Needed tool to read the actual mileage of a used car

[Lando101]

Hi,

I am trying to find a plug in tool to let me find out the actual mileage of a used car vs what is on the clock as it may have been tampered with. I am in the market for a used car here in Thailand and I see many scanners for sale but can't seem to find one that says it does that actual job, does anyone know if the $100 ones will do this like the BlueDriver OBDII Scanner for example.

 

hope you can help,

Lando????

[metisdead]

Moving to the Motoring forum. 

[OneMoreFarang]

You need a OBD2 module with Bluetooth and a mobile phone. That's all you need.

https://www.lazada.co.th/products/gracestoreelm327-obd2-scanner-i1544678691-s4121606765.html

 

With that you will be able to read lots of information from cars and modern motorcycles.

Most of these information are current information about the (running) engine, maybe ABS, and things like that.

Maybe you will be able to get additional information like the milage, but I think that depends on the car manufacturer.

 

This will give you an idea which information you will be able to read:

OBD-II PIDs - Wikipedia

 

What you will be able to read depends mostly on the car or bike and not on the adapter (see above). Likely you won't be able to see more information with a more expensive adapter.

 

This is one possible App to see the available info:

Torque Pro (OBD 2 & Car) - Apps on Google Play

 

[Ralf001]

You will need a tool that can extract the milage from the BCM.

[Lando101]

Thanks for the replies and links????. It will most likely be for a Toyota so I guess I will need to contact the scanner companies and check if this information will be accessible with that brand. From some early research I understand the actual mileage is stored in quite a few different places in the vehicle it's just if your scan tool can access any of them.

Quote

The mileage of a car is usually not only stored in the speedometer of the instrument cluster in the dashboard, but is also stored in many electronic control units (ECUs) installed in the vehicle. The mileage can even be stored in the seat memory or in the control unit for the electronic parking assistant

This one: the  THINKCAR SD6 Scan Tool  or the lower version was quite highly rated on some youtube review videos , I think they do both android smart screen standalones  and bluetooth phone options and not too pricey but with those youtube reviewer people, they all have affiliate links to make money so it's hard to know who to believe.

 

Anyway thanks again for the responses. I will start trying to contact the manufactures first and see what they say. The scanner has to display mileage, the other stuff is great but it seems mileage fixers are so easy to get and use now and there is no actual law against doing it in Thailand.

 

Cheers

Lando

[OneMoreFarang]

11 minutes ago, Lando101 said:

The scanner has to display mileage, the other stuff is great but it seems mileage fixers are so easy to get and use now and there is no actual law against doing it in Thailand.

I understand that you want to know the milage.

But you mention it's easy to change. And you want a tool to read it.

One thing you can be pretty sure about: Scammers who want to change the values somewhere in the electronic will have more experience with that then you will ever have reading that information.

 

If you have a scammer who wants to sell you a car and if that scammer allows you to connect a device which reads information, what do you think your device will see? The real information, or the information which the scammer changed for you to read?

[Lando101]

Fair point, but fixing the dash odometer is fairly easy but fixing it also in all the other locations where the info is stored is not and less likely to be done, That is the information I have gleaned from limited research so far anyway, plus I will need a system for checking fault codes and other issues so it may as well include this function. I just found a video as it happens where this process is done and is part of a series OBD2 scanners for complete beginners. If anyone is interested this is the title of the youtube video you could search on "OBD2 basic Part 1: Which OBD2 scanner to buy?" In the video he appears to be sat in a Toyota while he does the rollback check using the 'Thinkdiag2' scan tool. Video position 2.25 ????

 

[Coremouse]

Is that really possible, as Thailand swap motor is easy and joy, you're almost just reading at an particular ECU age, that's supposing it's readable and can't reset... like my daily is '94 not that old, even then the engine doesn't even know what OBD1 is, less OBD2 & Canbus etc.... 

 

As the engine might be a fresh import used, and ECUs are swappable, the actual 'car' might seen many times milleage then what it shows. 

 

I guess more reliable is Chassis age, as long it didn't welded firewall and tackle VIN plate with "connections". Judging chassis age plus whether rusty plus how many parts out of spec... We could guess how abused the car is and ballpark guessing actuall milleage lol

[Coremouse]

I suggest a better number than milleage, age etc., ask the seller for engine compression test numbers, BOTH without AND with a spoon of oil, & photo. Or ask seller let you test it, simple only took 10 minutes anyway. 

 

It shows engine abuses situation, prevent big engine / cooling / oiling risk, and unless the seller spent money to rebuild they can't cheat too much, if a cylinder shot it's shot. ( If provides both with/without oil numbers, only way to cheat would be seller using fake comp tester. And usually easy to tell as you could approximate all comp numbers relation for certain engine / CR, that cheater could may make mistake exposing cheat )

 

Sadly unlike western, almost all sellers don't provide compression numbers, even modified car seller mostly won't have. And since language barrier almost 100% they won't let you tackle spark plugs and test it yourself. Only very few handy car guys selling their own old car do kept up to date compression records