Anybody have experience with the accuracy of the speedometer in the MINI. Seems to me that at the same given speed indication, i.e. 65mph, more people pass me in my MINI than in my other cars.

 

From my GPS I gather that the Speedo is set a twinge high in my car. The needle will say I'm going 75 but the GPS speedo says i'm only going 71-72.

 

Based upon my GPS readings, my MINI reads about 1 mph high. If the speedo says 71 mph, the GPS will say 70 mph + or - a few tenths. Overall, I'd say my '04 S is fairly acurate.

 

If you went to non-OEM tires, the tire diameter may be smaller.

 

Also note that the speedo is programmed to read higher than you are actually going. In other words, the CAR knows you're only going xxMPH, but will display yyMPH.

The discrepancy is built-in to the speedo, adjusting your tire size and such will affect it as well..

 

X2 I have notice that when going by those radar display trailers the local police set up to warn you of excess speed, that my speedo is off 3 mph high to what they say I'm doing

 

May be due to the fact that more people want to "check out" your MINI than your other cars

 

Mine reads ~3mph high according to 4 different gps units. Several of those trailer-around police speed radar thingies also agree.

 

+1 those radars show my mini running round 2mph high

 

About 3 MPH high for me also

 

It does this because it is the law in Europe.

Mine reads about 2-3 MPH low at 50 MPH, or so the road side radar things tell me.

Mark

 

Well, not entirely...the laws in Europe say that if the speedo reads lower then actual speed that the manufacturer has a hefty fine to pay, so to be sure, they set them at +3-5mph or so.

 

That's what I was hopeing. Maybe gives them a sence of accomplishement to beat a sporty looking car going down the street at a sustained speed.:impatient

 

Well I new some kind of law was involved

Oh, by the way, that would be 5-8KPH in Europe, at 100 KPH. It is set as a % . 50 KPH + 3-4 KPH, 100 KPH + 6-8 KPH, or so.

Mark

 

Yeah, on mine it's off by a percentage - if I'm going 40MPH, my speedo reads 54 or so. If I'm going 90, it reads 97 or so. ..And so on.

 

Mine is pretty accurate - +1 according to internal and external GPS.

 

For some reason the cop's radar gun never agrees with how fast I say I was going.

Although once I did have to bite my tongue to keep myself from saying: "Really? 82? I thought I was going faster."

 

Boy thats a big %, going 40MPH reading 54

Mark

 

Ok, so the real question is: does this speed delta affect the odometer also? Or is the only side effect just what we see on the speedometer? I'd hate to think there are extra miles being added to the odometer just so BMW can feel safe.

As an aside, I just received a notification from Acura on a class action lawsuit on a related issue. Honda was accused of having inaccurate odometers. A bunch of people took them to court. The settlement is that the warranties are extended by some limited number of miles; leases are also extended appropriately. Of course, there is no admission of guilt .

 

My '04 MC is similar to this

 

Oh yeah. Obviously, I meant "when I am going 50, it reads 54."

As far as the odometer goes, for my MINI, it's pretty darn accurate, despite the needle being off. (Damn accurate means that I was unable to notice a difference in 10 miles driving. +/- error from hitting a GPS trip and the MINI's trip reset.)

 

odometer is very accurate.

Mark

 

My speeding tickets have been right on the money

 

Just one of those crazy bimmer things. The speedo is about 2mph high, but the odo is right on the money. So if you put 215/45/17 on it will fix the speedo, but then your odo will be off a hair. 2 other bimmers I have had did the same.

 

Yeah, because the discrepancy is programmed into the needle. If I put the speedo into the text mode to show my current KPH on the readout, it will show my TRUE speed, while the needle will be off.