Odometer reset question
 

I am interested in getting opinions on if it is an acceptable practice to zero the odometer after completing a mechanical restoration. I am in the process of restoring my 1978 911SC and have just completed a no expense spared engine rebuild. My car was originally sold in Portland Oregon and has a MPH speedo that reads to 150 mph. The speedo has always been inaccurate and reads 5 mph faster than the actual speed of the car. This bugs me because I live in Canada where the speed limit is in KPH and I am constantly trying to add, subtract and multiply in my head how fast I am going. I was thinking of getting my speedometer recalibrated and at the same time change the dial face to read up to 300 KPH ala the 1973 911 Carrera RS 2.7. At the same time I was thinking of zeroing the odometer to reflect my brand new engine and recording the existing mileage and odometer change in my maintenance book. ( In no way do I want to hide the true mileage on the car, I just want the odometer to reflect the mileage on the new engine.) I saw a 1973 911 Carrera 2.7 advertised with a 1,300 km odometer reading with the notation that the odometer reflects "post restoration km" This is kind of the way I want to go with mine. Any thoughts?

Wouldn’t the receipts and overall condition of vehicle speak to the full resto? I’d vote no reset.

What I have seen in the past is where people will re-zero when the entire car has been restored, not just the engine. The transmission, engine, paint, suspension components, everything gone through, new/restored interior, etc. Again everything looked at. Even so, it would typically be stated on the title, depends on the state, that miles are past mechanical limit, or unknown etc., you would never state a new zero miles on the title, even if restored.

I suspect it's against the law for anyone skilled enough to do it to do it.. nothing says you can't buy a new zero mileage KP unit being the car is in such a region. that will be bookoo expensive so what's this exercise actually worth to you?


is there a darknet Porsche site anyone knows the knock to be admitted to?

I say no. What would be the point?

Lots of people get new or rebuilt engines and don't zero the odometer. As Rodney has already suggested, if one were to completely restore and make new the entire car, top to bottom, and inside to out, then maybe, maybe do an odo reset. I'd still not do it even then. If I had to for some reason get a whole new speedometer, I'd change the odometer to reflect actual mileage on the car to match the original speedo. Even with a Singer job done, with hardly anything at all left original to the car, I'd still be hesitant to change it.

You should hold the mileage of the car as a badge of honour. Be proud of all the miles and miles of experience it has and how good it looks and runs with such a thing. Even a brand spanking factory new engine does not entitle any car to a zeroed odometer.

If I were changing a miles per hour speedo to be kilometres, I'd convert the existing miles to km, then change the odometer to match that number. Then put a label somewhere on the outside barrel of the speedo (out of sight behind the dash) indicating what you did and the miles before the conversion. And put a big fat note in your records to document the change. Don't forget to do the magic christening dance and sacrifices and all that mumbo jumbo to appease the odometer gods. I don't know the actual steps, but I think it's somewhat similar to the process to properly rename a boat.

It's like the soul of the car. It's sacred...

Thanks for everyone's opinions. I think I will just stay with the MPH speedometer that I have had for the last 30 years and just get it calibrated to read accurately. But that leads to another question? My speedometer says I am going 55 MPH when I am actually ( by GPS) only going 50 MPH. (10% error) My car has 132,000 miles on the odometer. Does this mean that the car has actually only traveled 119,800 miles?

Hi Revs, who knows when it went out of calibration? Does it have the factory size wheels/tires? The reality is the overall condition of your car and documentation can easily out weigh your milage. This did not used to be the case, but the value of these cars seems to now not be so dependent on overall mileage. Sure there are some guys who want super low milage and original paint, but that is not the majority of us. I look for condition, records, history, upgrades, care of ownership, parts quality used. I've owned two SCs and there is no difference in price between 119K and 132K miles.

How have you gone 30 years without the odometer gear breaking??? I would have guessed that a PO already redid the odometer, except that you ARE the PO...

As a point of reference, my 84 probably reads 10+% faster than actual speed and isn't consistent as it seems to have significant drag pn the speedo needle; however I have checked with GPS and via highway mile markers and the ODO seems to be dead on. So I don't know that you can say the mileage is inaccurate solely because the speed readings are off.

I agree with Rodney, there is no difference in desirability between 119,000 miles and 132,000 miles. What gets me is I bought this car in 1989 and I HARDLY drive it. ( 3,300 miles per year average.) But I see 911SC's advertised all the time with less than half the mileage in not as nice condition.

I've had three 911SCs. All had six-digit odo readings. Two of them, including the one I drive now, show a "crooked" number as the first of those six. Bruce Anderson, PCA 911 technical editor forever, said his shop had a customer with a 3.0" engine with 480,000 miles and he was not yet recommending a rebuild. In my view, a 911 speedo showing a 2 or 3 or 4 followed by five digits is a badge of honor.

A guy at the fastener store admired my 911, and reported noticing years ago that beloved muscle cars moved across car lots with 20, 30, 40K miles while 911s were doing the same thing but with another digit. Guys can't stop driving these cars. I can't. And they are as reliable as a hammer. Some day, 600K+ 911 speedos will be in demand.

Leave the ODO current and keep receipts for the work. A good book of repairs made is worth its weight in gold. I have a book dating back several owners for my car that I have tried to keep up with.

I agree with the majority leave it. It is a badge of honor. My gears broke in ODO on my 964 at around 140k, I had them fixed within a week because I wanted to keep adding miles to it. That and I can't stand when things are not working as intended. Keep it, rock it out! Brag about your mileage! I do.

I completely understand and agree. I bought a 1996 model in 1998 that had 3600 miles. It literally looked like it had been on 3600 very abusive 1 mile trips...........
I had to have the drive seat leather recovered.

Absolutely not.

No, keep records / receipts. Turning the clock back is a cherry move.

I was listening to an interview with Alois Ruf the other day and the topic came up about how they avoid having to adhere to emissions and crash safety requirements. He said that RUF is considered a "boutique" automobile manufacturer. Because they make less than so many cars per year, they don't have to comply. What I did not realize was that as a boutique manufacturer, that means RUFs also get their own VIN number. So the chassis that left the Porsche factory with a VIN gets a new RUF VIN. Someone then mentioned that Singer might now fall into that category.

If that's true, then a donor car that becomes a Singer would ostensibly get a new Singer VIN too. In that case I could see an odo reset. That makes sense to me. Otherwise, I think you'd be asking for trouble having a car with the same VIN and a reset odo. At some point, someone will inevitably question it down the line and you might not be there to explain it. It might not be a problem for you, but it could be a problem for someone else one day. They might suspect a VIN swap theft, for example.

I vote no.

I remember that my old 1969 911E had a page in the maintenance book to record a speedometer/ odometer change so on the early cars it was fairly common to replace a non functional speedometer with a brand new one. I checked my maintenance manual for my 1978 911SC and that page no longer exists

I think that Ruf (back in the day) could put their VINs on the bodies-in-white they purchased from the factory and not on cars completed by Porsche that they modified afterward or after being sold to customers. Now, they are far more independent with their new cars such as the CTR being build mostly in house.

Singer is an auto restorer and customizer. At the bones of it, they're hardly different than any other "boutique" restorer and customizer like Emory, Ninemeister, TRE or Freddy. I doubt they would have legal standing to issue new VINs for them as the basic shell is still intact.

If you wanted, you could build a brand new 60s Camaro or pickup from new parts purchased from a catalog. In that situation, each state would issue a new VIN, I believe, on a case by case basis. If you went into production building them, I don't know how that would work in the US to get VINs.

Herr Ruf clearly stated their cars have their own VINs issued by RUF. I found an article that says that Singers keep their original VIN and odometer reading. My only point was I could only imagine resetting the odometer in an unusual situation, like you took one car and totally transformed it into something else. In that case you could argue that it is no longer what it once was and therefore has little relevance. But it would have to be some extreme, uncommon example.

The odometer is really tied to a chassis. Many people do engine swaps and I don’t think I’ve ever heard of someone resetting the odometer.

Bottom line, I think resetting the odometer, barring some unusal corner cases, is probably just inviting future trouble.