First off, want to say I love my MiniCooper which I have now had for two weeks. All seems good with it except the speedometer. I used my GPS to calibrate the speedometer and it is way off. It will register anywhere from three to five miles faster than it is going. I wonder if anyone else has this problem. With the speedometer doing this am afraid that it will show more miles on the speedometer than what I am actually putting on as well as have no way to tell the exact mileage I am getting.

 

The speedo reads over because of Euro laws, they must read faster than the car is really going The Odometer is dead on though.

At 75mph, my GPS says 70mph.

One cool thing is that they read in reverse, as they are electronic, not cable driven.

Mark

 

The head mechanic at Mini says that there is a gray area due to the difference in the wheels that are available; said that the speedo would not register fast if you went to 16" wheels.

 

Checked mine and its the same with my GPS. Shows 70 at 66 and shows 75 at 70. I seem to remember my 06 Cooper S was dead on though, speedo matched the GPS.

 

My 04MC was off by +2mph so I am using the same number on 06MC.


Art

 

GPS devices are not accurate for speed. Position yes, but speed, no. Best way to calibrate is find a stretch of flat highway (to make it easy to keep your speed constant) and time yourself between multiple mile markers (multiple because they are necessarily accurate as to where they place them, but over 5-7 miles the errors will be minimal).

 

Not only was a GPS used but also used two different autos which had previously been callibrated. The speedo is definitely three at lower speeds and five miles at higher speeds too fast. Still have the problem if the miles registering is inaccurate. It does not seem possible that they could be accurate. Just wonder if 16" tires would change the accuracy.

 

With a GPS, as long as you're not in the middle of a curve and you have a decent satellite lock (like four or more satellites), your speed readout is going to be within 1MPH of your actual speed. You won't always get the 0.1MPH accuracy that Garmin and the other manufacturers advertise, but 0.8MPH is a reasonably accuracy to expect.

As for your odometer, the mileage is probably pretty close to spot-on, as long as you have stock-diameter tires. Both the odometer and speedometer use the same wheel speed input for their calculations, but the input is processed differently for the two gauges. The speedometer error you're experiencing is *intentional* and designed into the system. There's no need for a purposely-induced odometer error.

 

The head technician of the dealership says that there are a number of complaints on this; therefore, they are contacting the factory for a fix on the speedo for this situation and when they find one, there will be a recall.

 

I seriously doubt it. Speedometers have been intentionally designed to read higher than your actual speed for years. This prevents the automaker from being sued by someone that gets a speeding ticket because they were going faster than their speedometer indicated.

Unless there's a batch of speedometers out there that are outside of MINI specs (up to 10% high, plus an additional 2 MPH), there's nothing for the factory to "fix", and no reason for a recall.

 

^^ I agree, MINI will do nothing about this

Mark