When I owned my Meric, the bike had a notorious reputation of being as much as 10% off on speedometer accuracy (which was high... go figure). Of course there were multiple postings on the subject including the two ways to correct it. The first was to install a Speedohealer (correction device) to to upgrade the front pulley to what was called an overdrive pulley from Scootworks. I installed the pulley and speedometer came to within 1% accuracy when checked against two different GPS devices.

I noticed the speedometer on my FLHR is about 2-4% high and I haven't checked the odometer yet. Has anyone else out there who uses a GPS found their speedometer to be off and if so did you do anything to correct the situation? Personally I don't think mine is off enough for me to star messing around with things. (Just another one of those winter discussions).....
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My speedo is about 3mph different from my GPS

 

I "think" all speedos are universally set to read ~ 5% high. It's a liability thing with the manufacturer whether it is a car, truck, or bike. They make the error on the safe side.

Bwana

 

I taped my Garmin eTrex to my bars and it was about 1 mph higher at 60 mph. It was hard to keep my bike at an exact speed long enough.

 

That sounds logical. A "lawyer speedometer". My old shovelhead FLH says "certified" at the bottom of the gauge but I haven't checked it with the GPS. My newer Ultra does not say "certified". Seems to be accurate though. When I'm on the interstate going 70 I'm keeping pace with other traffic. Sounds like a good project for this weekend to check speedometers if it warms up a little and stops raining.

 

I just had my speedo replaced,I estimated it was off about 3%. When I was with my riding buddies my odometer would always be around 10-15 miles higher even though we all took the exact same route. Of the 3 of us, their 2 odometers would be within a mile of each other and mine would be way off. Also when I would check it against a radar control speed signs, my speedometer would read about 5 mph higher than the sign. So I went to the dealer they agreed with me and ordered a new one for me under warranty. While I was at I asked them if they could upgrade the speedo for me. I chose this one, it cost me a whopping $31.64

http://www.harley-davidson.com/gma/g...bmLocale=en_US

If yours is that far off and if you are under warranty, I would have it replaced if I were you.

 

Yeah, I'll have to do a more thorough check on it this coming weekend (good excuse for a ride). The Japanese dealers would tell you if it's within 10%, that's acceptable to federal highway standards. If they do have to swap it out, I may try to do the upgrade as well. As for all vehicles being set that way deliberately, both my Malibu and Silverado are pretty much dead on with the speedometer and odometer.

 

At our local county fair time they park a mobile speed checker on the main road so you can see your speed, on my bike or car or truck, even tho my speedo read under the limit, the mobile checker said I was over the limit. Just a ploy to get everyone to slow down? I would think gps would be the most accurate, don't have one, but looking to get one. maybe I should elaborate, one of those trailered units, that posts," your speed is"

 

I have a group of friends that ride touring bikes and we found out that the speedometers were reading to high. Above 65 mph the speedo starts to read higher than it should. When we were running 75mph down the interstate the speedo read 81mph and that was on most of the bikes compared to three GPS's. With a speed limit of 75, we now run 81mph on our speedo.

 

My garmin and my speedo are just about 2-3 mph off each other. I have always assumed the garmin to be the most accurate.