tesla Tesla odometer mileage vs actual miles discrepancy
Did anyone see a significant difference between how many miles Tesla drove vs actual miles?
For example, yesterday I drove around 90 miles on a trip. But when I check that on Google maps with all the places covered it's showing around 70 miles only. That is a significant difference (22%). Even if we include driving it off the garage or inside parking places, there is atleast 20% difference.
So if my odometer is showing I drove 20,000 miles, in reality I might have driven only 16,000 miles. If it's true, then it's a significant issue since it drives down the value of my car unnecessarily. Did anyone else observe this issue ?
Edit: I will try the highway miles to check this. But I'm positive that my theory will be false.
Check it against highway mileage posts.
Can you help me understand a bit more on this?
Most highways have markers every mile. On the next trip, look for them. Drive 10 miles according to the markers and see what your car tells you.
That's a great idea, will check against that.
My state has them every 0.2 miles, super excessive and wasteful.
It's so they can really pinpoint where someone needs help in an emergency instead of driving a mile away and guessing. Not that wasteful in that context.
As someone who has worked 26 years as an emergency responder, they are not wasteful. It allows you to pinpoint, with accuracy, where an emergency situation is on any highway from the mile marker, most times down to the tenth of the mile. Every second counts…
I love that people are still upvoting this lol
Is your tire size set correctly?
Even then, that shouldn't lead to THAT big of a discrepancy.
Yes, did not make any changes to the tires. I have the default tires for a lr AWD
The previous owner switched the rims but not on the computer of the car when I switched to the actual rims that are on the car. My miles weren’t going up as fast. It said I had put 3000 miles in 1 1/2 months. I don’t drive that much
We suing tesla class action for odometer fraud, would you mind PMing me more details? I would tremendously appreciate if you can contact the Singleton Schreiber law firm in CA to share any other details you have or if you want to be apart of the complaint.
When I put in an address in google maps it will initially show me the distance as the crow flys. When I put in directions it will then increase because of road travel.
For example I just googled ASU from my home. It shows 26 miles away but when I put directions it is 40 miles to drive there.
That's true and I'm aware of it, but I checked after putting in directions and navigating, which should show the right metric. I'll probably do highway miles check, to confirm this assumption.
I’ve actually wondered about this. I’ve looked at my odometer reading and thought it may have been a bit higher than what was actually driven. Now I’m going to have to pay attention to it
Agreed. I always had a weird feeling that something is not right. Don’t feel that the car is 100% accurately recording the correct miles. Just not smart enough to look deeply into it
Have you ever tried to confirm? I think the mileage counter is off myself. Im going to try to remember to check against google maps and road signs
OP, you started this thread a year ago did you ever check against the highway mileage posts as you said?
I’ve been very suspicious of the odometer reading in my 2021 Model Y. Seems very high for the amount of driving we actually do.
He hasn't. He posted 2 months ago from this post and was advising others try it to get a solid answer
I also have a 2021 Model Y with mileage per the odometer that I strongly suspect is artificially high. Anyone find a solution here?
Please PM any photos or videos you guys have and also reach out to Singleton Schreiber law firm in CA as we are suing tesla class action for odometer fraud to kick people out of warranty coverage quickly.
Just seeing this. My M3SR+ is doing this! I’ve had it for 5 months and do not use it as a daily driver, and somehow I have 7k miles more than when I bought it… I am looking into this. Did you find anything out since you posted this?
It records from the battery charge not from wheel speed sensor unfortunately
If this is true, that's crazy and a huge fraud. Warranty, insurance, depriciation, etc. Did you actually confirmed this? This has to be brought into the attention of every owner.
Curious where you heard that. It'd be very interesting if that's true. Mine's only off by about 1%, so that's impressively accurate if they are determining it based on battery charge.
I have basically the same issue. I drive about 12-14k miles/yr. I've had my model y since March 19 2022 and it says I have over 24k right now. About 5 months ago I just happened to think about my mileage and was like there's NO WAY I've driven this many miles. So I decided to do multiple tests with the tesla, walking, 3 other cars and also GPS. All lined up except my teslas trip odometer from a zero reset. My car records 1 mile at 0.6 to 0.7 miles. It's as if the car is actually in kilometers even though everything says miles. I've reached out to tesla service a while back with no luck and a few days ago I messaged them again and a mobile service was scheduled but they changed that along with trying tell me about GPS is different than the cars calculation. 1 mile is 1 mile no matter what you use. If it's off then calibration to the instrument is needed. Ive even used the navigation in the tesla and it's accurate like my other vehicles but the odometer and trip odometer is off by a huge margin. My car should have 30-40% fewer miles.
I’ve experienced the same. I bought my Model Y in 2021. In 5 months my odometer said I had driven over 10,000 miles. But I hadn’t really driven much. I felt something was off. I believe I have driven no more than 5,000 miles. And now in 2023, a week ago the odometer read 29,000 miles. Now today it says 35,174. Haven’t really even went anywhere. I probably drove less than 600 miles. I haven’t traveled anywhere by vehicle. I live in Vegas.
You should contact your state's enforcement agency for odometer fraud and as them to investigate.
https://www.nhtsa.gov/odometer-fraud/state-enforcement-agencies-odometer-fraud
Unfortunately, this is not odometer fraud, this is simply the odometer being inaccurate. There are no federal regulations requiring specific accuracy of odometers. The SAE has guidelines recommending them to be accurate within 4%, but that's non-binding. Odometers can often be off by 7-10% and will vary based on factors such as tire size, tread life, and tire pressure.
With that said, everyone in this thread should be checking their mileage and making sure it's relatively accurate. If it exceeds that 4% recommendation from the SAE, take it in for warranty service. Just like any other part on a vehicle, the odometer is covered under warranty and needs to be fit for purpose. Make sure it's documented with them so that you can receive the proper warranty life on your vehicle, too.
Incorrect. An intentionally inaccurate odometer is a fraudulent odometer. See 49 U.S. Code § 32703.
I suspect you are referring to subsection (1), as it is the only section that could even loosely be interpreted as applicable in this scenario, and states:
A person may not advertise for sale, sell, use, install, or have installed, a device that makes an odometer of a motor vehicle register a mileage different from the mileage the vehicle was driven, as registered by the odometer within the designed tolerance of the manufacturer of the odometer;
There are two issues with interpreting this as applicable in this scenario though:
The law specifies that a manufacturer designates the tolerance of the odometer. Tesla is the manufacturer of the odometer. If they decide their tolerance is for it to be up to 30% off, then what? Yes, that's completely absurd, but it's within the letter of the law.
This subsection specifically relates to cases where someone would "advertise for sale, sell, use, install, or have installed," an intentionally inaccurate odometer that again, does not align with the manufacturer's tolerance.
It's unfortunate and a disservice to us all that there isn't a law on the books that does actually cover this directly. There are still laws that would cover an odometer being 30% off, but this is not it--most likely, those that would apply are just general consumer protection laws. An odometer that is 30% off is not doing the job it was sold to you (as part of the car) for, and it's not fit for the purpose of measuring your warranty coverage.
Same issue here; I drove 7 miles, and Tesla’s odometer showed 10 miles. I feel like their calculation is based on the battery charge, not the actual miles that someone drives.
I have a Model 3 and the miles keep adding soon although it seems i have not driven so much. I am gonna try to drive my gas can the same routes as the tesla do a full check. I feel they have problems.
I picked up my MYLR last month with 16 miles. Driving one day on the street bump my miles to 76 all of a sudden. This shit doesn’t make sense right? Im trying to preserve it from getting high miles and all sudden this keeps happening. The odometer seems to be recording the “battery charge” given and put in the odometer. It does not seem to be recording miles from a wheel speed sensor.
Did anyone compare this to the mile markers or run the same route on two vehicles and compare the odometers? It's been a year and I don't see OP ever doing this, nor anyone else. This is huge and would prevent me from even thinking about a Tesla.
I checked mine when I saw this story plastered all over Twitter, as I have a data logger that tracks my trips. The odometer reported about 0.2mi more for a 20-mile trip and 0.5mi more for a 50-mile trip recently, so only off by 1% for me. My last Tesla was more accurate though, despite the tire wear being worse for the dates I'm comparing, which I believe should've made it less accurate. 1% is no big deal, but 10% or more like some people are accusing would be absurd and deserving of government action.
Good to know, I'll be in the market in June for a car and I am really looking at the Model Y.
Never cared for that tbh. But now you have observed that, could it be a discrepancy in how google map computes? Trying to cover all the odds. I would rather do this experiment in real time. Check how many miles google reports and drive down that path. It should be a well known travelled path so you would know google and tesla both are telling the truth.
Given the amount of people having this issue I'm extremely confident it's not accurate. I'm going to idle it at some point and see if it goes by charge as some have suggested it might be doing. But it's insane how wrong it is. Blatantly obvious.
It’s fraud
I came across this thread very curious given the person plastering it all over Twitter recently. I've been tracking my drives since I got the vehicle and found that the mileage is indeed off compared to what Google Maps shows, but only by about 1%.
Upon looking into it, there is no law requiring odometer accuracy, which seems absolutely absurd. There's only a recommendation from the Society of Automotive Engineers that says it should be within 4%. It seems like people often accept it being off by 7-10% though, and that a lot of the time that can be caused by changing tire size and low tire tread or tire pressure.
It's interesting though that they tend to be over rather than under--to me, this indicates that the manufacturers tend to know what they're doing and would rather get out of warranty responsibilities earlier. It implies a vested interest in tire manufacturers, too--certainly the manufacturers want to keep a good relationship with them since they're getting new tires from them in bulk. Want to keep your odometer lower? Buy new tires more often!
If your mileage is off more than a few percent, I'd be wheeling that thing in for service. Your odometer is a part of your vehicle covered under warranty just like any other, and if it's significantly off, then it's obviously not functioning correctly. If they blow you off and it still does it, take it back--third time in your first year and you've got a lemon, then you can force them to take the car back and get a brand new one that hopefully doesn't have the same issue. If they do fix it, make sure it's documented with them so that you receive an extension on your warranty.
Did you ever find out what was going on? I have a 2021 Model 3 that I’m pretty sure is clocking my miles wrong. I leased the car and am allowed 30k miles, but it’s reach over 40k now, but I thought it was weird as I never put over 10k on a car in a year before. Since I’m over they want to charge me an extra $2500+ when I give the car back, but the odometer is wrong.
What ended up happening here? I just started my lease for a model 3 and it is off by a lot. I've been comparing to Google maps. I barely drive the car as I don't commute and am getting worried about having to spend much more at the end of the lease
Definitely bring it up, my lease is ending soon, and now they have only agreed to discuss the issue (since they decide if you get an appointment or not) Since its a lease vehicle its a MAJOR issue since the miles are tracked. I’ve never driven more than 10k in a year, shit even in a year and a half, and my Tesla was saying I put on 30k in 6 months. Also their customer service is a joke, I’d start bringing it up now
Hi, I stumbled upon discussion while trying to figure out why my 2018 Model 3's odometer seems to have racked up about 1,100 "extra" miles on what I believe was about a 5,900 mile "road trip." Essentially, after the trip, I used Google Maps to navigate from home to supercharger to supercharger... and finally back home, on the routes we took). I then added in the local driving we did in Strathroy while visiting there. I did not account for the driving to the motels we stayed at, but they were generally within a mile of the supercharger so all told there would be maybe an extra 40 miles deviations from the maps route to include the motels. The Google Maps number was 5,900 miles. The odometer ended up showing 7034 miles (subtracting starting odometer reading from ending odometer reading).
I've spend too many hours pondering what the heck happened, but now, in this thread, I'm hearing odometers reading significantly high is a somewhat common thing. Some of this discussion (kilometers vs miles) has me wondering as our road trip ventured into Canada.
I drove from Lakebay, Washington to Bloomington, Indiana (for the eclipse, yay!). Then we drove up to Strathroy, Ontario, Canada to visit relatives for a few days. Then we drove on to Toronto and up and around the Great Lakes, and back through southern Canada (e.g., Thunder Bay and Medicine Hat - gotta love those names... really, cool names) and cut down through the corner of Idaho and then through Washington back home. The car automatically switches to kilometers on the odometer and speedometer and in the range calculations and efficiency information while in Canada. That's fine. When we got back in the US, it all went back to miles. Fine/Good.
On the trip, I noted the odometer at the start, and a few other times. And I noted the trip odometer each evening on the drive out to our relatives. Those numbers matched well with Google Maps supercharger-to-Supercharger navigation from home to Bloomington: (odometer was 2,445 miles vs google maps said 2,424 miles). So no weirdness at all.
On the way back, my odometer arithmetic for the first two days said we'd driven 1600 kilometers and Google Maps says 1589 kilometers. So again, that seems accurate as well.
So everything looked good (until it didn't). I didn't write down all of the other end of day odometer reading (I wish I had). The Google Maps numbers for my route are about 5,900 miles. So the odometer seems to have an extra 1,100 miles or so!
Just now, on a crazy guess, I added up all the miles and kilometers (without converting them to miles), just to see. Looks like it's 7,500. So it seems unlikely that the car "forgot" to switch the kilometers back to miles or something like that.
I really wish I had an odometer reading to go with every supercharging stop. Or, really, just every time I park. That'd make it so much easier to sort out what the heck happened.
I tested this on 24 MY, I had the car now for 3 months and have put almost 6k. I could not believe it, that put some many miles on the car. That why I end up on this forum. But I ran a few tests using an app in my phone, and It's actually very accurate. These are honestly fun and easy cars to drive, and i have made it our family primary vehicle. Before it was the RX350, but something about being electric makes any drive effortlessly vs an ICE vehicle. Not to mentioned that fact that way cheaper to run, on the RX350 at best we get 19mpg.
I'll be the happiest person if the data is accurate, can you help me understand how you ran the tests?
Same thing is happening to me my milage calculated should be 2000 but its showing 3000
I'll test mine as well. This is my second model 3 performance and the miles are going way up and I know I'm not driving that much. It def "feels" way off. 24 m3p
The previous owner switched the rims on my car and didn’t switch it on the computer of the car. When I switched it I noticed a drastic decrease in miles. Is there anything I can do to get those excess miles lowered ?
We're currently pursuing a class action lawsuit against Tesla for odometer manipulation, and we would love to have you join as an additional lead plaintiff. If you're interested, please reach out to Singleton Schreiber, the law firm representing the case.
Does anyone have an update on this? I'm thinking about buying a model Y but this is the type of stuff that is making me hesitate. Looking over the thread seems like tons of people were having this issue. But its also hard to believe that after 2 years no one has taken it to Tesla had them either verify or disprove the issue, then report back here. Or are they making people sign NDAs or something?
I am facing a similar issue. In 13 months, its saying i’ve driven 17k miles. I have been monitoring the odometer and its always added extra miles on top. Before switching to Tesla, i had a 1 series, i am doing the same trips, and it was roughly 10k a year.
Yes I did notice that too. I megured mileage on the same way on my Kia Forte and Tesla Model 3. On Kia it always shows 2.5 miles, on my Tesla it reflects 3.0 miles. I drove to the same destination with both cars. It's a huge disrepancy 0.5 milies out of 2.5. I am thinking to take my car back to Tesla, as it's leased car and I have milage limit.
I also notice anytime I pass a road sign that shows my current speed, the sign will show 2-3 miles per hour slower than my car speedometer reads. Seems to happen whether I’m going 25 mph or 65 mph. For example if sign says my current speed is 25 my car will say I’m doing 28.
I’m in the same boat and I’ve lost $8500 in 9 months due to depreciation because of mileage (15,000+ miles in 8 months for normal driving) I didn’t drive and Tesla intentionally flooding the market with incentives to buy cars. Elon knows exactly what he is doing.
We must organize, document and publish this fraud on mileage collectively as a group as a buyer beware until people stop buying them just like people boycotted 737 Max planes. Tesla will only do something when their finances are impacted and shareholders are concerned about quarterly earnings. Until then Elon wont care and neither will Tesla or anybody that works for them.
Get rid of the car, expose the fraud, destroy the reputation due to lack of integrity.
You don’t be come the worlds richest person with out stealing and screwing over a bunch of people. It’s a calculated move by Tesla and I would bet dollars to doughnuts Elon knows about it.
As an organized group we hold all the power. Vote with your dollars people. I know I will be.
Did you change tires/rims since you got the car?
If you changed tire/rim size you should update the rim selection in the settings to match (or pick the size that closely matches what you have installed)
I think it’s:
Settings => Service => Wheel Configuration
Did not make any change to tires, have the factory sent tires and settings
Does this make that big of a difference? What’s to prevent someone from making these changes to do the reverse, I.e. a car showing 16,000 miles but actually has 22,000?
My 3 is accurate against known distances in my town.
Oh that's good to know, gives some confidence
Are you conflating range projections with odometer?
Nope, not at all. It's pure odometer reading.
One would think there would be regulations on odometer accuracy, but there are none at the federal level! I think a lot of people see or hear about the "odometer law" that forbids tampering with an odometer and requires accurately reporting what it says when selling a vehicles and think there would be one requiring it to be accurate, but that's not the case. Definitely needs to be though.
One would think there would be regulations on odometer accuracy, but there are none at the federal level! I think a lot of people see or hear about the "odometer law" that forbids tampering with an odometer and requires accurately reporting what it says when selling a vehicles and think there would be one requiring it to be accurate, but that's not the case. Definitely needs to be though.
Yeah, will be checking with highway miles to ensure the reading is correct
I was wondering about this the other day as I used my "Free 10,000 supercharging miles" for taking delivering before Dec 31. Why didn't they just use free X,XXX kWh instead?
People understand miles better than kWh, especially if they're a first-time EV buyer (and often even when they aren't).
This is a little old, but when you used Google maps did you search for a destination and note the distance in miles? Or did you press "start" and then note the miles? Because there's a difference between the two and I'm pretty sure Google measures distance as the crow flies until you *start* the trip. I haven't noticed anything weird about my odometer reading so that's the only thing I could think of that might be the reasoning behind your question.
Edit: whoops, missed the other commenter who said the same thing. Carry on!
I have model X. I kept always wondering how I could drive so many miles. My odometer is definitely off. I need to compare this with my gas car to confirm.
Before I bought my model y I would drive my truck to work. My trucks odometer has me driving 300 miles per week to work. However in the 2 weeks that I have owned my model y and in the 2 weeks that I have driven my model y to work the odometer has recorded 1200 miles! Now I have driven some additional miles in the 2 weeks that I have owned my model y… however not an additional 600 miles. Something isn’t adding up… my thoughts are, does the model y count miles used during idle time, miles used by sentri, miles used driving up hill as additional miles to the odometer?
Yeah it's surprising that the odometer can be so wrong
Yea my brand new model 3 is reading 1mile on the trip when in fact this is only 0.6 of a mile!!!
Bloody frustrating
OMG, that's not acceptable at all.
I have 2015 model S and it’s the same for me. Has anyone uncovered what we need to do to figure this out?
Need to check it out with actual milestone boards on freeway. I haven't got the chance to measure it against that, but that will be the best way to measure it.
Add me to the list guys. My MYP which I bought 16 months ago is showing 24k Miles. I have never driven more than 12k miles in a year. I checked the Trip Miles with Google maps, the Tesla is definitely off.
Same thing here. Bought my model Y 3 months ago - now odometer says 6k miles. In reality it should be only saying 4K miles.
My care mileage is way off. I drive 60 miles a day, 3 x a week to the office. Even if I do 60 miles a day, 4 x a week, it comes out to 12,480. My odometer is at 15,323 (bought brand new) How would you even have someone look into this?
Bought my MY a month ago and I can’t believe I’ve already driven 1400+ miles when my job is only 12 miles away. Today I went somewhere I know it’s definitely 20 miles away and even the Tesla Nav displays 20 miles. I checked my odometer before I left and it’s at 1,460. It displays 1,485 when I arrived. That’s an additional 5 miles on the odometer that I never drove. I’m aware of phantom braking but inflated mileage?? Did some googling and landed on this thread. What the freak is going on Tesla?
Yeah that's the tricky part, the odometer is showing almost 20-25% miles extra - if this turns out true, it's a major scam
Agreed. Just bought my MYP 3 weeks ago. Had it at a garage getting some work done on the rims yesterday. The vehicle had 576 on the odometer reading at the garage. The garage is 15.2 miles diving distance per google in the vehicle after calculating distance. Drove home from the garage and parked it. Didn’t drive it anymore. Today I took my son for boys night out for dinner that is 6.3 miles driving after calculating the distance.
When we got there, I noticed that the odometer was at 643 miles!!! A difference of 67 miles that should’ve been 21.5!!! That’s triple the mileage.
Called Tesla immediately. Was put on hold for several minutes. Then was told they were showing 607 and 644 miles on their end and that the 607 was the actual mileage.
Was given the run around when asked why they are they showing two different odometer readings on their end. Was asked if the car was plugged in—like that has anything to do with HOW MANY MILES I DROVE.
I may be contacting a lawyer and demanding them to take the vehicle back.
That's seriously f'd up. Let me know how that goes.
2022 m3 bought on August of 2022
Now 30,000 km on it which are absurd as it’s 10,000 km more of what i have actually driven, sadly no real proof stupidly I did noticed and seemed odd but never thought of researching until now.
It sucks as price devalue aggressively already now imagine with “high” odometer reading.