Mileage verification from ignition key?

[mikey-r]

Is it true that the key 'stores' the mileage of the car and can be verified at a main dealer? If this is true, how does it work if both keys are used (husband and wife have a key each and both drive the car)?

I may be interested in a car that's got incomplete history and it would at least be a little reassuring if I could verify the mileage.

Cheers

Mike.

[TheEnd]

Yep, mileage details are written to the chip in the key, if you have 2 keys, then one will be a little out of date.

[DaveL86]

mikey-r said:

I may be interested in a car that's got incomplete history and it would at least be a little reassuring if I could verify the mileage.

When you say "incomplete history" I'm assuming you mean service history, the mileage doesn't mean much really, BMW's can do hundreds of thousands of miles easily if looked after well and this should be the point to consider... if the car is advertised with 50k miles (nothing) and you confirm via the key its truly 50k miles this means very little after all would you buy a car thats and 0 or 1 service in 50k miles?

Edited by DaveL86 on Sunday 23 August 21:17

[JimexPL]

I presume that he wants to check if the vehicle has been clocked or not.
Unfortunately if one of the previous keepers has taken the car to a bmw 'specialist' that knows what he is doing, then altering the mileage in the keys, the dash display and anywhere else that stores the information is relatively common these days.
Also rather disappointingly, it is not just back street railway arches type establishments that do this - if you have a quiet word on the side with some seemingly reputable garages you would be shocked at how easily it is sometimes offered!

If you think that something is not right about the car that you are looking at then walk away and find another - It's not as if modern BMWs are rare!

[mikey-r]

Thanks for the replies chaps.

The car could turn out to be an absolute bargain if I'm willing to take a risk with the incomplete service history. I'm just trying to cover any other angles that I can but it sounds like this avenue isn't 100% reliable either.
Maybe best just to pay an good Indy a few hundred to give it a thorough inspection.

[eliot]

Get the current mot serial number and pump it into here:
http://www.motinfo.gov.uk/internet/jsp/ECHID-Inter...
It will give you the dates and mileages for the last few years since computerisation.(including the crucial advisories)

[christer]

mikey-r said:

Thanks for the replies chaps.

The car could turn out to be an absolute bargain if I'm willing to take a risk with the incomplete service history. I'm just trying to cover any other angles that I can but it sounds like this avenue isn't 100% reliable either.
Maybe best just to pay an good Indy a few hundred to give it a thorough inspection.

What car is it? It needs to seriously cheap if you can't even verify milage let alone service history.

[the02shed]

How it is stored varies dependant on model, but basically it will be the DME/DDE control unit that stores the mileage(in KM). This cannot be altered, even if the diplay is "adapted" to show a different figure on the instrument cluster.
Incidentally, if the display is "clocked", there will be a tell-tale dot displayed in the cluster too, to indicate the mileage has been altered. You need to know what to look for!