Broken odometer- fix or let it be?
 

If one of our air cooled beauties has a broken odometer and therefore incorrect mileage, what is the most acceptable course of action? Fix it and set mileage to best estimated mileage disclosing to any potential buyer down the road OR leave it and disclose it as broken when the time comes to sell?

Personally, I don’t put too much weight in mileage. I bought both my G bodies with broken odos and never really cared. Wondering what the rest of the internet thinks.

Thanks!

In our province a functioning odometer is required to pass safety inspection on sale of vehicle.
Most cost effective to accomplish this on your own, skills permitting.

Phil

Mine did the same thing a few years back. Just stopped working on a drive.

Very simple repair as it is often a small internal gear that has had one or more teeth break due to brittleness. The little gear is available. Get the gear, remove the speedo/odo, open it up and replace, then reinstall the speedo/odo.

Then go for a drive.

Lots of articles on this in the forum. Good luck.

and take a lot of pictures as you go. be super careful not to put too much pressure on the needle since it'll pop off and you might not be able to put it back where it was (aka no longer correct speed)

I replaced the small gear and it worked for a few months only to stop working again.

I'm a fan of ♪♪ Let it be, let it be.. ♪♪

My odometer hasn't worked for over ten years. No point in fixing it at this stage.

If it was me, I would get it fixed. On the future sale, note TMU and move on. If asked why, tell the buyer, show the receipts.

Fix it. It's very helpful to track miles traveled, since last oil change, since last fill-up, etc.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/support/smileys/wat6.gif

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Great input and appreciated. Likely going down the fix path. Thanks all!

Had mine fail recently at 18x,xxx and, after reading the diy repair threads, opted not to gamble and sent mine to John Bell (jbell959 on pelican) for repair. John also replaced my speedometer's scratched up plexiglass faceplate with a glass one and (at my request) set the odometer 600 miles ahead to account for the two tanks worth of driving I did between the odometer breaking and being fixed. Can't recommend John enough :)

send it to John Bell to fix it

I repaired mine with a new plastic gear, following this excellent video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvm23fMcSEA&t=1627s

Took a little time, but not too tough.

+1 for John Bell if you don't want to fix it yourself.

Personally, I find that anything that isn't working, even if its no big deal, will eventually bother me enough that I will want to fix it.

I opted to have my odometer fixed/refreshed by ??Hollywood speedo? if they are still around - cost me $150 or so // no regrets

kgl

Kim, I don’t understand why you ask for advice and everybody on this thread suggested that you go to John Bell and then you decide to go to Hollywood speedo.
Hollywood speedo is more expensive, very slow, and I believe they farmed their work out to others.
My last experience with Hollywood speedo was a cost of $2500 to redo a set of gauges. After installing them I ended up selling two of them to John Bell to have them fixed correctly because they didn’t work. I have not been back the Hollywood speedo ever since. Ask anybody what their experiences are with Hollywood speedo today and I don’t think you’re going there .

ed317

while I appreciate (and concur with) your sentiments, wanted to point out that Kimlangley7 was not the original poster on this thread and (reading a bit between the lines) appears to have sent their speedo out to N. Hollywood ("if they're still around") for odometer repair at some time in the past.

Keeping this about John Bell, he provided me with IMPECCABLE communication and a crazy-fast (2 day?) turn around time. A true (and in this day and age, increasingly rare) pro!

I have the same problem. Does anyone have John Bell's contact info please?

Thanks!

As it's not a big cost to repair (whether by yourself or via a shop), I'm not sure why you wouldn't want your odo repaired. Even if you never sell the car again, don't you ever rely on the odo, even out of intellectual curiosity? Hey, I wonder how long a road trip we took?

I've had the odo repaired on both my cars. I took it to North Hollywood Speedometer, partially because I live nearby. I think it was about $165 each time. The first time, I walked in and they repaired it on the spot, by the guy in the shop who does the Singer gauges. The 2nd time, I dropped it off and picked it up 2 days later. No problems since then.