Odometer adding miles correctly

[Atekido]

SO these old square bodies only have 99,999 as the highest # it can list.... when i started a 800 mile drive it had around 14500 which i was told was actually 145k by my grandfather the original and only previous owner. after the 800 miles trip..... it now sits at 15200.... which i would assume means it thinks it has 152k miles... well obviously that doesn't add up but, im assuming there is no possible way to know the true mileage since we have no idea how long this thing has been reading wrong but I do know it has only ever has 235/75/15 tires so not sure what else could cause this or am I just plain dumb and reading it wrong?

 

[Grit dog]

Dude think about it…
14500 = fourteen thousand five hundred not 45000.
You racked up 700 miles. Don’t think your trip was 800 miles!
Now let’s see a picture of this cherry rig!!

 

[Atekido]

oh haha I see what you mean i guess in my head i was thinking way to much about it.

 

[Corvette Ed]

Grit dog,you’re the man.

 

[RecklessWOT]

Hah okay so really your truck has 115k on it (maybe 215k). With the extra digit missing, that's the place for how many hundreds of thousands of miles the vehicle has moved. So once it gets past 99k miles, it just starts back over at 0. Old cars didn't last nearly as long as modern vehicles, so there wasn't much of a perceived need for the extra digit. Back in the 50s and 60s they figured a vehicle was pretty much done when it hit 100k, and when the thing isn't 40 years old and covered in corrosion and whatnot like nowadays, back when these things were only 5-10 years old, it should have been easy enough to tell the difference between a brand new truck with 20k miles on it, and a clapped out old rig with 120k on it, so they saved space and money and didn't put in an extra roller for the 100k mark. even though they made these trucks well into the 80s, it was kind of a holdover from that era just for the sake of being simple. Think about it this way, there are a handful of trucks out there (big rigs and diesels especially) that have gone over a million miles, but we don't find it necessary to put in a 7th digit, because anyone who can't tell the difference between a truck with a million miles and a brand new one probably should just stay away from trucks lol.

 

[Atekido]

Yea makes since. I am not sure how i got it in my head 14,500 to 15,200ish was several thousand lol........ Math in my head always = fail lol!