Original subtitles

All right.

So, you ever wonder how all these cars we just randomly happen

to buy off the street run so good for our tests?

Well, it's not magic, people. I do it! [laughs]

So sometimes, I just got to sit these tests out

so I can actually make some stuff happen behind the scenes.

I'll catch you on the flip side, though.

Don't worry. I'll be right here.

All right. You ready to see if this speedometer rolls back?

-[Bisi] Yeah, ready. -[Tory] All right, let's go.

This could work.

People are like, "What are these idiots doing?"

Well, I cannot believe that someone would actually do this.

[Tory] What? Wait a minute!

[narrator] Meet the team...

We'll be at work in no time.

This might be the miracle coolant that everybody's been searching for.

[narrator] With the mechanical expertise...

[Faye] My main concern is structural integrity.

I think this is gonna work.

[narrator] To test all things automotive...

That was beautiful.

The more air we push through, the more fuel will siphon out and boom!

-[narrator] This is Motor MythBusters... -[Faye] Whoo! Come on!

This is the weirdest thing I've ever seen!

[narrator] Where science meets the streets.

-Something really bad happened to me not too long ago. -What?

I bought this car and it had 50,000 miles,

the paint looked great, interior was beautiful.

And what was the problem?

I found out it had 350,000 miles.

So they rolled back the odometer 300,000 miles?

Yep.

And around the world, people lose millions of dollars a year

-to odometer fraud. -Huh.

So I had to figure out, okay, how do they do this?

So I put this contraption together

and you see it go forward, right?

[Tory] Yeah.

-[Bisi] And counting is going upwards, yeah? -[Tory] Right.

When I go backwards.

[Tory] It's not going in reverse.

-[Bisi] It's not, so. -[Tory] No.

How did they do it?

I don't know.

-What do you think? -I don't think--

-I don't think it's possible. -Well, why don't we do this?

Why don't we get a bunch of different cars,

-put them in reverse, let them run... -Okay,

And see if the odometer rolls back.

That may be a good myth, actually.

Can we turn back miles by going in reverse on a car?

[narrator] Well, here's a classic myth.

Want to shave some miles off your car?

Simple.

Drive it in reverse.

I mean, it's so much in our culture

that it was in the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off,

where they add a bunch of miles on their car

and they thought, "Let's put it in reverse

and we'll get those miles back."

[narrator] It's a classic caper, but we chose not to buy the clip,

and Ferris Bueller's "Pay-Off" covered the cost of an '80s Caddy

with mechanical odometer and a Honda hybrid with digital readout.

[Bisi] This '85 vehicle here and this newer 2011 hybrid,

I think we should jack it up and get the drive wheels off the floor

and drive it in reverse.

We'll put a brick on the gas pedal...

-[laughing] And see what happens. -And let them run.

-Oh, no! -I don't want to do the brick thing.

I think that's a great idea.

All right, so we have all the odometers recorded.

I say we just start up the cars, put them in reverse, let them run.

-How long are you thinking? -Half-hour?

Sounds good.

All right. Are we sure that these are front-wheel drive?

We'll find out in a second, won't we?

[Bisi] That's hauling! That is fast [laughs]

I'm going to get in the CR-Z.

[Tory] Cool.

All right, let's start a timer.

-[Bisi] Yes. -Half hour.

[Tory] All right.

I'm curious about the Cadillac.

-[Bisi] Oh! -[Tory] What? Wait a minute.

-[Bisi] It's counting upwards. -[Tory] It's going forward,

even in reverse.

[Bisi] Oh! That's crazy.

The numbers are going up.

That's pretty clever, though.

That is.

That's smart of the manufacturer to do that.

So no matter what you do, it's actually covering distance.

-Yeah. -Even if you're going forward or backward, it's clocking.

[Tory] All right. How's this one doing?

[Bisi] It's going upwards. Yeah.

-[Tory] Okay. -[Bisi] It's going up.

-[Tory] All right. -Same thing.

So these modern cars...

They figured out how not to cheat the odometer.

So it's actually whether it's going forward or backwards,

it's increasing mileage on the car.

Right. If you were trying to shave miles off your odometer,

the modern-day cars are not going to allow you to do that.

That's right.

[narrator] Yep. It's pretty clear.

Based on the comparative tests between an '80s analog system

and a 2011 digital odometer, driving a modern car in reverse

won't wind the clock back.

So Tory and Bisi are going to look for older vehicles

that might be reverse-winding clock contenders.

[Tory] Well, Bisi, I mean, I guess the good news is odometer fraud

is a lot harder to do than you would think.

You can't just throw the car into reverse

and start shaving miles off your odometer.

[Bisi] But fraudsters are still finding ways to wind back odometers.

What a shame, not to mention, highly illegal.

You know, every day millions of people drive their cars

and they look at their gauges, they see the speedometer, the odometer go up.

Right.

And they have no idea what's going on behind the scenes.

-Oh! -So this is the perfect representation of...

-[Tory] So we broke it down. -[Bisi] ...of what's in a car.

-And this is a transmission out of an old van. -That is correct.

-That is correct. -All right.

And so, now right here, this is the cable

that's connected to the odometer.

Yes. And there's a reed wire that goes all the way to the odometer.

[Tory] Yeah.

And as it spins, it spins some assemblies

inside the gauge cluster as well.

[Tory] So as this is rotating, it's actually spinning this cable

and that's turning our odometer.

[Bisi] Yes, it does.

You know, what is shocking to me

is the fact that they're using plastic gears to spin that cable.

You know, forces are not exerted on those gears,

and it's much more cost-effective for the manufacturers

to use such components.

Yeah, I just feel like something as important

as knowing the miles on your engine, a gear like that,

I feel like if it, you know, broke a tooth,

now you're going to start skipping miles.

It's really robust.

But tell you what, when I build your car, I'll use titanium.

-How's that? -I feel better already.

-Sounds good. -All right, hit the gas.

-Just allow me to demonstrate. -Hit the accelerator.

Sounds good.

"The gas."

[both laugh]

All right, so that's the transmission which is just spinning

and that's spinning this gear, and inside here,

there's a cable that's spinning and attached to the odometer.

[Bisi] And you see there are miles moving up.

It's painful.

Oh, all right, well, why don't we see

if we can actually break into an odometer and roll back the numbers?

[narrator] Remember these words, folks.

It's illegal to roll back your odometer.

So there's basically two types of odometers, digital and mechanical.

-I want to explore the electrical side of things. -Okay.

-And I'll look at the mechanical. -Sounds good.

[Tory] So what I have right here is a mechanical odometer from the 1980s.

And I have the cable attached to a drill

just so you could see the mileage increase.

Now, as I'm spinning the cable, it's recording those miles.

Now, the top part, that is the trip mileage.

Down at the bottom is the mileage of the overall life of the engine.

So right now, I have 322 miles on this odometer.

So what I'm going to do is see if I can open this up

and figure out a way to roll that 322 miles back to zero.

I mean, obviously, you're probably thinking,

why don't you just put it in reverse and make it go backwards?

Well, if I do that, you can see what's happening here.

That little lever as it's rolling forward,

it's pushing this gear forward.

But when you go in reverse, that arm lifts up.

It uses a gear freewheeling ratchet

that rotates and spins the counter up

when going forwards and idles when going backwards.

Just like a bike does, pedal going forward, free-wheel when not pedaling.

One other thing you can look for to know

if your odometer has been tampered with is if you pop this gear off,

the numbers will never line up completely.

All right, as you can see, I've got it back to zero.

Now, I'm just going to put the odometer back together

and see if we can detect whether or not I've been tampering with this.

Now that it's back together. Let's just do a test.

So while Tory is investigating the mechanical odometer,

I'm going to use this specialty tool to look at how easy

or challenging it would be to modify a digital dash display.

How does a digital odometer work?

In place of a mechanical drive cable, a magnetic sensor

tracks the number of gear turns in the transmission,

then it is conducted by wires to the onboard car computer,

which interprets and converts the information into a mileage count.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to attempt

to change the mileage on this vehicle.

This tool is actually a professional tool

that allows for odometer calibration in the event

that you may have an odometer that went out and you need to correct it,

or you had a vehicle that had a discrepancy

and you want to get it back to the original format.

What's interesting is that this particular device

only allows for kilometer measurement.

So I'm going to convert my mileage to kilometers

and have the opportunity to put this back when I'm done.

So we're now at 106,264 miles.

Let's knock off a good 30,000 off this.

So 70,000 miles.

So I'm going to go ahead and put this in.

There we go.

Enter!

These are bunch of checkered lights coming on,

some flashing of the dash itself.

And that says my adjustment is complete.

And look, it gave me 69,615 miles, so slightly off.

So now, let's put it back to the original mileage.

Okay.

This is a professional device.

Not everyone can get access to it,

but where there's a will, there's a way

because unscrupulous characters can actually change your mileage.

So what can we do to prevent you from getting a vehicle that has been tampered with?

Well, vehicle history reports are one good place,

because every time a vehicle is serviced or registered,

that number is put into the system.

Wear items like the pedals.

Do you have a low mileage car that shouldn't have had any pedal wear whatsoever,

but the pedals look like it's been stomped on for hours and hours and hours.

That's a dead giveaway.

The headliner.

Are there rips and tears there?

How easy is it to bring down the visor?

It doesn't have that nice tautness to it.

Check the manufacturer date on the tires.

Does it match the mileage of the car or have the tires already been replaced

when the car has very low mileage?

There's so many ways to look at that.

And, yeah, protect yourself.

So how did your experience go with the digital odometer?

Tell me about yours first.

[chuckles] Oh, man!

So it was unsettling how easy it was to pull this thing apart.

And then I was actually able to roll it back to zero and I put it back together.

And I thought this is, like, too simple.

I mean, we're basically showing people how to change an odometer.

However, watch what happens after I put it all back together.

Tory, it's going up in 1,000 miles, not 1 mile.

Exactly.

So this was a little comforting to realize that,

you know, it's not that easy to break into a mechanical odometer

and change the numbers.

So this did give me a little bit of comfort.

Well, in my experiment with the correct tool,

it was frighteningly easy.

-Really? -Just plugged it in.

That's not good.

Select it with just some menus.

Put in the mileage you want, and, presto.

Unfortunately, it seems there aren't really any cars

with tamper-proof digital odometers.

-[Tory] And that was it? -[Bisi] That was it.

-Oh, that's terrifying. -It is.

Oh, so it's important for consumers to do due diligence

and look around the vehicle, look at more than

just the mileage to determine the age of their car.

[narrator] But this myth's not quite done and dusted.

Remember the '86 Cadillac on blocks?

In the '80s, cars would only wind their odometer forward,

as Tory has found, where a ratchet system prevented the clock

from getting wound back.

So is it possible pre-'80s cars

could wind their clock back in reverse?

As luck would have it, there's a '67 GTO to test.

[Tory] Ha! I can't believe the producer's letting us drive his car,

backwards, no less.

-[laughs] -I guess you want to drive.

-Yes, I do. -All right. Let's go.

It's like some '70s cop show.

-[laughs] -Hit it.

-There's a crime in progress. -[laughs]

-[Tory] Oh! -[Bisi] Oh!

-[Tory] Feel that rumble? -[Bisi] Yes.

[Tory] Yeah.

He's very concerned about us.

We'll be fine. Don't worry.

I don't need a guide to get out of a garage.

-[Tory] Bisi drives backwards all the time. -Yep.

He's super-protective of his car.

You look nervous.

-Go easy on her. She's old. -[Bisi] Of course.

And you know, there's parts that,

you know, might break, because she's old.

So let's take it real nice and easy, okay, guys?

-[Bisi] Cool, cool. -[Tory] What could possibly go wrong?

-[Bisi] Nothing at all. -We're driving backwards.

How fast are we going to be able to go?

[Tory] All right.

-You're ready to see if this thing rolls back? -Yeah.

I'm having a hard time believing that.

[Bisi] Well, we'll find out now.

There we go. You ready?

-Okay. All right. -Let's go.

[Tory] So right now we are at...

96,486.9 miles.

Barely broken in. [laughs]

[Tory] I mean, this could work,

but what a pain in the butt.

I know, is it even worth doing this for miles and miles and miles?

This would be so annoying.

[laughs]

The amount of money we're going to spend on fuel in doing this...

-Right. -With a V-8,

-it won't even be worth... -No.

-[both chuckling] -...the advantage of the price.

[Tory] Oh, that sounds good.

[Bisi] Tory, move back.

[Tory] Right now, we are at...

[Bisi] Oh, it's moving quite a bit.

Like how many times have we gone around this block?

-Quite a bit. -Yeah, this is not...

It is not an efficient way.

[Tory] Well, let's see. We've been driving, I would say, about 15 minutes.

[Bisi] And we probably consumed eight gallons of fuel doing it.

Yeah. This does not seem like the most efficient way

-to get miles off your vehicle. -[Bisi] Not at all.

[Tory] We didn't hit anything.

[Bisi] Yeah, she's in good hands.

-[Tory] Everything went well. -Yeah?

[Tory] She runs like a grizzly bear.

[Bisi] Yeah, smells like one, too.

-Okay. -[Tory] Yeah. Thanks.

-Everything's fine? -[Tory] Yeah, it's fine.

Actually, we've shaved a couple of miles off your odometer.

[Bisi] Yeah.

[Tory] So these pre-'70s old-timers will wind the clock back in reverse.

In the GTO, the fixed gear system with no freewheel cassette

means the odometer is mechanically connected directly to the driveshaft.

Reverse, and one mile traveled means one mile off the clock.

And then that cable drive was universally replaced by the '80s.

Electromagnetic sensors count each drive shaft rotation as additional mileage.

Forward or back, the miles go up.

But, Bisi, when we drove the GTO in reverse,

we actually wiped miles off the engine.

So how are we going to call this myth?

Well, we did test vehicles from the '80s and the 2000s,

and it seems that going backwards

didn't make the numbers go down.

It's painfully obvious that manufacturers went out of their way

to make odometers a lot more sophisticated.

All right. So cars made after the '80s,

it's not going to work so much.

However, old-school cars from the '60s, like the GTO, can.

So I say we call this one...

plausible?

I love it. Plausible it is.

Sounds good to me.