Will a car’s odometer increase when being driven stationary on a mechanic’s lift in a garage?
Yes, if the car is in drive and the tires are turning.
If you are more concerned by the miles the mechanic is putting on you car while its on a lift than fixing the problem he’s trying to solve by doing this you need therapy.
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If they are running it at 20 MPH and run it for an hour, it will go up 20 miles.
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Cool. thank you.
Should OP ask to drive it 20 miles in reverse after that? 
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That did work with the old mechanical odometers!
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any of this “old warm vacuum tube sound” in 2018 VW left ?
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Got it. Thank you. This is super helpful.
I was not concerned, but just curious because I took the car in for a strange noise only audible at 5mph or less when making hard left turns, and I live in a city w/o highway roads to do long test drives. All that said, I expected some miles added for test driving, but received the car back with 50 miles added to the odometer, and then one of the mechanics made a joke that another mechanic took the car home with him
Anyways, all is fine and it makes sense that they test drove the car and placed it on a lift to drive it.
Thank you.
Hopefully with your permission. Technicians don’t get paid for road testing cars in an effort to replicate the noise that is troubling the owner of the vehicle. While driving a vehicle home sometimes a technician can stumble upon the problem that the owner had experienced.
Impossible for the 50 miles to have been accumulated on the lift, nobody is going to sit under the car for ten hours while it operates at 5 MPH.
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Are you sure it was a joke?