How to check car miles with OBD2 scanner
You can verify if there were any rollbacks on the odometer just by looking at OBD2 live data. There are a lot of different live data values that can tell you either the mileage or at least give you relevant information like working hours. Some control units store their mileage which can be read with the OBD2 scan tool. Some don’t contain the exact mileage number but can provide relevant information.
An example is finding the working hours live data. If you know that the car engine runs for 1000 hours and the average speed is 30mp/h, this car should not have more than 30 000 miles. It should be maybe 25 000 – 28 000, because the engine also runs when a car does not move, like at red lights.
VIDEO: Check mileage with the OBD2 scanner
I used 3 different OBD scanners on a car with a rolled-back odometer. In the video, the car Skoda Rapid is “clocked” from more than 460k kilometers to 290k. Thinkdiag and OBDeleven were able to fetch mileage data with evidence of the fraud. The last scanner I tried was Carly. I knew that it could not read full live data, but they said it could do the used car check and mileage check. Spoiler: It is useless; it couldn’t find anything.
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Which OBD2 tool can read live data?
Even the cheapest tools can read live data like RPM, coolant temperatures, and basic data. However, they can read the live data only from the engine control unit. To increase the chance of finding evidence of tampered mileage, you will need access to live data from all control units, not just the engine. Live data that helps find odometer rollbacks can mostly be found in engines, dashboards, transmission, telematics, ABS, and radio control units.
Need an OBD-II scanner?
Thinkdiag2 can read live data from all control units
I am using this fairly cheap Bluetooth OBD2 tool which can access all control units and contains professional software. They are made by Launch, which makes professional handheld scan tools, and their software is used in this Thinkdiag device.
Use OBDeleven for VAG cars.
VAG cars are Volkswagen, Audi, Skoda, Seat, and Cupra. If you have one of these, the best choice to read live data and do other OBD2 stuff is the OBDeleven. It is a Bluetooth OBD2 adapter made just for these brands, and you can read the live data from all control units, even with their free plan. All you need is to buy the OBDeleven adapter.
How to check if mileage is genuine?
You can find the stored mileage or any data that will help you determine when the engine has run or the car was driven.
Remember that every car is different, and every car does not store the same live data. That’s why knowing multiple ways to determine a car’s mileage from the live data is important.
1. Look for stored mileage in different control units.
Every car brand has its own name for mileage live data. These are the common ones I know.
| Vehicle distance driven | Control unit distance driven |
| Total distance driven | Total mileage |
| Mileage | Distance |
| Odometer | Control module distance |
Both tools I listed have built-in finders when you enter live data in control units. That way, you dont need to scroll through all of them; try inputting one of these keywords to see if they are any.
If you are in a control unit that should have stored mileage value and can’t find it, it is worth scrolling through live data one by one to make sure that it isn’t called some other way you could find with these keywords.
Sometimes the value is in different metrics. I am European, and we have kilometers, which is around 0.6 miles. I discovered mileage tampering on Skoda Rapid when I found the engine control module distance, but I almost overlooked it because the distance was in meters, not kilometers.
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2. Find engine working hours and average speed
I dont know about all cars, but many VAG cars will show the short-term and long-term average speeds on the dashboard.
Now even the long-term average speed isn’t calculated from the whole car’s life; it is an average of maybe last 1-5k miles. But you can get an idea of the average speed from a sample like this.
And when you find out the working hours of the engine, you can do simple math to verify if the odometer’s mileage is genuine.
| Average speed | 25 mp/h |
| Engine working hours | 7500 |
You have to multiply the average speed by the number of working hours to get the estimated mileage of a car.
7500 x 25 = 187 500 miles
This is the estimated car’s mileage, and it shouldn’t have more than that. The dashboard should actually show a 10 – 20% lower value, like 160 000, because this calculation doesn’t take the time engine is running without the vehicle moving into consideration.
If you are at red lights or just parked with the engine running, the operation hours will increase, but the mileage is not changing.
3. Find working hours of OEM radio
This is the slick way of how to check total mileage on car if everything else failed. The multimedia control unit can also store the working hours of the radio. When I run an estimation from the working radio hours, I will consider 75% of these hours.
That is because sometimes you have the radio ON, but the engine is not running. It is not precise, but you can get at least a roughly estimated mileage.
Then again, multiply those hours by the average speed of a vehicle.
| Radio working hours | 10 000 |
| 75% of the working hours | 7 500 |
| Average speed | 25 mp/h |
Different data still get us the same result as the previous example.
7500 x 25 = 187 500 miles
4. Try to find any history logs
Some of the OBD2 software will pull the historical records from god know where. Here is the data I could find from 3 years back, helping me to understand how much the car was driven and what the mileage was before 3 years.
How to check real km on car?
You rarely know for sure that the odometer was rolled back. Sometimes the car owners are so dumb that they will rollback back the odometer lower than their last state inspection value. For example, if I pass the state inspection and have 200 000 miles on the dashboard, they will save this odometer value for my car. Not sure if every country does this, but most of them probably do.
And believe me; some people will roll back the odometer to 170 000 miles after 1 year and try to sell it.
Verifying a car’s mileage is detective work.
If that is the case, you can have bulletproof evidence. But that is rarely the case. Most of the time, you must do detective work and rely on your intuition. Live data is my favorite way to detect mileage tampering. Some car buyers determine this by the interior wear and tear, while others use the VIN vehicle reports.
Neither of these 3 methods is bulletproof; you can roll back the mileage before passing state inspections, rewrite all live mileage data with advanced software, and do the rollbacks just before passing state inspections. In that case, the mileage tamper would be untraceable.
Mileage isn’t everything.
Dont take mileage too seriously if you are buying a used car. The overall state of the car is much more important. I bought a car in great shape with 750 000km on the dashboard, which had the odometer rolled back by another 500 000 – 1 000 000km, and it ran great. On the other hand, you can have low mileage cars used in the city and for short trips only, which will be in terrible condition.
VIN mileage check
Every car has its unique 17-digit VIN number written in control modules and also on the vehicle’s frame. You can use VIN-check websites which will run a background check on the vehicle for a few bucks and will show you the records from state inspections and insurance claims to help you get an idea about the real mileage and the history of the vehicle.
Detecting mileage tamper is still important when buying a car.
The car’s mileage is not an important factor in determining a car’s overall condition. However, discovering it when you check the car for sale will give you amazing leverage to negotiate a better deal.
Just make sure to keep your calm; the owner doesn’t have to know that his car was rolled back in the past. It gives you a good ground for price negotiation but do it calmly; you dont want to accuse someone of crimes without solid evidence.
What ebd would work on a Citroen berlingo 2002. 1.4 petrol. I’ve tried a 3 and no success. But I’ve had a professional read my ebd recently so I no it dose work. The obd scanners I tried only showed revs and speed. Nothing else. But the professionals one had all data.
I have Renault Kangoo 2004 and Thinkdiag2 worked and could access all modules. Also all of these code readers except Motopower worked fine, so I think they would work on Berlingo as well, but they only work with engine control module (faults, readiness, data). Thinkdiag2 can access all modules.
I found HYUNDAI and KIA cars are hard for me to find mileage
Any suggestions
It all depends on car…if it doesn’t store mileage or operating hours data there is not much you can do except estimating from car’s interior and service records.