sorry to hijack the thread, tambalolong what happened to your Sarao Jeepney? hope you didnt trade it in. /jk

that would be fraud

How is this thread not locked yet?

No offense taken, but what part is incorrect out of curiosity? I'll be honest I only know by what has been told to me by a BMW technician friend. I actually was told that there is a way to completely change the mileage but that it would not be worth it most due to the cost of the equipment and what those who can do it charge. I heard those guys typically charge $1k to $1,200 but a cut off switch can be done for $350 install and $150 uninstall. If you could roll back a 100k mile X5 to lets say 75k, how much more will you actually get assuming it will not raise a red flag due to mileage recorded for that vehicle at annual inspections or BMW service centers if brought to them? Is it really worth the risk is what I'm basically asking? This is no longer taken lightly. You're looking at mandatory jail time for odometer fraud.

First off guys, depending on your Country, it is not illegal to alter the miles on the vehicle! and its not illegal for these guys with the equipment to be in business.
However where it does become illegal is for the owner of that vehicle, to "knowingly" sell it on, without telling the new owner the miles has been altered.

Also please remember that what BMW tell you isn’t always correct, as I’m sure we all know, a lot of the guys working in BMW only know what they are taught by the franchise, or what’s on the screen in front of them or in a book. In most cases the members on these types of forums, will have a lot more knowledge than some of employees in dealerships.

The equipment I am referring too that can alter the miles, is not something you just walk into a any store and purchase and start using! This equipment costs upward of £10,000 UK pounds, at today’s rate that $15,000 and upwards depending on the systems. That guys that use this can typically charge what ever they want depending on the vehicle and what’s involved. X5 could be $1000 an up. Also it takes quite a bit training etc.

Also please be aware that not all users of this equipment are adjusting miles for people in the illegal sense. I know a company who uses the equipment solely to convert Japanese imported vehicles from KM to MILES, they also adjust miles on used clusters for people that may have a fault with the one in their vehicle, so they have purchased another from a wreckers yard or eBay, but obviously the miles wont be the same, so these guys are able to convert the miles to the correct amount.


Nasdakboy to answer your questions,

First off, thanks for understanding, as mentioned it was nothing against you and I don’t want to fall out with anyone lol.

1. The cut off switch:

The cut off switch you mentioned is totally impossible on most BMW’s and especially on the X5, reason I say this is because, the electronics involved, the locations of where the miles is stored etc can not be switched off or stalled, as this has a knock on affect with say, headlight, gear changes, oil temp, computer, interior lights and so on.
The switch may have worked on older model cars with less technology but it will not work on the X5 and I would say most of todays vehicles.

2. You mentioned the tamper light or as some know it as the tamper dot, as it’s a small yellow dot that will display in and around where the miles is displayed.
As already mentioned its not just BMW that can remove this light, if there is a fault with the miles and the dot appears, these guys/companies with the mileage equipment can remove this error also. But as said, any of these guys that know what they are doing and have the correct equipment will not trigger any warnings or cause any faults anyway.

3.You mentioned the only way to adjust the miles is by BMW. I think have already covered that question.
And the rest of has been covered also.

Now your all wondering how I know so much!! Lol

That’s because one of my business is electronics, conversions, custom car installs and so forth. Some of you will remember that I was one of the first to do the DIY SMG paddle install and post it up here free for everyone to do without paying those ridiculous prices to guys that wanted to make money from it.
Anyway along the way I met one of these guys with the full equipment as I was custom building an e39 540i into a wide arch M5 and we installed an M5 gauge cluster, but the cluster needed altered and programmed, so this guy with the equipment, was able to recode it and programme the miles etc. It was from that experience that I have learned what these guys can do. Also with that same equipment the guy was able to switch my TV IN MOTION on with a simple push of a few buttons and literally seconds later the TV IN MOTION was working. No wiring or messing around needed.

Yes your right in the legal and ethical sense, but again it depends on your Country and laws behind this sort of thing. As I mentioned it's not illegal to adjust the miles, it only becomes illegal when the vehicle is passed on to another owner and he/she hasnt been told the miles was altered!! So its not the people that are doing the mileage correction at fault, its the owner of the vehicle!!

The equipment is also not some hack or chinese engineered thing, the guy I was talking too had over £20,000 worth of equipment and it is a professional setup built in the UK and Germany.

Yes the dealer can simply tell by checking the service history: they record the mileage everytime the car is brought in, so if it suddenly reads less than the last time it was brought in, then obviously the mileage has been tampered with. And you don't need any sophisticated equipment to figure that out.

By the way I was ALMOST a victim of such fraud. A few weeks ago when I was shopping for an X5 I saw a beautiful 4.8is advertised as having 90,000 km. It drove great. I decided to buy it but first wanted to have the dealer take a look. By looking at the service history they quickly realized that the car actually had nearly 200,000 km on it!!! *whew!* that was close.

Yeah thats obvious! But thats not what people/we are referring too, whats being refered, is the actaul aspect of altering the miles on the vehicles system and if BMW would notice.

And there are smart enough people out there to work the system in collabration with the dealer service book, so you still wont notice. If I told you some of the stories that I heard you would just be in disbelief!! It wasnt just individuals that were having the miles altered but actual dealerships also were doing it and selling the vehicles on as having less miles.

im buying a 4.8is cluster and i wanna put the correct miles on the cluster .. The cluster has 40k less miles... This is simply a upgrade