Intentionally reducing a vehicle’s mileage to deceive a buyer is fraud . It violates the Consumer Protection Act (CPA) 68 of 2008. If you get caught, you face heavy fines, imprisonment, or the collapse of your dealership license.

In South Africa, this topic treads a fine line between legitimate mechanical service and outright fraud. Here is everything you need to know before adjusting the numbers on your dashboard. An odometer correction tool (or mileage programmer) is an electronic device that connects to a vehicle’s OBD2 port or directly to the instrument cluster’s circuit board. Its legitimate purpose is to reprogram the odometer to display the correct mileage after specific mechanical changes.

Modern cars store mileage in multiple places (ECU, gearbox, ABS module, key fob). A professional-grade tool ensures all these modules match. South Africa has a serious problem with odometer rollbacks . According to the National Consumer Commission (NCC) and used-vehicle reports, a significant percentage of imported used cars (especially from Japan and the UK via Durban harbour) have tampered odometers.