How to get mileage from odometer via OBDII?

[Owen Lucas]

Short of paying thousands for a Snap On or commercial grade scanner, is there anyway (besides going to the dealer) to retrieve odometer data via OBDII? I have seen a few generic scanners on Amazon mention mileage reading but they have poor reviews and seem deceptive in their descriptions. I wasn't able to get any data from my ELM Bluetooth connector either.

Is there some kind of firmware paywall where access to mileage data must be purchased via license which only comes with these expensive tools?

 

[Jetronic]

In europe, the engine ecu's have a computed mileage in them, it's not exactly the same as the odometer shows though.

 

[Timmastertech]

Whether you will be successful or not depends on the vehicle and what the vehicle manufacturer allows to be retrieved via live data. Not every vehicle has odometer data available in data stream out of any module. What vehicle are you trying to retrieve an odometer from?

 

[clinebarger]

Not all vehicles store odometer mileage in the PCM/ECM, GM vehicles store the Mileage in the Cluster (IPC) for example. And some vehicles don't store Mileage at all.

 

[Owen Lucas]

Whether you will be successful or not depends on the vehicle and what the vehicle manufacturer allows to be retrieved via live data. Not every vehicle has odometer data available in data stream out of any module. What vehicle are you trying to retrieve an odometer from?

2005 Scion tC, which is made by Toyota. I thought there would be a universal standard to see this data from unless each manufacturer has their own special pathway / circuit in OBDII that only their computers can access?

 

[Owen Lucas]

Not all vehicles store odometer mileage in the PCM/ECM, GM vehicles store the Mileage in the Cluster (IPC) for example. And some vehicles don't store Mileage at all.

Interesting, you'd think there would be a universal standard. I have seen gage clusters electrified and illuminated showing a mileage reading and heard of said clusters being swapped out into higher mileage vehicles for odometer fraud.

 

[Timmastertech]

Interesting, you'd think there would be a universal standard. I have seen gage clusters electrified and illuminated showing a mileage reading and heard of said clusters being swapped out into higher mileage vehicles for odometer fraud.

All depends on the manufacturer. GM has a service bulletin on odometer programming with what modules store odometer information. Some vehicles its the cluster, some its the body control module, some the engine controller and some multiple modules. Lots of European vehicles have primary odometer storage in the cluster and backup somewhere else and will set a fault or turn on an indicator if the two odometers do not match. On that particular scion I do not see mileage listed as a viewable pid in any of the charts in the service manual. Most likely there the cluster is the only module that stores the mileage.

 

[Owen Lucas]

All depends on the manufacturer. GM has a service bulletin on odometer programming with what modules store odometer information. Some vehicles its the cluster, some its the body control module, some the engine controller and some multiple modules. Lots of European vehicles have primary odometer storage in the cluster and backup somewhere else and will set a fault or turn on an indicator if the two odometers do not match. On that particular scion I do not see mileage listed as a viewable pid in any of the charts in the service manual. Most likely there the cluster is the only module that stores the mileage.

I've heard of Porsches storing odometer reading in their computers which synchronize. I guess the Scion isn't as complicated, thank you for helping me out!