Yes, it's a stupid question, but this is my first car with a digital odometer (6th Honda though).

With the digital odometer, is the mileage stored by the actual cluster, the ECU, or something else entirely? I've run across a couple of clusters with grey instead of black faces on ebay for the 98-02, but I have no idea how the mileage would work.

 

The mileage is stored in the cluster itself. If you install a different cluster, it will show the mileage from the car it came from. The dealership should be able to reprogram the miles, or at the very least make it legal.

*NOTE: If you have a 4-cyl, you must use a 4-cyl cluster. If you have a V6, you must use a V6 cluster. They are not interchangeable.

 

gahr.. dealer?!? If I were to swap clusters for some reason down the road, is there any way to swap the odometer portion over? I've swapped speedos when switching Civic clusters before to keep the mileage intact. Of course, the mechanical odometers weren't exactly difficult to mess with.

And yeah, I knew 4 and 6 weren't compatible I looked pretty hard for a V6 manual 98-02, but couldn't find one locally in the 2 week timeframe I had to get a new car So I'm stuck with the F23A1.. I'm pretty impressed with the power it has for a 4 cyl tho. (I won't drive auto. period.)

I believe in Texas, as long as you keep a record of how many miles were on the car when the new odometer went in, and what the new odometer read at installation, it SHOULD be legal. I'd have to ask my mechanic to be sure though, and if the new cluster has lower miles carfax will flag it after the next state inspection.

 

Nope... The dealership or a qualified shop would need to place a specific sticker in the door jamb for it to be legal. On the sticker it will have the mileage difference, as well as some other information. When I replaced my cluster (the motor for the temp gauge stopped working), one of the mechanics at the dealership I worked at took care of it for me so it would read the correct mileage.

I don't know where exactly the mileage information is stored in the cluster, so I don't know if there's a way to swap it to another cluster. I'm sure if you're really good with circuit boards you could figure it out, but regardless it would would require desoldering and soldering some pretty small connections...

Oh, and you couldn't find a 98-02 V6 w/ a manual because Honda never one...