Odometer reading w/o fob

Nope. You need to get the car on to at least IG-ON.

 

If you know someone who is an auto insurance adjuster who inspects cars and writes up the claim they have the best tool to connect to the car to get that info. If you don't then read through this: How to Get Mileage from a Broken Odometer – 7 Tricks

 

I’m just wondering: EVERY time our (3rd gen) car is “turned off”, it displays odo, for about 30 seconds. And when I sometimes forget to have my fob on me, get in the car, it WILL wake up, with a push of the ON button. It tells me something about key not detected, but is “on”, or something. When then turned off (nother push of the button), not sure, but MAYBE it still displays odo??

Or maybe I’m dreaming? Or it’s not the case with second gen? Test it on your car?

 

Do the salvage yards in your area actually leave the batteries installed in the vehicles or do you plan to lug around a small 12v battery?
The mileage is stored in the combination meter, so I would imagine if you were able to just apply power to the appropriate relay contacts, you could get it to power up the display. Maybe just get power to the power source ecu? Or if the car is partially disassembled, just determine which wires on the combo meter need to have 12v applied in order to power it. I made 2 test adapters for powering up the MFD displays, so I'm sure it can be done for a combo meter. Find a salvage car, chop the wires going to the combo meter so you have a pigtail with the connector on it, figure out which wires need to have power/ground and then cut all the other wires right at the connector so they're out of the way.

 

Bring along a jump pack?