The Federal Odometer Act, passed in 1972, modified the United States Code to prohibit tampering with a motor vehicle's odometer and to provide safeguards to protect purchasers in the sale of motor vehicles with altered or reset odometers.49 USC CHAPTER 327 - ODOMETERS
Office of the Law Revision Counsel The Act provides definitions and civil and criminal penalties for

odometer fraud Odometer fraud, also referred to as "busting miles" (United States) or "clocking" (UK, Ireland and Canada), is the illegal practice of rolling back odometers to make it appear that vehicles have lower mileage than they actually do. Odometer fraud ...

Interpretations

The Act was intended to protect consumers buying used vehicles from odometer fraud, and is typically applied against sellers who intentionally tamper with an odometer to misrepresent the actual miles an automobile has been driven. However, in 2004 and 2006, two

class action A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class actio ...

lawsuits were filed against American Honda Motor Co Inc and two of its suppliers alleging that they had violated the Federal Odometer Act because the odometers in approximately 6,000,000 Honda and Acura vehicles overstated the actual mileage by 2% to 4%Odometer Settlement May Earn Class Lawyers $9.5 Million in Fees
Law.com even though the Act contains no provisions for odometer accuracy. Subsequently, Honda changed the tolerance of its odometers from -1%/+3.75% to ±2.5%.Settlement Agreement
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070222122902/http://www.odosettlementinfo.com/Vaughn%20Final%20Settlement%20Agreement.pdf , date=2007-02-22 odosettlementinfo.com

References

Odometer Act Vehicle law