Gauge cluster or ecu?
 

I'm looking at buying a white 06 8 from a dealer.

They tell me it has around 32k miles on it. But when it came in they realized the odometer was not moving... So they replaced it with a used unit and now it works fine. The used one reads 78k miles.

I had thought that the mileage was stored in the ecu and displayed in the cluster when the car was on.( just like cel's) and not stored in the cluster like the dealer is suggesting it is..

Anyone have a answer on this?

Thanks!

I want this car, but a little worried about this issue.

The mileage is not stored in the cluster. It is stored in the ECU. If they are telling you otherwise, they are scamming you. Personally I would get myself on the phone calling MazdaUSA and bitching about that because thats just unacceptable.

Ask them to put in, yet another, cluster. Then when they both show the same mileage, take $5k off the car.

Exactly how much were they looking for the "32k" mile car?

^That's what I want to do

But don't have or know anyone with a 8 near me in ohio

Carfox

Have them show you the service history of the car. It is stored at Mazda N.A. The history will have the mileage of when each service event happened. Compare that to the dates if there are no recent entries.

The mileage is stored in the cluster.

The mileage is stored in the cluster for sure. I have swapped clusters on several JDM cars and Its been the case.

Thats so strange, sorry for jumping to the immediate conclusion, but I was assuming that the info had to be on the ecu. After thinking about it I realized that you guys are right, and did some research to confirm that. Thanks for the correction.

Go with what alnielsen said, if you see service performed that says 65,000, other than at that dealer since they got the car, you have good data. If you only see a few things a few years ago, gets harder to guess miles. Make sure the new one actually works, what stumps me is how a digital odometer can not count. I can see with the mechanical ones, but this one is not, is it?