You never know what the salesman will say ....................

[Guest HessLakeGuy]

I found a Blue/Gray 1990 on a used car lot this afternoon. I was just driving by. Pulled in and talked to the salesman, he said it was a '91. Turns out it really is a '90.

He said the car was a slow mover (it had almost a foot of snow around it) but somebody really wanted it----so they tried to steal it by breaking into the steering column. They were not successful. Column had just been replaced. Looks like they got in the car by pulling out the drivers door lock cylinder. That screwed up how the door looked because they fixed it on the cheap.

Inside was beat up big time, odometer showed 15,XXX miles. That was off by at least 100.000 miles or so. Had the leather book, CD player, one original front floor mat. Price = $4700.00 First blue Reatta I have seen in western Michigan.

Big sticker on windshield seemed to indicate it was an auction car. How could the miles be off? What controls that?

[Guest F14CRAZY]

The BCM controls the odometer. One could swap out the BCM and change the milage. You could check it by entering diagnostics and bringing up the VIN. The VIN of the car and the BCM shoudl match. Well I know it works that way with '88-89s but i think it's the same with later ones.

[Guest F14CRAZY]

BTW, my dad's buddy is an auto body type fella, and with cars he owns or bought, he has to leave them outside and never locks them. It seemed stupid to me but he made the point that if someone is going to steal the radio or something, then let them, instead of breaking stuff and stealing the stuff anyway.

[Guest HessLakeGuy]

I have seen my share of Reattas at used car lots, but this one had to have one of the worst interiors of any I have seen. I guess some people are just rough on stuff. What surprised me was how nice the 3.8 engine ran.

[Dave@Moon]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> The BCM controls the odometer. One could swap out the BCM and change the milage. You could check it by entering diagnostics and bringing up the VIN. The VIN of the car and the BCM shoudl match. </div></div>

With the right tool you can also reset the mileage to any figure you want within the BCM of any car. For years there used to be someone on eBay selling these things (I believe they were $99) "<span style="font-style: italic">for professional servicing needs when changing speedometers</span>". The often repeated listing been gone for about 2 years now (I think), but God only knows how many were sold and where else you can get them.

I wouldn't believe the odometer on any car without years of service receipt backup any more.

[Jim]

I'll bet if it had been an Edsel you would pay $ 4700.

You can only read out the vin on the 88-89s and not on the later ones. Probably because there isn't enough area in the odometer box.

[Guest HessLakeGuy]

We all might be too late. A couple pulled up as I was standing there and stated they were serious buyers--looking for a daily driver. They liked the way this Buick looked. As I left they were trying to get a better price, so the car might be sold. I told them to look us up on the net and read about the Reatta on this website.

[padgett]

That "tool" is rather special software. The odo and several other element are stored on a 2816 EEROM (a second chip in the BCM) and secured by a cryptographic checksum. Change just the odo and you just get an error reading.

Now any Delco Radio service center has the software to reset the odo and VIN so it is not that hard to get done (I have even seen some odd comments in the slack space - one had "Love Madonna" multiple times) but the software is considered "proprietary" like most of the information on the BCM.

Sometime I will wade through all of the BCM coding and find the section that decodes/encodes - cannot be very complicated - but just have not had the time/effort to do it. Yet.