Hampton Roads Club Mini

      

Hey Fam! The Blur and I will be in HR Tomorrow through the weekend. A little much needed R&R. Well, when I get back it's back to business and off to Traffic Court on Tuesday. With that in mind, does anyone know where I can get my Speedometer Calibrated, in an official capacity, while I am down your way?

The Blur and I would appreciate any assistance.

Quitta

 

There is a place not far from my shop in Hampton that does calibrations. Pretty neat to watch too.

And if you could make our dinner at the Pub Hampton, you'd have a good time. Not that I can make it, I'll be busy announcing at Langley Speedway. Especially since it won't rain on a damn Wednesday any more!

Thanks Fam! Not sure if I can make it to the Pub, we have dinner plans at Capt Georges tonight. I'd be crazy to stand between my man and his Seafood. Lol

If I can sweet talk him into it I will. Thanks for the info.

Well, I have to go to court for a 85/55 speeding ticket. Gotta get an official reading.

A really easy way to calibrate your speedometer is to use a GPS to measure your speed.

Kurt, unfortunately, the odometer directly relies on the speedometer to determine miles driven.

Well, Dale, I've already had that discussion before.  Several times on NAM and abroad.  Different claims say the speedometer can vary as much as 10%.  My research has shown that it's done to force people to drive slower and help save lives.  The downside is just as you stated; you go out of warranty faster.

Both my old and new MINIs vary by about 7%.  At 50 MPH on the speedo, I'm only doing 46 MPH.  At 75 MPH on the speedo, I'm only doing 69 MPH.  Calculating a 7% deviation, that means I would go out of the extended warranty with only 46,500 miles.  So, I decided to accept that I would be satisfied if nothing occurred once I crossed the 53,500 mile mark on the odometer.

Two factors that affect your speed are tire size and tire wear.  Usually it's the former that creates a variation.  Many car manufacturers know people like putting larger rims and tires.  The negative deviation helps make up even for that.  Another downside is the negative deviation also is in favor of the law, as you cannot argue your speedo was too low (which would be a positive deviation).  Unfortunately for the 85/55, you are probably going to find out your speedo actually reads 91 MPH.

Well, I think I am going to have to agree with the post I linked earlier.  I did a short 60 mile test of the odometer and speedometer verse the GPS.  On average the speedometer read 3-5 MPH higher than the GPS speed, however, the odometer only varied from the GPS on the two occations in which I traveled through the tunnels and lost GPS signal.  And then it was only by .1 mile each time.  Once I cleared the tunnel, the difference remained the same once again and the odometer continued to track exactly with GPS.  This leads me to believe the post that the sensor that feeds into the computer is the same, but the processing for speed and miles is different.  I know in the past with cable driven speedometers it was a direct correlation between miles and speed, but I think in the computer age things have changed.  I plan to test it further this weekend on a longer run.

   Beltronics STI Driver for the win!