Module that removes 40km from the vehicle's odometer

[skotl]

I always thought that digital odometers (mile-ometers) in modern cars were pretty hack proof.
I've heard in the olden days of people who would use an electric drill to run the cable backwards and rewind the mechanical clock. Then there was my brother an unsubstantiated person who just disconnected the speedo on his company car when he went on long journeys so he didn't bust the mileage limit

But if you (like me!) thought that modern digital systems were unhackable then think again.

Here's an interesting vid from the ever-watchable Big Clive on a mysterious module that a mechanic found plugged into a 2015 Mercedes, which deleted 40Km from the odometer!

It's all about intercepting the canbus and feeding false information back to the dashboard when it asks the ECU what mileage the car has done. It gets a bit electronic-geek after the first few minutes, but hopefully will be of interest to most here at least up to that bit!

 

[pedrobedro]

But then you wouldn't want to sell the car because its only done 60,000.

 

[anto44]

Modern cars are easy to clock, any modern merc can be done in a few mins with a laptop

 

[chris pruteanu]

Not all ! There is a risk of messing the clocks big time and this interface is more of a DIY solution in some extent ! Also mercedeses store their memory in a few modules:key, ECU, dash and gearbox and if you don't do them all at the same time it just reverts back to the original mileage as soon as you start the engine (if it starts !)... I have seen it done a few times by some smart polish guys and they were always asking if you want full warranty for 250 quid- in which case they had a spare set of clocks- or the cheaper option (favored by asian people!) which meant all risks on ya for 100 quid !
Their machine was over 25 grand to buy and they had to update very often to keep up with demand !
On the other hand, this interface method is piece o cake if it came pre-programmed !

 

[pressbrake1]

Waste of time with electronic mots unless you do it to a car under three years old.
Very naughty but I can see the market with balloon payment financing and lease cars

 

[rtcosic]

Presumably this 'just' changes the odometer dash board display and doesn't write back to the ECU?

Interesting that it is multi purpose Audi/M-B/BMW.

Edit: Possibly designed for sale into the US market where lease is the norm. But I would have thought lease companies would read the ECU via the OBD port anyway?

 

[Robotstar5]

A friend had a Talbot Solara (remember them? ) in the 80's which had an odometer that each time it got to 39,999 it would click over to 39,000

 

[Shox Dr]

When my lad was on the power stations (only last yr) there were plenty of people leasing vehicles and clocking them.
Not a problem when they are less than 3yrs old.

 

[jimbo84]

An old boss did it to a hire (longterm hire) van that had exceeded the allowed mileage by quite a bit to save on the excess mileage charge.

Not as easy now with the MOTs logging mileage online but if you were clever about it you could still do it. Worth looking for a year on MOT history where a car did next to no miles when most other years it has slogged them up, good indication of odo interfering.

 

[KTMart]

Sadly "mileage correction" is as common now as ever for both cars and commercials, Sprinter vans come with 3 year unlimited mileage warranty and can clock 300K miles or more before first Mot, serviced regulary by independant garage then come in for last service before Mot and mileage is down to 90K to 150K miles. Mileage data is stored in several locations but all can be "corrected", the same applies to high end lease or PCP deal cars before end of term can save huge amounts of money in excess mileage charges or increase in resale value.

 

[123hotchef]

My polish mate does this for people just before mot time some are harder than others and need wires soldering to the clocks some also have the codes stored in the ecu as well as the clocks so its a double job for him. Older cars are easy with a lap top takes a minute or 2

 

[CompoSimmonite]

My step brother told me a funny story when he was working in the motor trade. They sold a px'd van to another trader who then sold it to a customer. The van promptly died and customer demanded a new engine. The trader then demanded my stepbrother's garage pay all the costs as they knew he'd removed a large amount for miles from the old fashioned mechanical speedo otherwise they would report him to Trading Standards. "Go Ahead" was the response as stepbother then found out the trader had themselves also removed even more miles ! Between them they had "clocked" nearly 200,000 miles .
I've also read that somebody opened a speedo to alter the miles only to find a sticker that a previous clocker had put saying "not again! "

 

[armalites]

Many cars will default to the highest reading no matter what, so you could fit an intrument cluster from a car with high miles and the system will set them all to the highest number.

 

[armalites]

I've also read that somebody opened a speedo to alter the miles only to find a sticker that a previous clocker had put saying "not again! "

The old ones are the best..

 

[armalites]

I've got a V70 that I've read codes on using a couple of scanners, when I got my new Snap On unit it listed an error Mileage Adjustment or something like that. None of the other scanners listed it and it's a permanent error and cannot be deleted.

 

[mart]

I'd like the gov to introduce milage checks on every vehicle for the first 3 years. 20 quid each year- would be well worth it.

Also a mandatory minimum 12 months inside for the perpetrators.

 

[Shox Dr]

I'd like the gov to introduce milage checks on every vehicle from for the first 3 years. 20 quid each year- would be well worth.

Isn’t that called an MOT and happens every 1yr, after the first 3.

 

[mart]

There is currently nothing in place for the day one up to the first mot-as per my post.

 

[armalites]

There is currently nothing in place for the day one up to the first mot-as per my post.

It won't be long before every new car is talking to a central server so it won't be an issue. Many vehicles are already doing that.

 

[Domdom]

Despite vehicle manufacturers making (half-hearted) efforts to prevent mileage adjustments this remains simple to do. That solution in the video, if you could call it that, well that's a huge bodge and easily discovered due to the nature of the canbus errors it seems to generate. The most awkward systems to crack do seem to be the German cars which is probably why this exists. As an example, the last BMW one I saw was complex enough to write the mileage into just about every module on the CAN including the gearbox ECU, the headlamp ECU and so on, and it even updated the smart ignition key every 50 miles. That's a lot of modules to re program and it is also a multi-master system meaning if you don't change them all at once the car has a hissy fit when you try and start it because it sees the disctepancy as "tampering". It also causes no end of headaches if you have to replace a faulty module, especially a digital dash binnacle. Not that I do nefarious things like that you understand, genuinely I don't but I do like modifying things such as fitting digital dash pods to cars that never had them originally. I discovered a lot of this when adding factory sat nav to a 2007 Range Rover poverty spec model. All the dealers said it couldn't be done but my point was that every car starts out as a bare bodyshell so at some point these options get "added" to the car, therefore it absolutely is possible, I just had to figure out how to do it. It doesn't take long TBH for anyone with a computing/electronics background.
But that module is proper redneck engineering. Yes it will work to a degree, but it is forever visible both physically and as an extra "thing" on teh CANBUS. Dealer diags should pick that up easily.