Hello-

I just recently purchased a 97SE with 29.6K miles on it. This weekend when I was driving up to a friend's cabin, the Odometer was roling over to 32K... and stopped.

Unfortunately, I was over 300 miles away from where I could get it serviced and had to drive it the whole weekend with a failed odometer.

When I got back home and went to get it serviced> Iwas in for a couple surprises:

1)The replacement was going to put me back nearly $300 including parts and labor and they would never be able to calibrate it so that it showed the correct mileage. I used to be in car sales, and I know how much an inaccurate odometer can hurt the resale value of a car.

2)On a hunch, I had the mechanic check the brakes for me because they had been squealing a bit at low speeds. He comes back to me and tells me that there is an excessive amount of wear an tear on the brakes for a car with on 32K miles on it.

Well, that instantly set off an alarm in my head because of the many times where we saw that excessive wear usually meant that either the car was driven like mad... or the odometer was tampered with to hide extra mileage. Add to that the fact that the car was originally titled in Illinois and how easy title washing is.

I guess, before I start calling the DMV, and the dealership, I want to know if anyone else has experienced low mileage odometer failure on the 4th gen Maximas or if this was just an isolated failure? Also, how difficult is it to tamper with the Odometer on a Maxima? I don't need to know how to do it, I just want to know the warning signs to look for.

Any help or advice will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

Dan Noah

 

Dan,

Don't worry too much. One of the nicer things about ODBII cars is that the ECU keeps track of the mileage as well... so it could still be ok.

As for the brakes... maxmia brakes wear pretty fast. Many have reported that the brakes wearing out a 30-40k. I know my rears, yes, rears, have worn out in 60k. That's aweful fast for rear brakes.

You can actually go to car fax and run a vin search.. it should/could tell you when the last reported mileage was to the DMV... and you can go at it from there.

good luck,
-Shing

 

My trip odometer failed at about 60K miles and then began owrking mysteriously agaihn at about 75K. As for brakes....I have a 95 with 100K and still original brakes but they have severely grooved the rotors ( I do TRUE highway driving where the car stays in 5th and w/ cruise on for 200-300 miles a pop). I will need new brakes and front rotors at aroun 105K-110K. Hope this

 

I have nearly 70k miles as well.. but like you I do mostly highway driving. Which is what makes the rear wear even more strange to me... go figure.

-Shing

 

"One of the nicer things about ODBII cars is that the ECU keeps track of the mileage as well... so it could still be ok."

Okay, now I am confused. The guy at the local Nissan dealership said that there was no way they could get the info on the current mileage. He said that they would have to re-adjust it to what ever I "thought" the current mileage may be. He never mentioned anything about calibrating it based on info from the ECU.

This may be due to the fact that the only Nissan dealership in my area has a reputation of not doing the best work.

Do you know of a website that I could go to and get more information on getting the mileage from the ECU? The parts will not be in until next week tuesday and if I can get it done right, I'd rather just get the parts and wait to take it to a better service shop.

Again, any help will be greatly appreciated!

Thank you,

Dan Noah

 

I would do the Carfax thing. When I bought my Max I was skeptical of a few things too. The car had 43,000 on it. I should add that it is a 97GXE. I ran the check and Carfax gave me a reading of mileage which was about 50 miles negative. The car came from an auction lot where lease autos are taken for dealers to purchase. It's about 50 miles from where I bought the car. I felt better after I got the report.

 

it is pretty easy do swap out the mileage.
all someone has to do is go to a junk yard and buy a new gauge cluser and put it in... also if you have a gle and want se white dials you can also swap them too.

 

Who would know how to get the mileage from the computer? TYIA.

 

I just bought my 96 a year ago.

The dealer made a point about pointing that the odometer has failed at ~1200 miles while under the first owner.

The dealer installed a new one and it's noted on the title and on a sticker on the drivers door vertical pillar. The new gauge started at 0 so to get true miles I always have to apply that offset value.

Over time the sticker has gotten wet and wrinkled and faded. It would be easy to remove and a buyer would be none the wiser unless they knew to check a title before signing on the dotted line.

Caveat Emptor (buyer beware)

 

A friend of mine had tried to roll back the odometer on his 3rd generation and succeded. 97 still has the analog odometer so it can be easily rolled back.

Another friend of mine bought a VW Jetta a while back with a little over 100,000 miles. He thought he got a good deal until the 2nd digit rolled backward and became 190,000+ miles. He got furious and took the car back to where he bought it and threatened to sue the seller. The seller got scared and returned all his money plus whatever "hassle" my friend had to go through.

I seriously doubt that the ECU keeps track of the odometer reading unless the car has digital odometer.

 

I remember when I bought my car at dealer auction, there were some other cars being sold under "Mileage uncertain" sticker, and they were going awfully cheap. I think if mileage is uncertain, people just assume the worst about the car, even if everything is peachy.

 

I believe only the ECUs have the odometer information with a digital odometer only, which would be 98+.

 

same thing happened to my odometer. It happened after i hit a pothole. Then a couple of days later it started working again after i hit another pothole. *shrug* i know i;m not the first to have this happen. Cause it happened on a few of my friend's cars. I remember on my dodge grand caravan there was a fuse that supplied pwoer to all the guages and it burned out. If you speedometer doesnt work as well as the odometer check the fuse.