# Original miles on a car **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 25, 2015, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/original-miles-on-a-car/735753 "2015-10-25T22:42:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![boffking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/858c86/32.png) [@boffking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boffking)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2015, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/original-miles-on-a-car/735753/1 "2015-10-25T22:42:16Z")
A lot of ads for used cars will say things like “has 60k original miles on it”. What exactly does this mean and are there ever any unoriginal miles? ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2015, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/original-miles-on-a-car/735753/2 "2015-10-25T22:52:03Z")
I take it to mean “on original engine and transmission.” ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/original-miles-on-a-car/735753/3 "2015-10-26T00:10:04Z")
sometimes it means the seller is the original owner. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/original-miles-on-a-car/735753/4 "2015-10-26T00:53:34Z")
I think it’s often thrown in as a meaningless modifier - kind of a Humpty-Dumpty word meaning anything from original owner, original powertrain, not rolled over on the odometer, generally not fudged in any way, to… nothing much. ---
**Author:** ![zwede](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ac91a4/32.png) [@zwede](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zwede)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/original-miles-on-a-car/735753/5 "2015-10-26T02:26:19Z")
“Original miles” means miles since new. The alternative would be “miles since restoration”, where a new speedometer was installed and original miles are unknown. ---
**Author:** ![SpyOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@SpyOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpyOne)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/original-miles-on-a-car/735753/6 "2015-10-26T13:32:31Z")
> [@zwede](#): > > “Original miles” means miles since new. > > The alternative would be “miles since restoration”, where a new speedometer was installed and original miles are unknown. This. It is a bit meaningless, but it makes it clear you didn’t mean one of the others that you’ll often see in such ads, like “30,000 miles since restoration” or “only 10k miles on rebuilt engine”. I should note that often they will list miles since restoration even if the original mileage IS known. I have at least once seen an ad that had to deal with a really complicated permutation: When the car had, say, 89,000 miles on it, the original engine was replaced with one that had 60,000 miles on it. Since then the car has gone 25,000 miles. So the car has 114,000 miles on it, the engine has 85,000 miles on it, and it has been 25,000 miles since the original engine was replaced. ---
**Author:** ![Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tired_and_Cranky)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/original-miles-on-a-car/735753/7 "2015-10-26T13:57:08Z")
I would use the term the way that **zwede** and **SpyOne** use it. Unfortunately, I can’t assume that the person posting the ad wasn’t **jz78817** or **Bijou Drains**. That means to know what it means in any particular ad, I need to ask the person who posted the ad. There is no other way to be sure. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/original-miles-on-a-car/735753/8 "2015-10-26T14:17:16Z")
> [@](#): > > There is no other way to be sure. sure there is, nuke it from orbit. ---
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/original-miles-on-a-car/735753/9 "2015-10-26T15:20:23Z")
When cars didn’t last so long, it was very common for odometers to roll over from 99,999.9 miles to 0. So traditionally, original miles indicated that the odometer hadn’t yet rolled over. I still own such a car, with about 30,000 miles since the second rollover. Now mechanical odometers are passe’, but when you see one, it usually has one more digit, so all the miles are likely to be original. ---
**Author:** ![herman\_and\_bill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f1d935/32.png) [@herman\_and\_bill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/herman_and_bill)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/original-miles-on-a-car/735753/10 "2015-10-26T16:03:05Z")
On the old odometers, when hitting a hundred thousand miles, it would turn over and start a 1 again. Thus, 60,000 original miles means exactly that and not 160,000 miles. ---
**Author:** ![Kimballkid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b5a626/32.png) [@Kimballkid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimballkid)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/original-miles-on-a-car/735753/11 "2015-10-26T16:29:34Z")
I’d always heard it as ‘actual miles’.