information center (DIC) in radio displays the TRIP Odometer A or TRIP Odometer B information sent from the BCM over GMLAN. Press the INFO button until TRIP A or TRIP B is displayed. This shows the current distance traveled since the last reset for each trip odometer in either miles or kilometers. Both odometers can be used at the same time. Each trip odometer can be reset to zero separately by pressing and holding the ENTER button for a few seconds while the desired trip odometer is displayed. The TRIP A or TRIP B Odometer will display “- - -.- -” if there is a GMLAN communication fault between the PCM and BCM."



I would find a local independent shop with a Tech 2 and explain what happened. The will probably only charge you an hour labor to reset it and put a "new odometer" sticker notice on the door jamb to cover themselves.


BUT - first...you may try to just unplug and plug back in the dash cluster. It may go and search for the miles out of the BCM and be ok. Also, check to be sure you are not in TRIP mode.

 

[BigCahuna]

I have almost as weird a problem with my '02 ford Explorer. It seems when ever the outside temps get over 40f, the mileage reading on the dash goes blank. The speedo works fine,just the mileage goes blank. When it gets cold again the reading comes back. It's a pain when your driving somewhere and it says to turn in so many miles, or when your trying to figure how many miles you have on your oil. After all these years and millions of cars made, you'd think they would have this stuff figured out.,,

 

[SuperDave456]

Shoot, on my '98 Ford F-150 the engine was replaced by the dealership when it had 50,000 miles.
There was some kind of factory recall with the 4.0L V6 that it came with. At least that is what I'm told by my Father In Law.

Right now it has 112,000 miles, and the engine only has around
62,000 miles on it.

It works both ways.

That being said. I'm Keeping this truck till the wheels fall off.
Same with my other vehicles.
They are depreciating assets, not investments. I'll take good care of them and do preventative maintenance to them to keep them in good condition. Hopefully I will save 10+ years of car payments by doing so.

 

[Mullick2001]

I have a pic somewhere of about 130,000 but i was unable to find it. That is the only pic i took before it reset. Iw ill try to find it tonight. I backed up all the pictures from my phone and just have to find it. I now have pictures at every oil change and every number I thouhgt was interesting. The 20,000 was taken just a few weeks ago. If i ever get some extra cash and free time i might call another local dealership and see what they say. I feel like by the time i get back to 138,000 i will have replaced everything. So far i have done, Transmission, struts, wheel bearings spark plugs and wires, tie rod ends, stabalixer arms, brakes and control arm bushings. Maybe if i run amsoil for the next 100,000 the engine will only show 138,000 miles worth of wear. lol

 

[Tdbo]

Originally Posted By: rshaw125
The correct mileage is stored several places which can be read. If the odometer is not broken the correct mileage can be entered with a laptop,software and cable.


I'd find someone independent to do this. Then you should remember the response that you got from the dealership when you called, and never drop another dime there again.

 

[Silverado12]

I worked on an Impala (2004) and the odometer is programmed in the cluster.