5 Digit Odometer, How can I tell true miles?

[Andy D]

My title says it is 126XXX miles. Odometer shows 26XXX. The truck is beat up enough to be 226K Is there any way to tell by the odo? The last 5 digit odo I had was my 81 wag. TIA

[wrecking-crew]

If there are a few owners, I would go ahead and guess 226k. If it is a single owner I'd go with 126k. If anything they probably didn't take care of it.

[1988dangerranger]

Idk but if your title specifically says 126,000 then its probably right.. My title says "exceeds mechanical limit"..

[pcollins]

if your odometer is Only a 5 digit then the Title should state "Exceeds mechanical limit"...No one should have every written a mileage on the title once it rolled over 100,000. It has instructions for it on the back.

[lil_Blue_Ford]

I have titles for vehicles that have 5-digit odometers. Some have said "exceeds mechanical limits" and others have an actual mileage number. In theory any vehicle that has a 5-digit odometer is supposed to say "exceeds mechanical limits" but if whoever owned the vehicle renewed their registration at over 100k miles and they wrote in the correct mileage, that mileage goes on the title.

The best way to try to determine what the actual mileage is would be to get a Carfax. As long as mileage was reported, it will show up on the report. I got a carfax on my one BII I had, it showed something funny with the mileage (but carfax never specified it as a problem). It all made sense when I pulled out the gauge cluster at one point and found a sticker confirming my suspicion that the cluster was swapped.... they swapped it with one from a 4.0L Ranger. But near as I could tell from the mileage that was reported and what the OD showed, I was able to determine that the truck had between 160k and 220k miles. Big spread, sure, but it was close enough for my purposes.

Part of the issue is that not all states require you to report your odometer reading when you renew your registration. PA requires the OD reading if you mail in the renewal, but if you do it online, they don't ask for it. Some other states don't ask at all, so there tends to be gaps.

And then you come to something like my F-150..... it has a 6-digit odometer (electronic to boot), supposedly had 69k miles on it when I got it. But it also had some strange discrepencies where things were worn out that shouldn't really have been in that low of mileage. I never bothered to get a carfax on it yet, but it makes one curious.

[Andy D]

Yah , I bought the Ranger from a 20 something kid who was home from his teaching job in Spain on a leave. The truck sat for several months at his folks house. He was very sketchy about pertinent details such as the title, whether the engine was a 4 or a V6. He said the truck had a new engine, and that there had been some frame repairs. It had 4 good tires, drove and stopped OK, started easily with my jump pack. Waddya want for 600$ ? From its condition, it is a coin flip as to the real mileage. It could be a well maintained 226 K work truck or an abused 126k . The interior is beat up. There is no clutch pedal pad. and the metal is shiny. The engine runs OK so, I dont care . It will be a great truck for my purposes.

[1988dangerranger]

Yeah i'm pretty certain my ranger has 260,000 miles, (mechanic I bought it from told me so)
and the broncoII is up in the air..

[Gary101386]

the best way to tell is to run a car fax report on it... i found out my ranger had 5 owners... also everytime it went into ford for a repair or went to emissions it had a date stamp as well as milage. Thats how i tracked down my ranger has 175,xxx on it...

[holyford86]

Bought mine from the original owner and he said it had rolled over twice, I've rolled it over once more, it has 324k on it now, title says exceeds mechanical limit though.

[flatblack]

Originally Posted by holyford86

Bought mine from the original owner and he said it had rolled over twice, I've rolled it over once more, it has 324k on it now, title says exceeds mechanical limit though.

Is you truck named webble wobble

[roxiethom]

Originally Posted by lil_Blue_Ford

The best way to try to determine what the actual mileage is would be to get a Carfax.

Thank you for your excellent tips and suggestions. I found them very helpful! ;)

[adsm08]

Carfax doesn't always report the real mileage. It reports registration mileages, but when I ran it on my B2 it didn't show any.

The other thing to consider is that your vehicle was on the road for a significant period of time before Carfax was around. I've seen trucks that are only 2 or 3 years old with almost 100K on them already.

The only way to do it for sure is to go get ALL the registrations and see how many times it has reset. And most states won't let you pull records from someone else registering assuming they even still have records that old.