Modern Vespa

The odo on my '23 GTS300 had to be replaced (under warranty) after 2,400km due to misting from the inside. Thank you Piaggio!

The mileage started from zero from the day it was installed.

I want to add 2,400km to what is showing on the display.

How?

Dealer is skirting the question.

(The newest topic I found on the subject was over 9yrs old - thereby the new topic). BTW, no solution was forthcoming. But this is 2023 so I figured something like this can be easily done using P.A.D.S. Or am I asking for too much?

Just add a small label underneath stating 'odo replaced at 2400mi'.

Could do... but would really like to see the actual mileage displayed... mainly for maintenance. Also, the spanner service icon will appear at the wrong intervals.

Oh well.. there are worse things in life I suppose.

Just re-set the spanner icon when the correct mileage is up. I doubt it has to be 'set' to register a 'reset'.

I'm pretty confident that you can't* change the value on an odo as then people would falsify this when selling 2nd hand vehicles. so no, pads won't help


* without some undocumented unofficial hacking and I've never heard of anyone doing it on a vespa.

It's easy on the older models with a mechanical speedo driven off a gear on the front wheel.

Not so easy with a model that uses electronic pulses. It would take someone with the know-how and the desire to spend loads of time hacking it to achieve.

A label is quite sufficient.

Independently of whether it is technically possible to fiddle with the mileage on an electronic odometer -

If the vehicle was bought new by a client from Dealer X with zero reading; and after Y miles the odo was swapped under warranty by the same Dealer X - I see nothing inherently deceitful in the same dealer upping the mileage on the replacement odometer on the same vehicle. This could easily be documented on the vehicle logbook. It is a closed circuit deal. And the mileage is being INcreased not DEcreased.

But all the above becomes moot if, like all of you have said, it is not possible to change the reading, whether UP or DOWN.

It's quite unusual that the new electronic speedo defaulted back to 0, as it makes it easier for someone to buy a new speedo and "reduce" the distance that the Vespa has covered!

I know with some cars, the mileage is stored in 3 different places and if you fit a brand new element - it copies from the other 2 sources. If you fit a secondhand unit and none match, then the distance displays only -------

There are specialists in England at least who can adjust vehicle odometers, but you have to prove a legal reason for doing so and also our mileage is recorded yearly and stored publicly on a government website - so if suddenly the mileage reduces, you can see this.

Thanks for your input Jake.

What you say makes a lot of sense. Ideally, the total mileage would be stored somewhere other than the actual speedo. In the case of Piaggio, I would have thought it would be the ECU. Thereby, you can swap out the speedo several times (if that is your thing) without the cumulative distance being effected. Several legit reasons why an odometer unit would need to be replaced.

I replaced the ecu in my Supertech and the odo didn't change.

You could turn the bike on and spin the rear wheel (engine off) until you get the desired number. Do you have a treadmill?

There is a specialist in New Zealand who is authorised to set odometers in replacement 4 wheel vehicles. My wife's Alfa 147GTA has a replacement dash and the odometer was set to be the same as the panel that came out. (Faults in other instruments kept flashing warnings).
I also know of a Fiat Ducato camper van that had done about 20,000km and had the speedometer fail, a replacement with over 200,000km on it was sent to the specialist and reset to exactly the reading on the old instrument. I believe both are electronically run, not old fashioned cables.

To add to your suggestion: For some modern title states, maybe all of them, the title has a place required by law to notate ODO replacements and notations for mileages. KY titles have that spot.

Good to know (that the mileage is not stored in the ECU). Could there be another "ECU" hidden away somewhere for such things? Clutching at straws here.

This is tongue-in-cheek, right? Although... doable if you could find a reasonable way to spin the wheel fairly fast. It's 2,400 kms!

Ferris had it right back in 1986.

Back in KS a long time ago, I caddied for a couple of new car delaers who went to prison for ODO alterations. More recently here in my area of KY~ the late 1970's several used car dealers got prison time for altering ODO's. I knew a guy who did them for money and he stayed clean on that situ. He told me it didn't bother him at all, which alludes to a criminal mind.

Once you get the treadmill set up and adding some miles, a little math will let you know when to come back and check it. If it was ten's of thousands of miles it wouldn't be practical but for the low mileage you want it should be a weekend job.
I wouldn't bother with it. Once you have 30k miles of fun riding wracked up on your bike you won't care.

With a lot of manufacturers, replacement dashboards/clusters, can be programmed with the mileage of the cluster they're replacing, to "pick up where they left off".

I can't remember for sure how things went because I haven't worked in a dealership for years now... but my advice: Your Vespa dealer has shown you they don't want to work with you on this, cool, so call up some OTHER Vespa dealers.

Even if they're too far to get to, at least you'll know.

For example, maybe the Vespa dealer was supposed to tell Piaggio the new total and order the dash a certain way to have it preprogrammed from factory for you, they dropped the ball, and now they're skirting the issue.

If you find out this was the case, you can tell them to replace the cluster properly, take it up with Piaggio USA, etc. But without knowing, and with trying to get info from a forum of randoms from all over the world, and one single dealer that doesn't want to talk to you, you're setting yourself up for failure more than you are for success. It's a dealer/manufacturer problem, talk to dealers and the manufacturer.