xcr

I recently purchased a 2012 Odyssey for the fam. After spending a bit of time in it I am concerned it may have substantially more miles than indicated by the odometer (and carfax/autocheck) - especially after it quickly developed a bad wheel bearing with only "20k" miles...

I talked a little to the local dealer and basically got patronized with their service tech acting like he really didn't have much knowledge on the electronic end of things - about all he would say is "Ohhh, well people can't just fool with odometers like they used to be able to". Yeah, yeah, I know - all these scary and mysterious electronics make it much more difficult to engage in nefarious actives -- BS! In some cases it's easier if the right safeguards aren't in place.

Being a software developer, hardware and car enthusiast who has reverse engineered EFI systems, done retrofits, and been neck deep in PCM software - I have a pretty good idea of what old and modern PCMs are capable of and things they can track. Older ones tracked almost nothing but newer ones are fairly sophisticated and can keep at least basic pieces of data.

What I would like to discern is if Honda has any safeguards in place to help prove that an odometer has been tampered with when things don't seem right.

What I'm looking for is some basic knowledge of what the software they have at the dealer is capable of reading - or - how the odometer system is setup so I know if the service tech is blowing smoke up my a$$ or not and get him off his lazy butt to look at what the PCM has to say. Basically - is the mileage stored in the PCM or the instrument cluster? If someone simply changed out the cluster with a low mileage one, surely there are safeguards in the PCM to flag that this likely occurred - i.e. it keeps track of an ID in the cluster that no longer matches, has some counters of it's own that can easily be viewed but not reset, etc. If it's stored in the PCM and they swapped that out, then surely the PCM has the VIN, etc and that could easily be determined and or records of a Dealer having swapped in a new PCM and programmed it with the correct VIN.

If there is aftermarket software/hardware that will give me read access to the PCM's contents so I can check for myself that would be pretty cool too. I'm familiar with what's available for GM, Audi, and Porsche - but not really for Honda.

I'm hoping there's someone here with actual knowledge I can go in armed with, I don't really need help with determining other ways of being able to tell via circumstantial evidence like brake pedal wear, tire and brake wear, etc. If It can be determined that the odo was tampered with I plan on taking this to the attorney general and running with it - but I need to be armed with more than "well, if you look here the brake pedal is more worn than it should be for 20k miles & I had a wheel bearing go bad".

09chaplak

I don't think you'll really get a bite in the tech section here, maybe try going over to the odyssey model forum and see if you get something there. If not, and this is a fair warning can't stress that enough, post this question in the general debate and discussion section. You will probably get a lot of flames but that's your best bet for someone who might know to answer.