2000 Chevy Cavalier Odometer Changed Itself

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timsubzero
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Joined: Tue Jul 09, 2013 10:02 pm

2000 Chevy Cavalier Odometer Changed Itself

Unread post by timsubzero » Tue Jul 09, 2013 10:13 pm

My daughter has a 2000 Chevy Cavalier. It has 88,400 miles and is in great shape. Today however, while driving she noticed that the odometer had changed by itself from the 88,400 to 14,468. I said that that was impossible so I went to check it myself. Sure enough 14,468. The car starts up just fine and runs ok. No lights are lit on the dashboard indicating a problem. When I put the key in the ignition all digits on the odometer light up at 888888 upon power up and then it shows 14.468. I looked at this at 10PM so I did not drive it to see if the mileage changes, but she says the speedometer was working just fine. Could I have a bad sensor, bad control board or failing odometer cluster. Any help would be appreciated!!! Very weird, I have owned a lot of vehicles and never seen this before.

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carriedi
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Re: 2000 Chevy Cavalier Odometer Changed Itself

Unread post by carriedi » Wed Jul 10, 2013 12:03 am

are you sure you're not missing one more number 14468_ ? 144680 KM = about 89,000miles did you switch the miles to kilometers?
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timsubzero
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Joined: Tue Jul 09, 2013 10:02 pm

Re: 2000 Chevy Cavalier Odometer Changed Itself

Unread post by timsubzero » Wed Jul 10, 2013 10:52 am

Test drove the car this morning . Mileage was at 14488. Drove for about 4 miles, all runs well mileage did go up to 14492. So the odometer is working it has just changed the actual mileage. I did check the chassis ground at the battery holder and it appears in good shape, not rusted or broke off. Is there some sort of mileage sensor that could have gone bad?

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carriedi
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Re: 2000 Chevy Cavalier Odometer Changed Itself

Unread post by carriedi » Wed Jul 10, 2013 6:23 pm

the odometer reading is coming out of the memory chip in the instrument cluster. It is tied to the speedometer. There is no user adjustment available. If you set a hard code in the ecm you can look and see what mileage the scanner might read for when the code set and see if it's the same as the odometer reading. and it should be under normal circumstances. If everything else is working normally I would just keep a note with the registration of the mileage change and continue to drive normally and see what happens. In order to put the mileage back to where you think it was before you would have to send the cluster out to a specialist to reprogram. However if you tell them that the mileage changed all by itself they may recommend replacement
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carriedi
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Re: 2000 Chevy Cavalier Odometer Changed Itself

Unread post by carriedi » Wed Jul 10, 2013 6:29 pm

btw, disconnecting the battery or unplugging the instrument cluster won't affect the odometer reading. If you get a used cluster you get the mileage the old car had in your car now. It's made that way so that people can't roll back the mileage in used cars.
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timsubzero
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Re: 2000 Chevy Cavalier Odometer Changed Itself

Unread post by timsubzero » Wed Jul 10, 2013 7:28 pm

Sounds to me that if i need to sell this car i need to have some sort of documentation explaining why the mileage has changed. Looks like a trip to the dealer for them to take care of this. Thanks for your help!

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