In today’s electronic age has anybody compared their speedo reading with anything else (sat nav, gps, whatever?)? We all accept they won’t be perfectly accurate but given standard size tyres surely there’s no longer much reason for them to be far out? It’s just something I was pondering!
I believe, even in this modern day, in the UK, the only regulation for speedometer accuracy, is for it to be type tested with an accuracy at 30mph of - (under read) zero, + (over read) 10%. Which basically put, at 30mph you will always be actually doing 30 or less, never more. My 1st generation Multistrada is pretty accurate to about 1 mph compared to GPS. You will get some small variation depending on tyre profile/aspect ratio, tyre temperature, tyre pressure and tyre wear. Andy
The legislation requires that speedometers must be accurate within 10% but never read slow so most manufacturers aim for the middle of 5% to allow for manufacturing tolerances. Or so I thought. From the 2017 Supersport owner's Manual: The instrument panel receives information about the actual vehicle speed (calculated in km/h) and displays the value increased by 5% and converted in the set unit of measurement (mph or km/h). And from the 2010 MTS1200 Owner's Manual: This function displays vehicle speed (Km/h or mph depending on the set measurement system). The instrument panel receives information about the actual speed (calculated in km/h) and displays the number increased by 8%. Strange that they aimed for 8 % for Multi. Against a GPS my 907ie reads about 58 at 50, 70 at 60 and over 80 at 70. As long as I know I don't care.
Speedo in my van lower then SatNav, I never bother on my bikes as I’m usually speeding in any case. As we used to say if you’ve not broken at least 3 driving laws within 1 Mile you ain’t doing it right.
Multistrada DVT has speedo calibration that needs setting after a tyre change (and I guess periodically though the rear tyre's life). Seems pretty accurate at legal speeds, within an mph or three compared to the GPS and always erring to over-reading rather then under-reading.
My 1200S is always low but very close. I am almost always running something on my phone (Waze or maps) that shoes the speed via GPS Rex
Porsche are pretty accurate. I used to have a very fast one and went to an airfield once. I was recorded at 197mph through the beams (and still accelerating!) and my speedo read exactly 200mph. So pretty close. I’ve checked a few Ducati’s and they read pretty high... ~+8% usually. Fukken miles out...
On My zx6r (2000 ) sat at 100 mph my sat nav reads 85 mph , across my other bikes they seem only a small amount out . I've never checked my van and maybe I should as that's where all my speeding fines have come from !
My MTS 1200s 2013 at 30mph is a real GPS 28mph, speedo 50mph is GPS 46mph and speedo 100mph is GPS 95mph and for good luck speedo 130mph is GPS 123 mph in Germany.
