As far as I am concerned, if its a complete restoration, its zero miles. By the end of it, my fastback had an engine rebuild, new springs, new steering, new rear end, rebuilt transmission. That equals zero miles to me

 

I'm a designer by trade that deals with copyright/trademark/patents... additionally I have grown up around and/or engaged in the rebuilding of various vintage cars.

When this question has come up, it's wasn't until I gained an understanding of how a patent works that I came to MY conclusion on "turning back the dial."

Simply put... A patent is awarded if: an idea or product is something that does not already exist in that form. It also cannot be something that can be easily deduced from a currently available idea or design.

Therefore... If the modifications rendered result in the "design or concept" being significantly different from the original state of the car... It is a new car. (Roll em' back). Or if the Stang (80kmiles) is rebuilt to a point that the overhaul and re-build equals a state that resembles the condition prior to or at 0miles... Then it too is then in a different (enough) state that i see as a "new car" in comparison. (Roll em' back)

 

How about this novel idea? The reason tampering with the mileage is a crime, is in most cases it changes the value of a vehicle.

Pertaining to 50+/- year old classic cars, the only time mileage affects the value of the vehicle is in the case of a low-mileage original that has never been restored.

In the case of a completely restored car, zero miles or 100,000+, does not change the value of the car at all so no one will ever say a word or try to "lock-you-up."

 

so was i in trouble when i replaced the speedo on my other stang with a new autometer that had zero miles and sold it that way ? in california on cars that old the dmv always marks mileage exceeds the odometers limits and checks the box that exempts the vehilce from mileage disclosure. what do you do when you buy a shell and theres no odometer and you rebuild the car and its new odo has 00000 on it ? just put a new speedo in it. bte my 65 k fb gt has about 30,000 original miles and i have the original speedo but an autometer speedo is going back in it. yeah the car aint run since at least 1974 when i got it and i neverf axked how long it was parked cause the original owner blode the hipo engine up, blode it up good, blode it up real good, busted the block , the crank , a head , and he sent it to the scrap iron place.

 

As long as the title states that "actual milage not shown" then it doesn't matter. Since most of these cars roll over at 100K, they say that already.

 

I leave it alone, regardless of how much, or how little restoration was done. Is it that hard to make a note of the milage when the restoration was done, and leave it at that ? Even when a full & complete restoration is done, that doesn't make the car new. It's only new once.

I don't think there is an intent to deceive by turning the odometer to zero, however it does take away some information that future owners might like to have.

Z.

 

i dont ever plan on selling my car, so i set it to zero the day after i bought it. Ive been glad i did ever since! I dont really care what anyone else does.

 

First off- I don't plan on resetting mine.

That said, I feel that I would be able to do so if I wanted to. My title says "exempt" on the odometer field.

Plus it's already rolled over once and I'm never selling the car.

 

Same here... Not selling my car, in fact I am gonna put it in my will that the car will never leave the family. I have too much blood, literally, spilled so far on it...

Plus, since my odometer only goes up to 99,999.9 miles before getting flipped back to zero, who knows what the actual mileage was when I bought it.

 

Same here... Not selling my car, in fact I am gonna put it in my will that the car will never leave the family.

Not sure if that's hyperbole, but fee tails aren't enforceable except in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maine, and Delaware and they don't give you the power you would think they do.

The maximum amount of time that you can control the usage of property after your death is 21 years, and that is if you gift the property to someone who is born the day before you die and you amend your will before death to include them. You also cannot gift to the unliving, as in "I give this to my great-grandson" (that hasn't been born yet) or "I give {x} to my child to give to their first born son" or anything to that effect. You can put such statements in your wishes, but it's to the survivors whether to follow through with them or not and such statements do not legally bind them from acting contrary to the conditions you wish to place on them. The most common estate transfer is "fee simple absolute." There are limited cases when you can complete a more complicated transfer as "fee simple subject to condition subsequent" but you cannot affect property's alienability (the ability to sell property that is rightfully your own) after gifting it upon death, even with a condition. You cannot affect property's descendibility after gifting it upon death (as in, "I'll give it to you only if you make sure you don't give it to my ex-wife's new husband")

There are ways you can control property farther beyond your death, but you're looking at a somewhat elaborate setup involving an irrevocable trust and those can become complicated to enforce if you don't take careful efforts to contract an uninvolved third party to act as trustee.

Not that you'd really care; you'd be dead either way.

 

for most of the cars that arent worth a small fortune its not a big deal, if i bought one with 40k on the clock i'd always assume its 140k anyways. mine says 90k now and i'm almost certain its 190k or 290k but who knows.

my point is, unless i'm paying MORE for a vehicle because of exceptionally low mileage i could care less, i base my purchase on condition after inspection.

 

In some states if a car being registered/title transfer is over 10 years old the title says exempt or something similar.

In my state (Wisconsin) it has been illegal to tamper with a vehicle's mileage for over 30 years. Don't know how that jives with the over 10 year title and the 5 digit odometer.

I like knowing the state of my Mustang tho I have no notion to ever sell it. Six years ago I put a factory tach cluster in my 68. The speedometer needed repair so I had the odometer set at the same miles as the original. Like "old blue eyes" I'm doing it my way!


Slim

 

In Texas, once the odometer has "exceeded its mechanical limit" (99,999 in our case), the car is exempt from mileage.

Mine had about 128k on the odometer, and- since everything was stripped, rebuilt, or replaced, I set it at all zeros (which is quite easy to do) when I restored the speedo. I've since swapped to a GT bezel, but am still able to tell I've logged almost 7,000 miles since the resto.

 

When I did a partial rebuild on my college car, a 1962 Comet wagon, the speedo cable had been busted for many, many years, hence no actual mileage recorded. The car was originally my uncle's, and he drove it ALL over the US, and claims around 500K miles. So, I had no problem resetting the odometer since I had no clue as to what it really should be.

 

My odometer has rolled over twice. I'd like to set it back to zero. How do I do this without breaking it? I was under the impression odometers are designed to break if you attempt to tamper with them.

 

I was able to disassemble my Comet odometer quite easily. The old ones are not as bad as the new ones.

 

I never have, and never would, reset the mileage on my coupe. However, my fastback was torched at about 180,000 miles and I had to put an all new interior in the car. The odometer started at "0" and I'm not about to put a drill on it and run it up.

 

I think this answer makes the most sense, its only illegal to reset your odometer if you intend to misrepresent the car's mileage.

Odometer Reset

 

I wouldn't trust some company's website as to whether or not it's legal to tamper with your car's odometer. I'd consult your state's laws. Otherwise, do you really want to risk a felony charge over it? And just for the record, my odometer started at zero when I installed it as it was a brand new Autometer speedometer.

 

mileage

The big thing is intent. If you want to falsify the mileage, it's a problem. If, like in Fla, there's the little box you check that indicates the mileage shown is either unknown, exceeds limits, or some other- don't know, then you're not trying to cheat the system. I've reset mine several times due to- broken speedo, broken cable, stripped worm gear, and other failures. I keep track of how much I drive and try to set it according to what I've put on it- 370,000 miles (rolled over the 70,000 tonite) and, since it'll never be sold in my lifetime, who cares what it shows!
Actually, resetting the odometer isn't that hard, you just need to know how it's done so the numbers line up correctly. I think I'm on the 4th or 5th odometer (keep wearing them out!).