Did anyone here disconnect the speedometer on their church-owned car while on your mission, or know of anyone who did? The practice was so prevalent on my mission, that I figured that anyone buying a car from the church with 50,000 miles on it would probably end up getting a car with more like 100,000 miles on it. That's especially true for those elders who took long unauthorized cross-country road trips.

In my favorite thread on earth, many a missionary admitted doing so. There was even driving in reverse for long stretches to get the odometer to roll back...

in b 4 ~ https://youtu.be/OX1Yj-fhiTA

I know that my ex said they did something like that. Hurricane Camille hit the south back in about 1969 or so and they drove outside the mission boundaries to see the destruction.

We did this quite often out of need since we lived in a very large area. One morning the Zonies came to tour us very early. They checked the car before coming in and sure enough the speedo was unhooked. After rousing us and berating us for sleeping in they asked if there was anything we wanted to confess.

My bedroom had a back door and as I was getting dressed I slipped out, ran around, and hooked the speedo back up.

Neither of us said we had anything to confess. The Zonies asked if our car was like it was supposed to be. I said, "Yup". We had scripture study for an hour, ate some toast, and went outside to the cars. The Zonies didn't let us out of their sight and even stood guard outside of the bathroom when one of us went in there.

The head Zonie stated that our speedometer was not connected and wanted to know why. I told him that is was connected and he was welcome to check. He did, it was connected, and he started to get a little hot under the collar.

I told him that we never unhook it as that would be against the mission rules. The other Zonie checked and they conferred for a minute. They admitted that perhaps they had only thought it was undone, and that was that.

We were a lot more careful after that and made sure the cable was hooked up during the night. I would say that each month for 4 months that we added an extra 800 miles to the car.

I know of a lot of other missionaries who also did this. It was mostly because we only had 1000 miles for the month and that just wasn't enough in a large area. We also had to drive to work 2 days a week at the Joseph Smith Memorial which was in the next state.

That was some great gas lighting you did:)

My hubby showed the local mishey's how to unhook the speedo. They were able to drive the 60 miles round trip to our town for dinner because of that.

1970-72-put thousands of miles on the rambler with speedo unhooked. I think we had one of the last ramblers the church owned.

Also 1970-72, and a rambler in every area except the last one which we had a Duster. I never did unhook a Duster though.

Never did the mission thing, Steve, but even I would never buy a Rambler from a little old man/lady who lived in Pasadena and only used it to drive to church on Sundays. Or would I buy anything else from a church who thinks the Earth is around 6 thousand years old. Talk about turning the speedometer back!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/06/2016 08:29PM by BYU Boner.

A couple of zone leaders were caught with their odometer disconnected. They were the highest baptizing pair in the mission. We popped in on them unexpectedly. They had "hooter" music, credit cards, went golfing most of the time, and one of them was .....ing the landlord's teenage daughter. This was back in 1983. Our mission president was proud to say he did not send one missionary home. Having been a judge, he figured any person who went on a mission couldn't do anything worthy of being sent home.

All the time except that the MP was quite aware that this had been standard practice. So to discourage this, the mission office began setting up "surprise" tune ups. The mission office would call and tell you to report to a specific service center where all the paperwork was immediately faxed. With monthly zone conferences, the AP's had a pretty good way to estimate where your mileage should be. If it was too low, they suspected cheating or not using the car [and it might be transferred to others if not being used]. If the mileage was too high then you had to fill out a pain-in-the-ass detailed report of how your were using too many miles. I was only in a car for my first six months and then I was told by the MP that riding the bike was for my own good [I think he liked the Captain character from Cool Hand Luke ~every discomfort, suffering and misery was for my own good.]

Now some elders (and a few sisters) would hesitate to bring in the car as directed so the ZL's would have to make a spot check of the car and mileage. A couple elders refused to allow the ZL's near the car so the APs with MP showed up to "repo" the car.

Now I learned one trick from the ZL's that trained me. After picking me up at the bus station, I quickly learned that they NEVER used the car for anything. We biked to church for all meetings, shopping and tracting. So what was the trick?

They falsified the actual odometer reading in the car mileage ledger. They wrote down [for several months] maximum mileage as if they had used it. What was the reason? For a nifty road trip that would happen right before the upcoming zone conference. Of course, the ZL's had help in pulling this off just like the famous Alcatraz escape. I observed a certain AP receiving a 10 spot to look the other way.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/06/2016 08:39PM by messygoop.

Oh, hell yes!

One area I was in was huge. We were allotted 1800 miles per month. That wasn't even remotely enough to get our legitimate missionary work done, let alone all of the other fucking around that we did on top of that.

We had a Mercury Topaz. All you had to do was roll up your right sleeve and reach down between the firewall and the engine, give quick prayer and a few turns to the (only finger tight) odometer cable - and Voila! Jeezus works in mysterious ways!!

My mission pres. at the time was Elder Richard G. Scott's brother, Gerald. Nice guy. He himself was so trunky by then, I don't think he would have given two shits if he found out.

Oh, and I never got caught.

A speedometer measures speed.

An odometer measures distance.

The same cable that feeds the speedometer also feeds the odometer. It's all one unit, commonly called the speedometer.

I think that each offense is probably a felony. It's interesting how many missionaries routinely break the law and create civil frauds, because of how convient it is to do. I guess it must be okay since they're doing gawd's work.

It's only an offense when the *owner* (Jesus) goes to sell it. And I don't think you can really do it on today's vehicles, anyway, but I'm not sure.

Yep. Everyone knew it occurred and most knew how to do it.

Some cars it was a cable, some a fuze. The fuze cars could be done in about 10 seconds.

When a member would inquire about the possibility of purchasing a mission car, we would always discourage. But never said why exactly.

I feel a little bad about it.

We had elders who changed the oil at zone conferences. One time we prechanged the oil so it wouldn't be black as tar because we drove so much.

We also had "honest" missionaries do really dumb things to conserve on miles. Like turn the car off going down hill and coasting without power steering or power breaks. I never heard of any accidents, but it was terrifying. I told them just to pull the fuze. I would rather not be dead.

When I was learning to drive in 1960-61, that was called "Chinese Overdrive'" It was specifically forbidden in the driver's education manual and probably in state law as well.

Coasting down a mountain grade in neutral. In those rigs, you have to keep it in gear, as brakes are sometimes insufficient to bring it to a stop from 80+mph. Depends on the rig and the load, of course. That's why you sometimes see signs, "Trucks Test Brakes" and "Trucks Use Low Gear."

Some times we would disconnect the odometers on our bikes, just so we could ride farther.

It is still possible to do that now, but considerably more difficult. The sensors are electronic (no cable, just a wire, if that) and the odometer is run through the Engine Control Unit computer, which would have an internal record of time when the engine and transmission were running, but the odometer was not. It is both harder to do now, and harder to hide that it was done.

I'm glad to hear that, since I always buy used cars.

I've never trusted cars that have unnaturally low mileage compared to the age of the car.

Speaking of mission cars, did anyone ever "pop" the exhaust pipe? This is where, while driving, you turn off the ignition key for a couple of seconds and turn it back on. In those couple of seconds a small amount of unspent fuel vapor would flood the muffler and when the key was turned back on there would be a very loud backfire.

We learned this little tidbit of fun and used it often. Some Elders in another area blew their muffler apart and had to foot the repair bill on their own.

Yup.

Toyota Corolla in the early 90's. You only had to slightly pull out the fuse.

Once the mission car guy learned everyone was doing it, he started to put a "security" sticker over the fuse cover. We drove to Staples and found the same labels he was using.

Only had a car for two months. It was a relatively small area that we had but we lived a little ways out of it.

We'd mostly drive up to a remote area, ditch the ties and tags in the cars. Wear a local sweater or coat and hang out in the parks and shops. Then at the end of the month... Road trip! 300 miles one way is a good stretch when you are in England.

I knew some missionaries who did that on my mission.. they disconnected the odometer and drove to Marti gras in new Orleans.. when they drove back, the APs and the mission prez was waiting for them and took them right to the airport and sent their asses home....classic...

People who had cars on their missions.
Sheesh.

We only had bikes.
And we had to ride them everywhere.
And everywhere was always uphill.

:)

Ferris Buhler's Day Off!

On a related topic I used to live in a house full of RMs and
prospective missionaries. I was a prospective missionary. One
of the RMs was first counselor in the bishopric at the local
university ward we all attended.

He had a car he wanted to sell. So he removed the
speedometer/odometer unit and worked for hours trying to turn it
back. He did this openly in front of all the rest of us.

This was back in the 60s so maybe the "are you honest in your
dealings with your fellow man" question wasn't in the TR
interview yet--I don't know. But I found it fascinating that he
felt no qualms about trying to lie to, and cheat the prospective
buyer, and that he did it brazenly in front of all the rest of us.

They could never get away with this today. I'm pretty sure the missionary cars have a GPS so the MP can figure out a car's location while sitting at his desk and using a computer.