There is a lot of construction near Austin TX on I35 and a lot of those construction zone areas have those radar signs that tell you how fast you are going. I noticed that when I'm in my Mini it would always say I was going slower than my speedometer 5 mile an hour slower. So I downloaded an App to my phone that used GPS tracking to tell me how fast I’m going and it matched the road side radar signs. At 75 miles per hour I was really going between 69 and 70 and at 70 miles an hour I was really going 65. So the next time I took my Mini in for an oil change and new spark plugs I asked the service guy about the issue. Because for one it adds miles to my car that I didn’t drive and makes me think I’m getting better gas mileage. And was told that Mini does this because most people put bigger tires on their Mini that make the speedometer correct. I finally took the time to do the math and was not happy at what I found. If you divide 50,000 miles by 70 and multiply that by 5(the number of MPH that its off) that comes out to be 3571 miles on my odometer that my car never drove. And at 100,000 miles it would be 7142 miles that my car never drove. Not to mention the great gas mileage isn’t as great as I thought. I have two other friends that Have Mini’s one new than mine one older and theirs are the same. Has anyone else noticed this?

 

What?! you mean that huge Flavo Flave speedometer is inaccurate???? I had heard this, but did not crunch the numbers or use GPS. It doesnt bother me that much.....yes, its an interesting find/proof, but I'm not going to lose sleep over it......

 

the speedo is OFF , the ODO is not. By law the speedo can't error reading lower than actual but can read higher to keep you from speeding.

My digital is -2mph and analog is -3mph but odometer is dead on.

FYI every motorcycle I owned is 4-5 mph off.

 

Yep, lots of threads on NAM on that subject..

 

I smell a lawsuit
Anytime someone gets the abacus out it turns ugly
"MINI should have made these cars perfect"
Yeah, just like our first wife, perfect, till the second one showed up!

 

this could get interesting

 

This is just so wrong in so many ways. Stop making assumptions, all you're doing is getting yourself worked over something that is not true. Like other people have said the odometer is accurate. The speedometer over-corrects, which btw can be disabled with software.

 

When I am driving the digital speedo saids 70, from my view the dinner plate saids sth like 72, but when you move your head directly to it, it saids 70. and sometimes when I drive thru the solar speed-o-meter on the crubside in the city, it was 1-2 mph above my digital speedo reading.

 

My Toyota Sequoia does the same thing, off by 2 mph. No big deal I just adjust my speed accordingly.
The Toyota's gas guage is also off and errors on the prudent side also.

 

Well, I just checked my speedometer against GPS and I am 7 miles an hour slower than the speedometer reads.

7. Damn. I have 18' rims on my car. My 528 is 5 miles over as well.

 

Mine reads 2 mph fast, no big deal.

 

Mine's off by a percentage. The faster I go the bigger the error. As your tires wear down it gets worse. I have a GPS so I don't use the digital or analog speedometer.

My odometer is close enough. However, the onboard mpg calculaton is always +2 or so mpg.

 

This conversation has been going on since at least 2003. Try doing a search using 'speedometer error' or 'speedometer off'. For a twelve year old gathering of several thousand MINI people just about everything you can imagine has been cussed and discussed...except what's gonna confuse and torment the new 'F' owners.

 

Well, I downloaded a different mpg gps thing on my phone and happened to be in a school zone and checked.

I AM SPOT ON. My car reads perfectly.

 

@Eric Campbell

::::::::::golf claps:::::::::

:::::::::hands a cookie::::::::

::::::::follows up with a cold brew::::::::

 

Do you work at a grocery store? Tire size is NOT the reason why "MINI does this." The speedometer being slightly off is not a MINI thing, is it an EVERY CAR thing. Just about all manufacturers calibrate speedo's to read high based on the average error for several reasons, one of them being liability as well.

Please read the quote below - this guy nailed it.

Oh and .. your math is wrong.

+87236487290384