Saw this on another site. He was talking about reaching a milestone mileage and one of the comments said it may not be genuine as he had a ‘tamper dot’ showing.
Anyone else seen this before?
Tamper dot?
- Thread starter Dalek
- Start date
Saw this on another site. He was talking about reaching a milestone mileage and one of the comments said it may not be genuine as he had a ‘tamper dot’ showing.
Anyone else seen this before?
Yeah ECU, Engine, Clocks don't match.
tamper dot is there for a reason. something has been changed and the two records don't match, whether by fair means or foul.
However what it does do is display the higher mileage of the two,
However what it does do is display the higher mileage of the two,
Never knew of that. Interesting to know for future reference though if I ever look at getting another BMW.
My car has a tamper dot showing because I had to replace the coding plug in the instrument cluster with a used one. Unfortunately the second hand one, whilst working perfectly, had 80k miles more on than my car so I had a mileage 'corrector' chap reset it to what I knew was the right figure taken from the old unit. The figure is supported by a lifetime of MoT records so it should not detract from the value of the car come the time to sell.
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2016
- Points
- 218
- Location
- Maybole , South Ayrshire
- Model of Z
- Z3 Individual Dakar / Orinoco Individual
If memory serves me right it can be up to 70 odd miles difference between the speedo mileage and the ECU mileage which should mean over the life of the car the tamper light should never come on .
@motco don't take this the wrong way as it's not a dig at you but I would like to give an example of the opposite side of things.
I used to mot this guys Audi a4 a pal of one of the managers at the time every year for about 4 years he would bring the car in for an mot mileage would show car doing about 12k a year but in reality it was doing about 30k and every year he was getting it changed back I only found this out after overhearing a conversation I wasn't meant to hear.
So basically all I am saying is if you go to buy a BMW and the tamper light is on make sure everything ties up as to why as obviously there are genuine reasons for dash pod to be changed for example digital readout fails or clocks fail.
@motco don't take this the wrong way as it's not a dig at you but I would like to give an example of the opposite side of things.
I used to mot this guys Audi a4 a pal of one of the managers at the time every year for about 4 years he would bring the car in for an mot mileage would show car doing about 12k a year but in reality it was doing about 30k and every year he was getting it changed back I only found this out after overhearing a conversation I wasn't meant to hear.
So basically all I am saying is if you go to buy a BMW and the tamper light is on make sure everything ties up as to why as obviously there are genuine reasons for dash pod to be changed for example digital readout fails or clocks fail.
Sorry mate, just to clarify - so you still have the tamper dot, it’s just that the mileages now reconcile and show the same thing? As you say shouldn’t be a prob if you’re upfront and everything tallies with MOT histories
Presumably the A4 didn’t have an Audi equivalent of the BMW tamper light?
I bought the coding plug as part of a second hand cluster. The cluster was fine as was mine so I simply changed the plug. That means that I still have the cluster I bought and the failed coding plug. I'd have to be pretty devious to have clocked the car annually and bought a second hand instrument cluster to add credibility to my tale. The car was seven years old when I bought it, through a dealer, from its first owner. Of course these things can, and do, happen but how much is a seventeen year old Z3 worth anyway? It has only about 47k on the clock but even so, it isn't a blower Bentley is it?
I only realised what this dot was for a week or two ago. My car has shown it ever since I bought it 18 months ago. The mileage shown on the display tallies perfectly with the MOT history right back to 2006 with believable increments year on year, so I'm certain the displayed mileage is correct. I don't feel like trying to turn the dot off. What if the part that was changed had a much higher mileage? That would throw out my car's history.