Car owners know for a fact that the odometer is one of the most important parts of the instrument cluster especially when it comes to the resale value of the car.
That is why it is important for you to always have the correct mileage on your odometer if you want to get the right value for your car without getting into trouble with the law.
What is odometer correction and how is it useful?
Odometer correction is simply how you correct the mileage of the car using odometer correction tools that will help display the correct reading on the odometer. Discrepancies could be introduced due to wheel (rim) upgrade, tire size increased/decreased, or even worn-out tires.
Odometer correction might not be the most popular in terms of how ethically used it is, considering that there are some people who use it incorrectly.
However, as long as you know what odometer correction is for and how you should use it, odometer correction tools should be quite handy for a lot of different people out there when it comes to making sure that their odometers are showing the right values.
Related:
- What is Odometer Data? (Explained)
- What Is Current Odometer Reading? (Why’s It Important?)
- What Is Odometer Brand? (Explained For Beginners)
What is odometer correction?
When you are a car owner, one of the things you should know about is that your odometer is not merely a simple instrument that will show you how far you have driven your car.
Instead, your odometer is actually quite important because of how it basically tells you how old your car is based on the number of miles it has driven.
The car’s mileage becomes important for a lot of different reasons.
First, it tells you when your car already needs to be maintained because periodic maintenance depends on the mileage of your car.
And second, the car’s mileage is one of the things that buyers look at when they want to purchase a used car. The second reason is perhaps the best reason why your odometer is so important.
However, there will be cases where the odometer won’t actually show the correct mileage of your car regardless of whether it is a mechanical odometer or a computerized one.
That’s because the car’s tires will play a role in how your odometer works since odometers base the mileage of your car on the size of your wheels.
So, if you were to change the tires and upgrade or downgrade to wheels that have sizes different from the stock tire size, the odometer will most likely get affected.
In that regard, the odometer will still use the same mileage computation that it used in the old tires instead of compensating for the size change of your new tires.
This can be problematic on your part because there are laws that are put in place to make sure that odometers show the right mileage of a car.
In that case, odometer correction comes in to help you correct the mileage shown by your odometer so that you don’t have to worry about getting into trouble with the law in case you sell your car and the odometer is not displaying the correct mileage.
And, when you are correcting your odometer’s mileage, you should make use of odometer correction tools that will get the job done in the right way.
What is an odometer correction tool?
Now that you know how important odometer correction is, you might wonder what an odometer correction tool is and how it works.
Of course, it is also interesting to know why people are actually using odometer correction tools aside from when they want to change the mileage of their cars to the correct value.
So, in the simplest way to explain it, an odometer correction tool is a tool that will allow you to correct your odometer in certain ways that can be different.
Odometer correction tools differ in terms of the way they work because we have what we call odometer rollback tools and mileage stopper tools.
Odometer rollback tools actually roll back your odometer in case there is an important reason for you to do so other than to fool prospective buyers. We will talk about the reasons why you might want to use such a tool.
Meanwhile, a mileage stopper tool actually stops your odometer from counting your car’s mileage so that you no longer have to roll it back later on.
Again, we will talk about the reasons why people use mileage stopper tools.
So, if you look at odometer rollback tools and mileage stopper tools, you might be thinking that these can be quite unethical and illegal because of how they can show and reflect odometer values that are different from your car’s actual mileage.
And if you are using a car that runs on a computerized instrument cluster, it can be pretty easy to see the car’s actual mileage other than looking at the odometer.
In that regard, here are the reasons why these odometer correction tools actually exist:
Compensate for tire size changes
The best reason for you to use an odometer correction tool is to compensate for the changes in your tires such as when you use tires that don’t have the same size as the stock tires. It could also be because of how worn-out tires can actually change the way your odometer counts the car’s mileage.
So, in case you didn’t know odometers are calibrated to take into consideration the size of the tires used on a specific car.
That means that they will compute the car’s mileage base on the diameter of the tires. In that regard, if you were to change the size of your tires, the odometer will still be calibrated to compute the mileage of your car based on the previous tire size.
This is where odometer correction tools come in to help you correct your odometer so that it will show the right mileage based on the car’s new tires.
So, let’s say that you use 14-inch tires instead of 15-inch tires, the odometer will naturally show your mileage based on the 15-inch tires even though the mileage should be lower now that you are using smaller tires. You can correct this using an odometer correction tool.
Performance testing
Another reason why people use odometer correction tools is for performance testing.
There will be times when a car is used simply to test its performance on a track so that prospective buyers can tell whether or not the car is as good as advertised.
As such, odometer correction tools are used to make sure that the odometer can be stopped or rolled back when the car is simply used for performance testing and is not actually driven on the road.
Correcting the mileage before selling the car
There will be various reasons why the car’s odometer isn’t showing the correct mileage. It could be because you changed the odometer or because you changed the car’s engines.
A tire change can also be a reason why the odometer isn’t showing the correct mileage.
Whatever the reason may be, it is important for the odometer to reflect the right mileage when you are selling it because there are specific requirements under the law regarding your car’s odometer.
In that regard, using odometer correction tools is one of the ways you can change the car’s mileage to its true mileage so that you won’t get into trouble when you sell your car.
That means that you have to use the tool to change the value that is on the odometer since this is one of the most important things you need to comply with if you are planning on selling your car to a prospective buyer.
Doing so will make sure that you won’t get into trouble with the law when your odometer isn’t showing the car’s true mileage.
What is the best odometer correction tool?
If you are looking for a good odometer correction tool, we recommend that you go with mileage stoppers instead of odometer rollback tools.
That’s because mileage stoppers are more ethical compared to odometer rollback tools, which can easily be used to roll the odometer back to different values to fool prospective buyers of the car’s correct mileage.
Meanwhile, mileage stopper tools don’t have the same capabilities but are only there to stop the odometer from counting the car’s mileage during certain times.
Mileage stoppers can also have different programs that you can use to account for or to compensate for tire changes.
As such, they are quite handy to have for those who would want to correct their odometers.
When you are looking for the best mileage stopper tool, this tool isn’t readily available in mainstream stores and on Amazon because of ethical reasons.
However, you can purchase them from the websites of their manufacturers. One mileage stopper tool that we like is Super Kilometer Filter.
The reason why we like Super Kilometer Filter is that it offers different modes that you can use depending on the reason why you want to stop your mileage.
It could be because you want to compensate for a tire change or because you are simply testing out your car’s performance.
Whatever the case may be, Super Kilometer Filter has almost everything you need from a good mileage stopper.
Correcting odometer yourself (Video)
If you have basic knowledge of cars and electronics, you can correct the odometer yourself, check out the below video.
Check out how to perform odometer correction on your 03, 04, 05, 06, or 07 classic Silverado, Sierra, Tahoe, Yukon, Suburban, Hummer.
A simple instructional video illustrating how to reprogram your digital car odometer after swapping instrument clusters using simple electronics, a computer with a serial port, some soldering knowledge, and an understanding of hexadecimal programming.
DISCLAIMER: The information provided in this video is not how odometers are rolled back for criminal purposes. This video is for informational and educational purposes only.
