• @sugar_in_your_tea
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    13 months ago

    I asked about a quote to fix my older car (not VW), and they said it would take 30 days in the shop… To be fair, the part in question has the odometer data, but surely they can just pull the part, transfer the data, re-install, and they’re done. Should take less than a week…

    • @[email protected]
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      23 months ago

      They typically send those off to a third party. You can usually find those services on eBay. You pull your old cluster and they transfer the data. There’s other ways to do it too, but that’s the typical way of doing it. Personally, I have a used cluster in my car with the incorrect mileage. My state doesn’t record mileage when you transfer the title, so I just need to disclose to whoever I sell it to that the mileage is not correct.

      • @sugar_in_your_tea
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        13 months ago

        Yeah, apparently that’s the case here too, and I’ll be going that route. I just thought it was ridiculous that I’d have to leave the there for a month and probably pay like $1k. Surely they have the equipment to do the transfer, no?

        • @[email protected]
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          13 months ago

          No, they don’t usually want to mess with odometers because of the liability. I think most manufacturers require that the cluster is sent to them in order to verify the correct mileage and then program a new one. There’s aftermarket tools for doing it on some models, others you can just dump an eprom with a cheap programmer, it just depends really.

          • @sugar_in_your_tea
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            3 months ago

            That’s ridiculous. Here’s a decent way to do it:

            1. Desolder the chip (or have a read-only port to plug into) and put it on a test board
            2. Read the chip output and send it to the manufacturer (has mileage plus w/ cryptographic signature)
            3. Manufacturer sends newly programmed chip to the mechanic, and the mechanic sends the old chip back in the provided packaging
            4. Customer gets the car back, and the manufacturer can verify that the chip swap was legit

            Boom, under a week turnaround without any backdoors in the odometer.