From: klg@mookie.mc.duke.edu (Kim Greer)
Subject: Re: electronic odometers (was: Used BMW Question ..... ???)
Organization: Duke Medical Center - Radiology
Lines: 27
Nntp-Posting-Host: mookie.mc.duke.edu

In article <1993Apr15.044636.29924@slcs.slb.com> dcd@se.houston.geoquest.slb.com (Dan Day) writes:
>That's scary -- if there's a way to set an arbitrary mileage figure
>into the odometer, you can't trust *any* odometer reading, even
>if you can prove that the odometer itself is the same one that
>came on the car originally.

  I was wondering if anyone can shed any light on just how it is that these
electronic odometers remember the total elapsed mileage?  What kind of
memory is stable/reliable enough, non-volatile enough and independent enough
(of outside battery power) to last say, 10 years or more, in the life of a
vehicle?  I'm amazed that anything like this could be expected to work for
this length of time (especially in light of all the gizmos I work with that
are doing good to work for 2 months without breaking down somehow).

Side question:  how about the legal ramifications of selling a used car with
a replaced odometer that starts over at 0 miles, after say 100/200/300K
actual miles.  Looks like fraud would be fairly easy - for the price of a
new odometer, you can say it has however many miles you want to tell the
buyer it has.

Thanks for any insight.


Kim Greer                       
Duke University Medical Center		 klg@orion.mc.duke.edu
Div. Nuclear Medicine  POB 3949		 voice: 919-681-5894
Durham, NC 27710  		         fax: 919-681-5636
