Did Ferrari North America Cover Up Dealerships That Were Rolling Back Odometers?

Unlike what most people think, supercar owners doen’t do a lot of miles in their rides as they typically own more cars that are best suited to everyday driving and would also rather keep the mileage low so as not to hurt the car’s resale value.

Tampering with the odo is not unheard of in humbler cars, but some Ferrari dealers reportedly engaged in this practice, too – and, what’s worse, the company allegedly knew and did nothing about it.

Last year, a lawsuit by Ferrari salesman Robert ‘Bud’ Root against the Italian automaker’s Palm Beach dealer in Florida claimed that he was wrongfully terminated after discovering the brand’s rollback practices. At the time, a Ferrari of Palm Beach attorney came out and said that the “case is wholly without merit.”

According to a new report by the Daily Mail, it looks like Root was on to something, as they got a hold of an internal memo that makes it clear Ferrari North America knew its dealerships were rolling odometers back on vehicles and advised them to stop the practice. The memo was published last April and was filed in court earlier this month.

Said memo refers to the DEIS Tester, a tool that Ferrari dealers allegedly used to roll back the miles on its supercars. Dealers, though, couldn’t take miles off of a vehicle on their own and had to get Ferrari headquarters to electronically sign off on the move.

A new software update and two modifications were made to the DEIS tester to stop dealers from being able to perform an “NQS ECU reset cycle” on a vehicle. As the memo reads, “as a result of these two actions, the odometer ‘reset to zero’ functionality is being removed.”

On the same memo, it is mentioned that sections on how to reset a car’s odometer were being edited in Ferrari Workshop Manuals.

Tampering with a vehicle’s odometer, regardless of the number or the model, is illegal in the U.S. and doing so could lead to a felony conviction in Florida.

In a statement to the Daily Mail, Ferrari of North America claims that it did nothing wrong or illegal. The timing, it says, just happened to coincide with its software update.

“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,” Ferrari stated. It also added that the DEIS tool wouldn’t work on cars with more than 311 miles (500 kilometers).

We’ve reached out to Ferrari for a statement, but haven’t heard back so far. We’ll update the post if we do.