Dear Tom and Ray:
My husband just bought a 2004 Chevy Tracker with a smidge over 60,000 miles on the odometer. We think the prior owner might have hauled the Tracker behind a recreational vehicle; there is a tow-hitch bracket under the Tracker's front bumper and a bunch of rock chips in the hood's paint. So our question is this: When a vehicle is towed with four wheels on the ground like that, does the towed vehicle's odometer register all of those miles? My husband thinks most of these miles are "towed miles" and therefore he got a low-mileage vehicle with a high-mileage odometer. Is my husband's smugness justified?
-- Di
Ray: A husband's smugness is never justified, Di. Because even if he's right about something, it's only a matter of time before he's wrong about something else. If you don't believe me, ask my wife!
Tom: But you don't even have to wait for your husband to be wrong, Di. He's wrong right now. In the old days, odometers were mechanical. They were run by a cable that came up from the output shaft of the transmission. So, when the drive wheels turned, that shaft turned and the odometer turned, racking up the miles.
Ray: But on modern cars, speedometers and odometers are electronic. So unless the key is on, they're not getting powered and won't register any miles.
Tom: And no one would tow a car any kind of distance with the key on.
Ray: If the car had a stick shift, the person doing the towing would just shift it into neutral and tow it with the key off. Or, if it was an automatic, you would use the shift-lock override to put it in neutral.
Tom: And if you needed the key to be turned -- to unlock the steering wheel, for example -- you'd probably disconnect the battery to keep it from dying. Otherwise, when you got to the KOA in Winnemucca and tried to go out for some post-14-hour-drive hemorrhoid cream, your Tracker wouldn't start.
Ray: So your husband's new Tracker has 60,000 actual, honest-to-goodness driven miles on it. Plus maybe another 150,000 or 200,000 spent bouncing behind a Winnebago.
(Car Talk is a nationally syndicated column by automotive experts (and brothers) Tom and Ray Magliozzi. Write to them at the Car Talk website.)
2 Comments
By Annie on August 9, 2011 9:33 AM
A car salesman at Evergreen Ford in Issaquah, WA just tried to sell me a Saturn ION with 90K+ miles on it saying that it was a "tow behind" so those miles were not actual driving miles. It's a good thing we knew better. I'm glad that someone asked the question and it got answered publically.
By Jason on August 9, 2011 4:32 PM
I'd like to point out several flaws in your guys thinking. First, almost all manufacturers of towing equipment for RV's will tell you that the steering wheel must be unlocked on the car. For many cars this is the accessory postion which will turn on the speedo even if it's electonic. Also, putting the car in neutral will not make the the speedo/odometer quit working. That doesn't even make sense. Think about it. Every time you put your car in neutral does the speedo quit working. No! That's because the speed sensor is often located on the tailshaft housing (RWD/4WD) or wheel speed sensor on a FWD. Most cars (even new ones) will show tow behind miles, unless the speedo fuse is pulled, the battery is disconnected, a manual speedo disconnect is added (cable speedo) or the drive wheels are off the ground.