Speedometer is off

[mpark620]

Hey guys,

Just wondering what could possibly be wrong with my speedometer. I went through a speed radar that your city will randomly have around town and every time I read my speed my speedometer tells me differently. I could even tell as well, as I'll be going 25, but in reality I'll be going 35. Even on the highway and the main streets its about 10mph slower than its supposed to read.

Could it be that something is off around the front tire region or do you think I'll have to change my speedometer and odometer? I'm open for changing the whole device itself if it could be just too old that its acting funky? Not sure if this is an electrical issue, but anything would help much. Thanks!

Best,

Mikey

 

[MechNewb]

Have you swapped wheels at all? Going to a different size wheel will affect your speedo reading.

 

[kindest]

ya chances are it's not the tire the speedo was calibrated for. I don't know if you can change it @ all. You can try greasing or cleaning any part on it that looks fouled up.

 

[Lou Ranger]

On the Honda I had for a few weeks the speedo would read lower, but it was also inconsistent. An old veteran rider advised me to properly lubricate the spring/wire that runs inside the speedo cable and connects into the drive on the wheel at one end and to the bottom of the speedo at the top. He wanted me to pull it all the way out, clean it, lube it then re-insert and hook it all up. Since it was about to pass on to the new owner, I opted to simply lube it in-situ.

That did the trick in terms of making it read consistently. If you can get it to be consistent then at least you can know how fast you are going by a simple calculation.
Then you can decide if you can live with it that way or if want to start spending money. On some bikes you can simply change the little mechanism in the wheel to one with a different gear ratio in order to adjust the accuracy.

Maybe a PO deliberately altered the speedo so he would put "fewer" miles on it while he owned it. We blame them for an awful lot worse . . .