Since i have had my 99TL (about 2 months now), i have had more and more of an inclination that my spedometer says i am going faster than i really am. the reasons are:

1) before when i would drive what i thought was 75/85 on the highway, i was passing cars extermely easily. now it seems that in relation to my spedo, even big rigs are doing 75-80. it just doesnt feel right.

2) driven by cops going what i thought was pretty fast, and they didn't pull out.

3.) last month i did 1880 miles according to the car...i've never driven that much before.


any thoughts or ideas?

 

Did you just change your wheels and tires to a different size?

 

You'll be surprised how fast those big rigs drive on the highway, especially at night. I remember once I was driving ~90 mph and a big rig passed me up.:wow:

 

Get a passenger and a stopwatch to see if you need to get the spedometer recalibrated.

Get on the highway exactly at 60 mph. When you pass a mile marker hit the stopwatch. Keep it exactly at 60 until the next mile marker. If it takes more than 1 minute, you spedometer is over-reading your true speed; less than 1 minute then it's under-reading.

BTW my 1997 Accord has always over-read the true speed. I often buzz a "public awareness" radar at 80 and it says I'm really doing 76.

 

Have you seen this oldie called "Duel"? Those freakin' 18 wheelers might start like a snail, but once it gets going, it's pretty sick.

 

well i know sometimes the big rigs go fast, but in relation to my previous car(s), it seems like everyone is driving a lot faster now in relation to me. i will have to do the mile market test and see what i can come up with. assuming it's off, is this something that would be covered under factory warranty?

 

I really don't know. I wonder if they would treat it like normal wear and tear and make you pay for it. Is there some federal law which requires manufacturers to fix an inacurate odometer? Sort of like defective seat belts.

 

i'm not sure, but i can tell you that if it is off, it is off by quite a bit. i will call the closest acura dealership monday and see what they have to say about it. i have to bring it in to get the seat panel of the heated seats fixed anyway...the WOULD be covered, right?

 

Your covered with the seats. Good luck with the speedometer... tell them it's defective and artificially running-up the miles on your car which destroys the value. Maybe they'll bite.

On the otherhand, if they can turn the whole thing off for a couple of months, I'd jump at that and stick a wet finger out the window to guess my speed.

 

i scheduled an appointment with my closest acura dealer, Schaller acura, in manchester, connecticut. they guy i talked to was real nice about the heated seats, but when i brought up the spedo issue, he said that "we can take a quick look at it." doesn't sounds to me like they will be finding anything wrong, whethere there actually is something wrong or not.

 

do you know anyone else who has a car, just have them follow you and tell you how fast you are going.

 

I've got a 99 also. My speedometer is off around 8% confirmed by the Acura dealer. My odometer is dead on. I was told that the speedometer and odometer both use separate speed sensors.

The dealer was going to fix but then they spoke with the factory. They would not fix because the speedometer error was within spec's. The factory will allow plus or minus 10% before they will fix under warranty. I was shocked that they have that type of tollerence.

 

It SHOULD be only =/- 1%.

 

I agree but tell that to Acura. +/-10% is their threshold. I've tried several times to get them to do something but no go. I'm pretty sure it's in the speed sensor.

 

that's seriously ludicrious. at higher speeds, these "acceptable" innacuracies are enough to warranty a speeding ticket. i.e. 65 would read as 71.5mph. unbelievable.

 

I guess if it is off, you could fix it by changing your wheel/tire combination to a larger diameter set.

 

If you haven't changed your tires/rims, then I suspect it is off. You can always get on a highway and when you pass a mile post reset your trip odometer to zero. Then wait for the next mile post and it should read right on 1.0. If it doesn't, then it's off.

BTW, where in MA are you located?

 

In my case, changing to a larger diameter tire to make the speedometer more accurate would make my odometer off. It's a trade off.

 

Actually, you'd get the best of both worlds... An accurate speedometer, and an odometer that records mileage slower than it should.

 

This is exactly the reason why your speedo shows higher than your actual speed. So that you can not sue the manufacturer when police stops you for doing 80 and it only showed 78. There are no cars which show less than your actual speed (of course, some mods like different size tires can change that, but we are talking stock here). If you are lucky, it will be dead on, and it can be up to 10% up - just like Acura says. I only know of 1 car out of dozen that I have driven that was right on - my brothers Infiniti I30t, we actually checked it with GPS to be sure, all others - just timing mile markers showed they were a few percent off.

In the good old days, there were shops that could fix your speedo, but I am not sure our electronic gauges are fixable...