At work i drive a '01 VW caddy sdi which recently had a new instrament pod put in (speedo went haywire) interestingly the total miles were almost zero when the van was returned to us... my question is this...Should the mileage have been programmed in to where it was on the old pod???(it was nearly 190,000 miles)

strictly speaking , yes it should have been programmed to the correct mileage

I'd expect them to, yes, but i don't think there's any reason why they have to.

You cant program those dashpods though. Its a new unit and then you note at what mileage it was changed in the service book.

The only thing against the law is knowingly misrepresenting the mileage when you come to sell it.