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Odometer went backwards

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Old 09-14-2020, 02:49 AM
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Default Odometer went backwards

Hey All,
just a few questions.
1. 91 Olds Toronado base model. When my odometer reached 199,999 and then rolled over, it went to 100,000 instead of 200,00 and has been counting up from there since.
All Digital Dash including odometer.
Anyone ever heard of this? I didn't know whether to place this question here or in the Oldsmobile category.
2. how do I IM someone? I have a question for Soft Ride.
3. is there a way to edit a post you made?
thanks
Old 09-14-2020, 09:42 AM
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Do not PM/IM other members with technical questions. The PM system is for PRIVATE messages only. If members are caught using the PM system for technical questions, the member can be banned.

EDIT feature is turned off for multiple reasons. If you need to make a correction, just make a followup post with the correction. We don't really care about typos/grammar, except for run on paragraphs with no spacing/breaks.
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Old 09-14-2020, 11:41 PM
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Originally Posted by TommyB
1. 91 Olds Toronado base model. When my odometer reached 199,999 and then rolled over, it went to 100,000 instead of 200,00 and has been counting up from there since
Maybe you're the first one to get there and find this rather unfortunate bug. I looked around a bit and couldn't find any others. Is there a full seven-segment digit there, or just a 1 ?
Old 09-15-2020, 01:47 PM
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Have no fear Soft Ride is here !
Back in 91 if I remember correctly, the Tornado had the earlier version of the DIC- digital information display.
In theory it should have rolled displaying now a 2.
The only thing I can think of is that it was 9 years before the Y2K (millennial bug) and may have not yet had the necessary odometer update /programming.
It would be worthwhile to contact a dealer and ask service if there was a known issue, or if potentially an update became available to remedy the odometer issue...??


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Old 09-16-2020, 01:02 AM
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I just pulled up a 1991 Toronado gauge cluster on The Google. It looks like the "1" is a 2-segment digit so it can't turn to anything legible except [off] and "1" . I zoomed it in MS-Paint and measured and a 7-segment digit wouldn't fit if it is the same width as the other six digits. If TommyB'* cluster is the same then this is the answer.



Kind of sad because it is basically saying: "We, General Motors, believe this car won't need a seven-segment hundred-thousand digit because it probably won't make it that far, and if it does that will be so far from now that it won't matter to us anyways."

I bet an engineer or three said something like "What if it does pass 199,999.9 miles?" and "Won't that condemn every car with this cluster to be registered as not-accurate-miles after it passes 200,000 or 300,000 or 400,000 miles? . . . or worse yet, wouldn't this decision make it so that every single one of these cars that passes 199,999.9 miles suddenly display that it is 100,000 or 200,000 or 300,000 miles younger than it really is, thereby allowing sellers to misrepresent the value of the article they are selling?"

To which I bet a bean counter said "Those issues and losses aren't worth the extra $0.69 based on a far-fetched what-if."

My speculation there, I bet it'* not too far off though.

Funny thing is: A 1991 LeSabre (for example) as well as many others, have six digits plus a decimal place. The ones I found were mechanical. Even the 1991 Suburban got a recently redesigned (mechanical) odometer that added a digit to an 18-year-old design for just a couple of years of production. This tells me that there was awareness and/or desire to add that extra digit during the same era. I bet the electronic clusters were ridiculous expensive so there was a blind effort to reduce costs, no matter what that means.
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Old 09-16-2020, 09:19 AM
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Pull the front cover off the cluster, use whiteout to make a "1" indicating 1 million miles.
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Old 09-17-2020, 12:44 AM
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Originally Posted by Mike
Pull the front cover off the cluster, use whiteout to make a "1" indicating 1 million miles.
Hyundai made a special part for this purpose: https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a2...million-miles/
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