posted
So if you replace the engine and all the guts of a car, do you have to keep its odometer intact and current?
What if you swap the engines of two cars? Do the odometers follow the engines or stay with the bodies?
Posts: 1907 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
The odometer should stay with the body. If you swap it out and the numbers are reasonably close together, it's likely nobody will ever know, but technically the law expects you to disclose this. If you do swap out the odometer as part of an overhaul, what you're supposed to do is sign an affidavit when you renew your tag stating that the odometer figure is inaccurate (and therefore meaningless).
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Dec 2002
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posted
Not true. You can buy an engine for under a thousand dollars. If everything else about the car is in pretty good shape, it might well be a good idea to replace a blown engine.
I have done it once.
I have also replaced the dashboard of a (different, used) car, which is where I encountered the odometer issue.
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Dec 2002
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posted
Why does the odometer stay with the body, when that seems to be the only part of the car that really lasts? You would think that an odometer would serve better as an accurate indicator of a car's wear and age if it had some relationship to the moving parts ...
Then again, individual moving parts are swapped out so often that perhaps it would be meaningless.
Posts: 1907 | Registered: Feb 2000
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quote:Not true. You can buy an engine for under a thousand dollars. If everything else about the car is in pretty good shape, it might well be a good idea to replace a blown engine.
Depends on how expensive your car is. And how expensive the "guts" of the car are, whatever that comprises.
Posts: 276 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
I highly doubt you'll find any normal engine for much more than $5,000. And if your car is expensive enough to have such an expensive engine, it will still be cheaper to buy the engine than to buy a new car. Assuming, once again, that the only thing wrong is the engine.
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Dec 2002
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