I just bought a 2004 Chevy pickup and the messages that it displays (odometer, trip etc) are in French. I’ve looked in the owner’s manual and on Google and I can’t find anyway to change it to English. Does anybody know?
I so thought this would be about your Friday/Saturday night bar escapades,
That’s been my most practical use for at least half a dozen of the languages I’ve studied over the years.
Your odometer speaks French?
Isn’t the French for “45,215” just “45,215”?
Actually it’s “72.766,5”. 
Presumably, there’s message boards run by enthusiasts of Chevy pick ups and someone there would be likely to have an answer, this is a bit too specific question for the SDMB, I think. (Though perhaps unhooking the battery for a few minutes might do the trick.)
From what I can find from Googling, getting the cluster changed to display in miles rather than kilometers requires one of two things. Either there’s a button on the cluster (like a Civic, I think) that looks like it won’t do anything of the sort that will actually change the display, or you’ll have to take it to the dealer to get something or other reprogrammed. If it’s the second, it looks like you’ll end up having to get some kind of “true mileage” certification, since the meters have been messed with and it’s evidently illegal not to acknowledge it.
This is just from Googling various combinations of “odometer, French, kilometer, miles, switch, change,” etc. I, independent of the internet, have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about. This information is likely useless, digest at your own risk, YMMV (hehe), happy Sunday!
You could take this opportunity to learn French. It’s a nice language. James Thurber tells a story about someone who is had his entire library translated into French because it sounds nicer that way.
Look a little harder in the manual. Possibly under the section for the trip computer.
I had this problem with a rented car last year. For eight days we were traveling sud - sud-ouest from Chicago to Los Angeles. There was some sort of aerobic trick you had to perform with the buttons and controller (which were on the directional signal stalk; this was a Chrysler).
You may have to hold down one button while twisting another dial to scroll through the language choices.
I finally figured it out, in my case, just as we were pulling in to LAX. :rolleyes:
There’s a line in the stage version of The Thurber Carnival (working from 35-year old memory of my high-school production, because I couldn’t find it online anywhere) in which someone says “I’m having my latest book translated into French: it gains something in the translation.”
According to Jon Wenokur, “a woman at a party once told James Thurber that she’d read a French translation of his My Life and Hard Times, adding, ‘You know, the book is even better in French!’ To which Thurber replied, ‘Yes—my work tends to lose something in the original.’”
Link here for 2003 manual (2004 not available)
See Section 3-59 - Page 214
Looks like Astro beat me in with more specific info. My Chevy cobalt has multi lingual capabilities. I was going to go get the manual and look up the section I remembered reading about how to switch languages. Three years and a different model can’t make all that much difference, can it? (Yeah, right.)
Thanks. I don’t have all of the fancy Driver Information Center options so somehow I skipped over this info. I have an English speaking truck now.