ODOMETER

[8543bob]

Good morning,
When I had my 230 out of the "M" doing the rebuild, I saw a rebuild tag on the side of the engine. The engine was rebuilt in 1981, the "M" is a 1952; would they have changed the speedo/odometer at the time of rebuild, or is the 22,400 miles original truck miles??
Thanks.
BOB

[Lifer]

That should be original truck miles. It is unlawful to "reset" an odometer.

[cuz]

It is unlawful to "reset" an odometer.

For civilians it is.

The military would replace a speedo and just log the original mileage in the vehicle record file. Since the surplus vehicles leave the military without that record there is absolutely no way to ever determine the vehicle's actual mileage unless the DRMO entered actual "from the records" mileage on the 97. Add to this that in just about all states 20 plus year old vehicles are not required to report actual mileage.

[Lifer]

You have a valid point, there, Cuz. I can't imagine a government-owned MV getting enough road time to wear out a speedometer, though. Well...maybe an Army Transportation Command truck, but certainly not a motor-pool "rental" truck. Certainly not an AF truck!

[cuz]

You would be surprised at the mileage we put on our trucks. 3 shift operations 7 days a week on 3 miles of parking ramp! Security police patrols 3 shifts 7 and 0 over greater distances and often off base. I must have driven at least 10 or more trucks over the years that the speedo didn't even work in. And all of these miles were the worse kind, stop and go and idling for long periods and a lot of equipment towing a lot of which was very heavy. We used to have to weld pintles and bumpers twice a week. An honest OD reading of 30,000 in a military truck would probably be about equal to 70,000 miles of civvy driving.

[Lifer]

You're right again, Cuz. I hadn't considered flight line and/or security police vehicles which see constant service. Civil Engineers probably put in quite a few on-base miles, too, come to think of it. I was thinking in terms of M-series vehicles only, but I'd still have been mistaken.