Ferrari Knew Dealers Were Rolling Back Odometers
A wrongful termination lawsuit reveals some pretty shocking revelations that could severely impact the used Ferrari market.
Last year, a Ferrari salesman by the name of Robert “Bud” Root made a bit of a shocking discovery. You see, the automaker has a diagnostic tool called the DEIS Tester used for a variety of legitimate service type work. But as some dealers discovered, this little tool was also capable of resetting the odometer on a Ferrari, as far back as zero. And as you might’ve guessed by now, certain dealerships allegedly exploited that capability in a very bad way.
Altering a car’s odometer is obviously very illegal. But when you’re talking about Ferraris, a few hundred or thousand miles can make a huge difference on resale value. In some cases, millions of dollars. So when Root discovered that his employer was in fact committing this heinous act, he blew the whistle. Then, he was promptly fired. So Root followed up by filing a lawsuit claiming wrongful termination.
But that was just the beginning of the story. The April 2017 memo, filed this month, is now public record. And when the Daily Mail got their hands on it, they made another shocking discovery. Apparently, Ferrari themselves had to authorize changes made via the DEIS Tester. Which means they not only knew that odometers were being rolled back, they approved of it.
Once the automaker figured out what was going on, they moved to stop it. A software update on May 15, 2017 removed the “NQS ECU reset cycle” function. Or, as it’s otherwise known, “reset to zero” capability. According to the memo, Ferrari also edited their workshop manuals to remove any mention of the function.
Obviously, this should make anyone who’s purchased a used Ferrari in the last couple of years very nervous. But in a statement to the Daily Mail, the automaker denies doing anything illegal.
“Resetting an odometer to zero in case of a malfunction of the odometer when the pre-repair mileage is unknown is consistent with the federal odometer law,” said Krista Florin, Ferrari’s Director of Communications.
“Ferrari determined that the risks of odometer fraud in the United States from unauthorized use of the DEIS tool outweighed the convenience of this functionality of the tool, and thus, Ferrari has informed its network with a technical bulletin that a software update to eliminate the odometer reset functionality of the DEIS tool was necessary and disabled this functionality.”
Even if Ferrari had no ill intentions here, we’re sure we haven’t heard the last of this just yet. Not by a long shot.
