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54-628: The National Motor Vehicle Title Information System (NMVTIS) is an electronic system that gives valuable information about a vehicle's condition and history. NMVTIS allows consumers to find vehicle information such as title data, most recent odometer reading, history of make and model, and theft records, but not maintenance or repair history or information about manufacturer recalls. It is a software tool maintained by American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators . It uses databases from state titling agencies, car recyclers, junk and salvage yards, and insurance carriers to produce its reports. NMVTIS has

108-424: A l   t i r e   d i a m e t e r ) ( s t a n d a r d   t i r e   d i a m e t e r ) {\displaystyle (actual\ distance\ traveled)={\tfrac {((final\ odometer\ reading)-(initial\ odometer\ reading))\cdot (actual\ tire\ diameter)}{(standard\ tire\ diameter)}}} . It

162-415: A n c e   t r a v e l e d ) = ( ( f i n a l   o d o m e t e r   r e a d i n g ) − ( i n i t i a l   o d o m e t e r   r e a d i n g ) ) ⋅ ( a c t u

216-552: A carriage with odometer in his Euthimetria , a treatise on engineering. Levinus Hulsius published the odometer in 1604 in his work Gründtliche Beschreibung deß Diensthafften und Nutzbahrn Instruments Viatorii oder Wegzählers, So zu Fuß, zu Pferdt unnd zu Fußen gebraucht werden kann, damit mit geringer mühe zu wissen, wie weit man gegangen, geritten, oder gefahren sey: als auch zu erfahren, ohne messen oder zehlen, wie weit von einem Orth zum andern. Daneben wird auch der grosse verborgene Wegweiser angezeiget und vermeldet . In 1645,

270-457: A trip meter ( trip odometer ). Unlike the odometer, a trip meter is reset at any point in a journey, making it possible to record the distance traveled in any particular journey or part of a journey. It was traditionally a purely mechanical device but, in most modern vehicles, it is now electronic. Many modern vehicles often have multiple trip meters. Most mechanical trip meters will show a maximum value of 999.9. The trip meter may be used to record

324-400: A bicycle wheel. A flexible cable transmitted the number of rotations of the wheel to an analog odometer visible to the rider, which converted the wheel rotations into the number of miles traveled according to a predetermined formula. In 1903 Arthur P. and Charles H. Warner, two brothers from Beloit, Wisconsin, introduced their patented Auto-meter . The Auto-Meter used a magnet attached to

378-425: A half- kilometer (500 meters or 1,640 feet or 0.311 miles ). This is then divided into 1,500 chi or "Chinese feet". The character 里 combines the characters for "field" ( 田 , tián ) and "earth" ( 土 , tǔ ), since it was considered to be about the length of a single village. As late as the 1940s, a "li" did not represent a fixed measure but could be longer or shorter depending on the effort required to cover

432-436: A kilometer (500 meters). However, unlike the jin which is still frequently preferred in daily use over the kilogram, the li is almost never used. Nonetheless, its appearance in many phrases and sayings means that "kilometer" must always be specified by saying gōnglǐ in full. As one might expect for the equivalent of "mile", li appears in many Chinese sayings, locations, and proverbs as an indicator of great distances or

486-426: A lower mileage. Most odometers work by counting wheel rotations and assume that the distance traveled is the number of wheel rotations times the tire circumference, which is a standard tire diameter times pi (3.141592). If nonstandard or severely worn or underinflated tires are used then this will cause some error in the odometer. The formula is ( a c t u a l   d i s t

540-737: A mural of the Xiaotangshan Tomb ). The odometer was used also in subsequent periods of Chinese history. In the historical text of the Jin Shu (635 AD), the oldest part of the compiled text, the book known as the Cui Bao ( c.  300 AD ), recorded the use of the odometer, providing description (attributing it to the Western Han era, from 202 BC–9 AD). The passage in the Jin Shu expanded upon this, explaining that it took

594-498: A prospective buyer; this is often referred to as " clocking " in the UK and " busting miles " in the US. This is done to make a car appear to have been driven less than it really has been, and thus increase its apparent market value. Most new cars sold today use digital odometers that store the mileage in the vehicle's engine control unit , making it difficult (but not impossible) to manipulate

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648-557: A rotating shaft to induce a magnetic pull upon a thin metal disk. Measuring this pull provided accurate measurements of both distance and speed information to automobile drivers in a single instrument. The Warners sold their company in 1912 to the Stewart & Clark Company of Chicago. The new firm was renamed the Stewart-Warner Corporation. By 1925, Stewart-Warner odometers and trip meters were standard equipment on

702-631: A similar device in chapter 34 of his Dioptra . The machine was also used in the time of Roman Emperor Commodus ( c.  192 AD ), although after this point in time there seems to be a gap between its use in Roman times and that of the 15th century in Western Europe. Some researchers have speculated that the device might have included technology similar to that of the Greek Antikythera mechanism . The odometer of Vitruvius

756-519: A similar form to the mechanical device of the south-pointing chariot invented by Ma Jun (200–265, see also differential gear). As recorded in the Song Shi of the Song dynasty (960–1279 AD), the odometer and south-pointing chariot were combined into one wheeled device by engineers of the 9th century, 11th century, and 12th century. The Sunzi Suanjing (Master Sun's Mathematical Manual), dated from

810-469: A single pole and two wheels. On the body are two storeys, each containing a carved wooden figure holding a drumstick. The road-wheels are each 6 ft in diameter, and 18 ft in circumference, one evolution covering 3 paces. According to ancient standards the pace was equal to 6 ft and 300 paces to a li; but now the li is reckoned as 360 paces of 5 ft each. [Note: the measurement of the Chinese-mile unit,

864-444: A total of 285 teeth. Thus the motion is transmitted as if by the links of a chain, the "dog-teeth" mutually engaging with each other, so that by due revolution everything comes back to its original starting point (ti hsiang kou so, chhuan ya hsiang chih, chou erh fu shih). Odometers were first developed in the 1600s for wagons and other horse-drawn vehicles in order to measure distances traveled. Abramo Colorni (d. 1599) illustrated

918-473: Is common for odometers to be off by several percent. Odometer errors are typically proportional to speedometer errors . Li (unit) Li ( Chinese : 里 , lǐ , or 市里 , shìlǐ ), also known as the Chinese mile , is a traditional Chinese unit of distance . The li has varied considerably over time but was usually about one third of an English mile and now has a standardized length of

972-456: Is with a deviation of 0.2% from the actual distance (531 English miles). From the nine surviving bematists' measurements in Pliny's Naturalis Historia eight show a deviation of less than 5% from the actual distance, three of them being within 1%. Since these minor discrepancies can be adequately explained by slight changes in the tracks of roads during the last 2300 years, the overall accuracy of

1026-719: The Han li , which was standardized at 415.8 meters. The basic units of measurement remained stable over the Qin and Han periods. A bronze imperial standard measure, dated AD 9, had been preserved at the Imperial Palace in Beijing and came to light in 1924. This has allowed very accurate conversions to modern measurements, which has provided a new and extremely useful additional tool in the identification of place names and routes. These measurements have been confirmed in many ways including

1080-402: The huang men court people (i.e. eunuchs, palace officials, attendants and familiars, actors, acrobats, etc.) that would follow the musical procession of the royal 'drum-chariot'. The historian Joseph Needham asserts that it is no surprise this social group would have been responsible for such a device, since there is already other evidence of their craftsmanship with mechanical toys to delight

1134-409: The 3rd century to 5th century, presented a mathematical problem for students involving the odometer. It involved a given distance between two cities, the small distance needed for one rotation of the carriage's wheel, and the posed question of how many rotations the wheels would have in all if the carriage was to travel between point A and B. The historical text of the Song Shi (1345 AD), recording

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1188-638: The 5th year of the Thien-Sheng reign-period (1027 AD) the Chief Chamberlain Lu Tao-lung presented specifications for the construction of odometers as follows: What follows is a long dissertation made by the Chief Chamberlain Lu Daolong on the ranging measurements and sizes of wheels and gears, along with a concluding description at the end of how the device ultimately functions: The vehicle should have

1242-648: The Englishman Thomas Savery . Benjamin Franklin , U.S. statesman and the first Postmaster General , built a prototype odometer in 1775 that he attached to his carriage to help measure the mileage of postal routes. In 1847, William Clayton and Orson Pratt , pioneers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , first implemented the Roadometer they had invented earlier (a version of

1296-453: The French mathematician Blaise Pascal invented the pascaline . Though not an odometer, the pascaline utilized gears to compute measurements. Each gear contained 10 teeth. The first gear advanced the next gear one position when moved one complete revolution, the same principle employed on modern mechanical odometers. Odometers were developed for ships in 1698 with the odometer invented by

1350-462: The US (and many other countries), vehicle mechanics are also required to keep records of the odometer any time a vehicle is serviced or inspected . Companies such as Carfax then use these data to help potential car buyers detect whether odometer rollback has occurred. Research by Irish vehicle check specialist Cartell found that 20% of vehicles imported to Ireland from Great Britain and Northern Ireland had had their mileometers altered to show

1404-460: The completion of every li, the wooden figure of a man in the lower storey strikes a drum; at the completion of every ten li, the wooden figure in the upper storey strikes a bell. The carriage-pole ends in a phoenix-head, and the carriage is drawn by four horses. The escort was formerly of 18 men, but in the 4th year of the Yung-Hsi reign-period (987 AD) the emperor Thai Tsung increased it to 30. In

1458-497: The correspondence between chō and ri . See Kujūkuri Beach (99- ri beach) for a case. In South Korea , the ri currently in use is a unit taken from the Han dynasty (206 BC–220 AD) li . It has a value of approximately 392.72 meters, or one tenth of the ri . The Aegukga , the national anthem of South Korea, and the Aegukka , the national anthem of North Korea , both mention 3,000 ri , which roughly corresponds to 1,200 km ,

1512-451: The discovery of a number of rulers found at archaeological sites, and careful measurements of distances between known points. The Han li was calculated by Dubs to be 415.8 metres and all indications are that this is a precise and reliable determination. Under the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907), the li was approximately 323 meters. In the late Manchu or Qing dynasty , the number of chi

1566-648: The distance that a person carrying a load would aim to cover on mountain roads in one hour. Thus, there had been various ri of 36, 40, and 48 chō. In the Edo period , the Tokugawa shogunate defined 1 ri as 36 chō, allowing other variants, and the Japanese government adopted this last definition in 1891. The Japanese ri was, at that time, fixed to the metric system , 216 ⁄ 55 ≈ 3.93 kilometres or about 2.44 miles . Therefore, one must be careful about

1620-404: The distance traveled on each tank of fuel, making it very easy to accurately track the energy efficiency of the vehicle; another common use is resetting it to zero at each instruction in a sequence of driving directions, to be sure when one has arrived at the next turn. A form of fraud is to tamper with the reading on an odometer and presenting the incorrect number of miles/kilometres traveled to

1674-544: The distance. There is also another li (Traditional: 釐 , Simplified: 厘 , lí ) that indicates a unit of length 1 ⁄ 1000 of a chi , but it is used much less commonly. This li is used in the People's Republic of China as the equivalent of the centi- prefix in metric units, thus limi ( 厘米 , límǐ) for centimeter. The tonal difference makes it distinguishable to speakers of Chinese, but unless specifically noted otherwise, any reference to li will always refer to

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1728-548: The distances of routes traveled by Alexander the Great (r. 336-323 BC) as by his bematists Diognetus and Baeton. However, the high accuracy of the bematists's measurements rather indicates the use of a mechanical device. For example, the section between the cities Hecatompylos and Alexandria Areion, which later became a part of the Silk Road , was given by Alexander's bematists as 575 Roman miles (529 English miles ) long, that

1782-468: The emperor and the court. There is speculation that some time in the 1st century BC (during the Western Han dynasty), the beating of drums and gongs were mechanically-driven by working automatically off the rotation of the road-wheels. This might have actually been the design of one Luoxia Hong ( c.  110 BC ), yet by 125 AD the mechanical odometer carriage in China was already known (depicted in

1836-627: The exotic: The present day Korean ri (리, 里) and Japanese ri (里) are units of measurements that can be traced back to the Chinese li (里). Although the Chinese unit was unofficially used in Japan since the Zhou dynasty , the countries officially adopted the measurement used by the Tang dynasty (618–907 AD). The ri of an earlier era in Japan was thus true to Chinese length, corresponding to six chō ( c. 500–600 m), but later evolved to denote

1890-581: The founding of Chinese civilization around 2600 BC and standardized by Yu the Great of the Xia dynasty six hundred years later. Although the value varied from state to state during the Spring and Autumn period and Warring States periods, historians give a general value to the li of 405 meters prior to the Qin dynasty imposition of its standard in the 3rd century BC. The basic Chinese traditional unit of distance

1944-408: The kilometer ( Mandarin : 公里 , gōnglǐ , lit. "common li"). Under Mao Zedong , the People's Republic of China reinstituted the traditional units as a measure of anti-imperialism and cultural pride before officially adopting the metric system in 1984. A place was made within this for the traditional units, which were restandardized to metric values. A modern li is thus set at exactly half

1998-526: The li, was changed over time, as the li in Song times differed from the length of a li in Han times.] The vehicle wheel (li lun) is attached to the left road-wheel; it has a diameter of 1.38 ft with a circumference of 4.14 ft, and has 18 cogs (chhih) 2.3 inches apart. There is also a lower horizontal wheel (hsia phing lun), of diameter 4.14 ft and circumference 12.42 ft, with 54 cogs, the same distance apart as those on

2052-643: The longer traditional unit and not to either the shorter unit or the kilometer. This traditional unit, in terms of historical usage and distance proportion, can be considered the East Asian counterpart to the Western league unit . However, in English league commonly means "3 miles." Like most traditional Chinese measurements , the li was reputed to have been established by the Yellow Emperor at

2106-512: The measurements implies that the bematists already must have used a sophisticated device for measuring distances, although there is no direct mention of such a device. An odometer for measuring distance was first described by Vitruvius around 27 and 23 BC, during the First Punic War , although the actual inventor may have been Archimedes of Syracuse (c. 287 BC – c.  212 BC ). Hero of Alexandria (10 AD – 70 AD) describes

2160-442: The mechanical carriage's functions, and as one li is traversed, a mechanical-driven wooden figure strikes a drum, and when ten li is traversed, another wooden figure would strike a gong or a bell with its mechanical-operated arm. Despite its association with Zhang Heng or even the later Ma Jun (c. 200–265), there is evidence to suggest that the invention of the odometer was a gradual process in Han dynasty China that centered around

2214-467: The mileage electronically. With mechanical odometers, the speedometer can be removed from the car dashboard and the digits wound back, or the drive cable can be disconnected and connected to another odometer/speedometer pair while on the road. Older vehicles can be driven in reverse to subtract mileage, a concept which provides the premise for a classic scene in the comedy film Ferris Bueller's Day Off , but modern odometers add mileage driven in reverse to

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2268-474: The modern odometer), which they attached to a wagon used by American settlers heading west. It recorded the distance traveled each day by the wagon trains . The Roadometer used two gears and was an early example of an odometer with pascaline-style gears in actual use. In 1895, Curtis Hussey Veeder invented the Cyclometer . The Cyclometer was a mechanical device that counted the number of rotations of

2322-573: The number of pebbles. Whether this instrument was ever built at the time is disputed. Leonardo da Vinci later tried to build it himself according to the description, but failed. However, in 1981 engineer Andre Sleeswyk built his own replica, replacing the square-toothed gear designs of Leonardo with the triangular, pointed teeth found in the Antikythera mechanism . With this modification, the Vitruvius odometer functioned perfectly. The odometer

2376-399: The participation of at least 48 states. The purpose of NMVTIS is to help in efforts to prevent consumers from fraud, reduce the use of stolen vehicles and protect consumers from unsafe vehicles. Odometer Possibly the first evidence for the use of an odometer can be found in the works of the ancient Roman Pliny (NH 6. 61-62) and the ancient Greek Strabo (11.8.9). Both authors list

2430-543: The people and events of the Chinese Song dynasty (960–1279), also mentioned the odometer used in that period. However, unlike written sources of earlier periods, it provided a much more thoroughly detailed description of the device that harkens back to its ancient form ( Wade-Giles spelling): The odometer. [The mile-measuring carriage] is painted red, with pictures of flowers and birds on the four sides, and constructed in two storeys, handsomely adorned with carvings. At

2484-415: The same as on the "turning-like-the-wind wheel" (1.2 inches). Next, there is fixed (on the same shaft) a small horizontal wheel (hsiao phing lun) 3.3 inches in diameter and 1 ft in circumference, having 10 cogs 1.5 inches apart. (Engaging with this) there is an upper horizontal wheel (shang phing lun) having a diameter of 3.3 ft and a circumference of 10 ft, with 100 cogs, the same distance apart as those of

2538-410: The small horizontal wheel (1.5 inches). When the middle horizontal wheel has made 1 revolution, the carriage will have gone 1 li and the wooden figure in the lower story will strike the drum. When the upper horizontal wheel has made 1 revolution, the carriage will have gone 10 li and the figure in the upper storey will strike the bell. The number of wheels used, great and small, is 8 inches in all, with

2592-414: The total as if driven forward, thereby accurately reflecting the true total wear and tear on the vehicle. The resale value of a vehicle is often strongly influenced by the total distance shown on the odometer, yet odometers are inherently insecure because they are under the control of their owners. Many jurisdictions have chosen to enact laws which penalize people who are found to commit odometer fraud . In

2646-575: The vast majority of automobiles and motorcycles manufactured in the United States. By the early 2000s, mechanical odometers would be phased out on cars from major manufacturers. The Pontiac Grand Prix was the last GM car sold in the US to offer a mechanical odometer in 2003; the Canadian-built Ford Crown Victoria and Mercury Grand Marquis were the last Fords sold with one in 2005. Most modern cars include

2700-420: The vertical wheel (2.3 inches). (This engages with the former.) Upon a vertical shaft turning with this wheel, there is fixed a bronze "turning-like-the-wind wheel" (hsuan feng lun) which has (only) 3 cogs, the distance between these being 1.2 inches. (This turns the following one.) In the middle is a horizontal wheel, 4 ft in diameter, and 12 ft circumference, with 100 cogs, the distance between these cogs being

2754-494: Was also independently invented in ancient China , possibly by the prolific inventor and early scientist Zhang Heng (78 AD – 139 AD) of the Han dynasty . By the 3rd century (during the Three Kingdoms Period), the Chinese had termed the device as the 'jì lĭ gŭ chē' (記里鼓車), or ' li -recording drum carriage' (Note: the modern measurement of li = 500 m (1,640 ft)). Chinese texts of the 3rd century tell of

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2808-445: Was based on chariot wheels of 4 Roman feet (1.18 m) diameter turning 400 times in one Roman mile (about 1,480 m). For each revolution a pin on the axle engaged a 400-tooth cogwheel thus turning it one complete revolution per mile. This engaged another gear with holes along the circumference , where pebbles ( calculus ) were located, that were to drop one by one into a box. The distance traveled would thus be given simply by counting

2862-512: Was increased from 1,500 per li to 1,800. This had a value of 2115 feet or 644.6 meters. In addition, the Qing added a longer unit called the tu , which was equal to 150 li (96.7 km). These changes were undone by the Republic of China of Chiang Kai-shek , who adopted the metric system in 1928. The Republic of China (now also known as Taiwan ) continues not to use the li at all but only

2916-412: Was the chi . As its value changed over time, so did the li ' s. In addition, the number of chi per li was sometimes altered. To add further complexity, under the Qin dynasty, the li was set at 360 "paces" ( 步 , bù ) but the number of chi per bu was subsequently changed from 6 to 5, shortening the li by 1 ⁄ 6 . Thus, the Qin li of about 576 meters became (with other changes)

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