VW/Audi

ktmrfs wrote:

jfkmk wrote:

Gary C wrote:

BenK wrote:

A comment of playing around with the speedometer...nope...don't think so. That is
themost accurate dash gauge in ALL vehicles sold in the USA...as it they were NOT
then contesting speed tickets would hold up...

Actually that's not true and a simple comparison with a GPS will show you that most speedometers read fast by 1-3 mph at 55 mph. I've done it with several vehicles using my GPS, a couple of friend's GPS's, and a couple of Iphones and none have ever shown the vehicle was traveling faster than the speedometer was indicating, they all routinely showed the real speed was slower than the speedometer indicated. There are several reasons for this as mentioned above. One is the manufacturer gets a break on warranty costs by having the speedometer accrue miles faster than reality. The other is so owners aren't getting busted for doing 58 in a 55 mph zone routinely then complaining that their speedometer isn't right. There's no speeding ticket to contest if the vehicle is actually doing 53 when it's indicating 55. You only get in trouble if the error is in the other direction which is one reason they always indicate a little faster than the actual speed. My 2014.5 Toyota Camry is 2 mph slower than indicated at 60 mph, that's pretty normal and it isn't by coincidence.

That's absurd. If it ever came out that car manufacturers purposely had their spedometers reading high so the warrantee would expire sooner, the scandal would be as bad as VWs. I find it incredible they would set the speedometer higher to save drivers from getting tickets. The gauges are there to give the driver an ACCURATE portrayal of what the vehicle is doing.

My GPS has always agreed with all of my personal vehicles as well as rental cars.

On cars built in the last 15 years or so, the spedo and odometer are NOT tied together. The spedo can read high, and the odo low. IIRC Federal reg's have different spec's on each. IIRC spedo can read x% high but not low, while odo is the opposite it can read x% low but not high.

On my 04 silverado, the odo is dead on, while the spedo reads a few mph high at 60.

and BTW honda did get nailed for odo's that were reading like 5% high, had to extend warranties.

The allowed deviation by federal law is a 5% bell curve which means it can read either 2.5% high or 2.5% low. A lot of of things can affect the reading as well like low tire pressure. A vehicle that reads higher than actual will generally have false high MPG numbers while a vehicle that reads lower than actual will have a false low MPG numbers. The swing can be up to a 2 MPG difference between two identical cars driven exactly the same.



How fast are you really going? The accuracy of speedometers