Speedometer Appears to Read 5-6 mph Fast

tcrooks

tcrooks

Joined
Dec 18, 2011
Messages
50
Location
Cameron Park, CA
Bike
2005 ST1300 ABS
My 2005 St1300 ABS speedo appears to be reading 5-6 mph fast (as indicated by GPS and my wife driving along side on the freeway, communicating by cell). Does anybody else find this to be the case and/or heard of a fix?
 
Yup this is normal on any Honda I have owned.. I find its more like 10%.
 
Yes, this is normal. It is probably reading 7 to 8% fast and your odometer is about 2% off as well. You can install the Speedometer Healer. Myself, it's no big deal. I mentally calibrated it and don't care. Most of the time I have the GPS on anyway.
 
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The Speed-O-Healer will correct the speedometer, but will then throw off the odometer to show less miles than you're actually covering. Since I tend to keep everything until it's ready for the junkyard, the odometer being off 7% doesn't bother me. My speedometer is now spot-on which is more important to me.
 
This 7% error is deliberate, my ST1100 had exactly the same error and it had a cable driven speedo while the 13's is electronic. I think it's as much a marketing decision as it is a liability one. In the marketing sense it makes the bike seem sportier than it really is and from a liability point of view, no manufacture wants to be in a courtroom after an accident where the rider thought he was going slower than he really was.
 
+1 bunch of threads on this. Not unique to the ST or Honda.
It's a design choice not a defect per se.
Some rally folks will use a bicycle speedo which can be dialed in to you particular tire choice.

"It's a feature not a bug" LOL although it doesn't help as much as you'd think with performance awards...
 
"no manufacture wants to be in a courtroom after an accident where the rider thought he was going slower than he really was."

Why not make it accurate and then hold people accountable for their own actions?

The real benefit with the inaccurate speedo's is for the Speed-O-Healer manufacturer. If the bikes rolled off the assembly line perfectly, there wouldn't be nearly as many 3rd party manufacturers/vendors in existence...
 
I discovered this as well this weekend. On the way home from a camping trip, I had my wife go 70 MPH on the freeway so that I could check my speedometer. Sure enough, I was doing 76-77 MPH, not 70. I remember reading about this on different threads, but I figured it was only some bikes, not all of them. So now I definitely agree with the 10% number.
 
I've got a 5% over error on my '04. Verified by two different GPS (one specifically made for bicycles, not that it matters but maybe I will try the wheel pickup and see what it reads).
 
LegoMan said:
Why not make it accurate and then hold people accountable for their own actions?
Click to expand...

because here in the good ole US of A, no one is responsible for their actions...it's always someone else's fault...
 
The only issue I find with this error is when we over compensate for the correction and local LEOs appear with a frown. Yes, its common to my VFR as well.
 
From my understanding, speedometers have a tolerance of +/-10%. Vehicle manufacturers usually calibrate speedometers to read high by an amount equal to the average error, to ensure that their speedometers never indicate a lower speed than the actual speed of the vehicle, to ensure they are not liable for drivers violating speed limits.
 
ChiGuy64 said:
speedometers have a tolerance of +/-10%
Click to expand...
Mechanical, I can and do believe. Electronic, like the 1300, should not be there, least not nearly so large.

On a side note.. I remember when GPS's got street maps and were first hitting affordable mainstream, late 90's. Used to see posts on community boards all the time about people wanting to know how to calibrate their GPS cause it was reading a few mph off from their car. And their car was accurate because they never got a ticket. The GPS needed the calibration, not the car... that always made me chuckle. Or someone would set their GPS to record a track point every 10 feet, then couldn't understand why the GPS would have a meltdown while using it in the car.
 
LOL.
Somewhere I have an old hand held that thru a fit when it tried to recalculate it was so slow it couldn't keep up unless you stopped and let it think.
 
5% for mine, 03. My zrx was 10%. BIke speedometer on the zrx worked just fine, haven't mounted it yet on the ST.

I was downloading an app for my android phone - Pirelli Diablo - the comments were hilarious. "so inaccurate!! Fix the speed - that's all I got 2 say!" 2 comments later - "Seams to work prety good besides the speedo being off. SPeedo said 151 mph, this app said max speed of 139mph".. 2 comments later "lol you guys do know that the speedo is off right? Just because it "says" 150 doesn't mean that's the actual"

Some things never change. :D
 
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