Odometer failure,How many miles did it take?
 

I bought my 83 300sd with aprox. 124,000 miles on it last year. It wasn't long before I realized that the odometer gear was missing half it's teeth. By 127,000 mile the rest of the teeth were gone. at that point I put in the the gear kit as per a link I found here in th eshop forum.
I'd like to have an idea of how many miles my car may have on it.
Any thoughts on how long it may have taken for the first half of the teeth to break off the odometer gear?

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83 300sd
3 fords

It can happen pretty quickly. Mine went south at 145K.
Unless you have records from the previous owners you may not be able to reconstruct how many miles it actually has.

The odometers on these cars are mechanical and not electric so one thing to avoid is reseting the odometer while the car is moving, you will strip gears. Only reset the odometer when the car is sitting still.

I think this subject was covered at length some time back.

I've had several fail from 155k-237K.

mine just started having issues and it has only 118k on it:(

It never worked in my TD because of the speedo cable adapting problem.

Currently 201K on my 240D with no sign of problems. I checked it when I added the tach and there were no missing/worn teeth.

Mine lasted to 187K.

I'm not sure, I replaced my 85 mph unit (which was still working fine at 250K) with a used 125 mph unit and had the mileage "corrected" (turned ahead) to agree with the car's mileage. Then my new odometer failed at about 310K (but I'm sure the odometer had much less actual service). I scavenged the parts from my original 85 mph unit and fixed it. It's still doing fine at 333K. I wonder if any of them make it to 300K without being repaired.

Mines precisely counting the miles still, and its at 240,439 :D (85mph unit)

My dad's has a 165mph unit and its at 271,300+ and still counting fine, I think it has less miles than that on it though. (It was probably also moved ahead to the car's mileage when it was put in)

192k

SDL's is working perfectly at 254,098, knock on wood. The SD's broke the day I took it out of storage last fall at 220k something.

My 300SD stopped counting in the early 1990's at 171K. The previous owner and I have both left it broken. Its rather nice not having the number of doom staring back a you on the dashboard and I look at it as a feature rather than something that is broken. At 171K does it really matter anymore how many miles are on the car? My 380K figure is an extapolation based on the cars service records and my average mileage in the past.

My brother's 300D has 265K on it but the odometer has started turning slower than it should. It still shows mileage but its not accurate at all.

Our Volvo Wagon has 275K on it and has a working odometer. I guess Volvo needed some extra longevity points and spent some extra money in the odometer department. I wonder if that million mile Volvo coupe had an unrepaired odometer. :)

298,000 on the 1980 300D.
Just a few weeks ago.

Dang! was working up to my second high-mileage award.

I'll fix it next week.