Ok...I thought it seemed like I wasn't quite going as fast as what my Speedo was showing. I got the GPS out this morning and as it turns out, the speedo shows about 5MPH faster than I'm actually going.

Anyone else have this issue and more to the point, anyone have any luck getting the dealer to do anything about it?

All STI's seem to be 4-5mph off. I don't mind that much. It keeps me in check. I don't believe that anyone has been able to recalibrate them. Let me know if you have any luck.

Well...if it was JUST the speedo difference, it wouldn't be THAT big of a deal to me. However, if you consider the extra milage it racks up, that IS a big deal to me.

Take this as a for instance:

You drive 55Mph for 2hrs a day = 550 Miles per 5 day week.
Your OD indicates 60Mph for 2hrs a day = 600 Miles per 5 day week.

In a year, that works out to 28,600 actually driven, but 31,200 miles on the OD.

That's a big deal to me. Over the life of the car, this could be 10-20K miles difference!

I figure if we can put a man on the moon and do heart tranplants, someone should be able to figure out how to make a speedometer that is accurate....especially on a $30,000+ car. Is that REALLY too much to ask?

I will inquire to my dealer about this.
If anyone can help me, Bianco Subaru can...I'll let you know what they say.

-Kevin

go to the dealer but there are tsb's where it says its normal. so i dont think u will get too far

My STI reads 5 mph high. I also used my gps, but I also used my gps for a 300 mile trip and the gps & odometer both said 300 miles. I don't think you have to worry about extra miles.

Dropped it off this evening for that and a couple other things...I'll let you know what they say. I for one don't see how that could possibly be considered "normal" and now that I think about it, I don't think it's legal either. I'll have to bone up on the odometer laws, but I think they're required to ensure it's at least somewhat accurate for mileage reporting issues.

Scott, I hate to just flat out say you're wrong, but you're wrong on this one man. If you're speedo is off, then absolutely your milage will be off. They only use a single speedo cable or pickup or whatever they use these days to drive both the speedo and OD. The odometer picks up milage based on a calculation from your speedometer. I really can't see them NOT giving us something as simple as a cigarette lighter yet installing a second speed pickup on the tranny just for the hell of it. :)

Anyway, I'm not trying to jump down anyone's throat about this, so sorry if I've offended anyone. I'm just a little miffed that they could think recording more mileage than you actually accumulate is in any way normal. I guess I'm getting ahead of myself here because my dealer has yet to even look at it.

Take care and have a great evening...I'm signing off for tonight.

its normal..

this is why police cant pull you over for doing 5 over and if they do it wont hold water.

something as small as tire size can throw it off

Agreed...a tire size can throw it off. HOWEVER - The car now has 800 miles on it. It's still wearing the rubber that I drove it off the showroom floor with and the rubber that Subaru mounted on it in Japan.

It's not normal in any way to be off that much. I've owned a lot of cars in my time and if the original tire sizes are used, it's usually within 1-2Mph + or -.

UPDATE:

Got it back from the dealer last night. As expected, they claimed it is within tolerances and refused to do anything about it...with one exception. If I could PROVE to them that my Garmin GPS is accurate with a certificate of accuracy from the manufacturer, then they'd do something about it. I'm sure this is just something they think I won't bother with doing and they think this will get me off their backs about it. I have already contacted Garmin about getting a certificate from them, so we'll see where this will lead. I'm also thinking about finding somewhere where we can put it on rollers and get the mileage that way. As I said, I'm not willing to just accept that my new $30,000 car adds 2-3K miles per year on the OD than it actually is driven.

told ya, it is normal, all cars do it

it has been tested by many people, but do it for yourself, the odometer has consistently been correct although the speedo is off.
Randy

I thought it was a regular thing that the speedo was off by anywhere from 2-5 mph depending.

Originally posted by Cyrus923
I thought it was a regular thing that the speedo was off by anywhere from 2-5 mph depending.

it is

Whatever.

Like, Totally :p

Has anyone consdiered that the speedometer could be miscalibrated while the odometer might be fine? It could be a combination of any 2 meters and speed sensor malfunctioning.

jason

couldn't you pace a couple miles with a car that has a good odometer. Or get your own pace count in meters and convert to miles...if you're poor this works great! Just pick-up a rock for every 100m you cover. Once you have 10 rocks in your hand you've just covered 1km.

for example i know from experience my pace count is 62, meaning for every 62 times my LEFT FOOT hits the ground i've scaled ~100m. Therefore, for every 620 times my LEFT FOOT hits the ground i've scaled 1KM. just do some math and you can acurately scale a couple miles the "poor man" way. Once when i walked 40miles i figured i had an average of +/-30 to 35m error for every 10miles i covered (on flat terrian).

Reset the trip odometer, drive for a few miles and see how far off it is.:confused:

I believe I read somewhere that speedos can be off as much as 12% As for racking up extra mileage... I'm sure there are two separate sensors. Ask Subaru about that one, maybe you can get an answer. (Maybe you already did I don't know)

There was an article in car and driver about this. Apparently, BMWs average almost 10 miles per hour over the actual speed at ~70 mph (I can't remember the exact figures), but even the more accurate ones are about 3-5mph high. However, the odometer uses a different sensor, and doesn't use the speedometer readings to determine mileage. I"m pretty sure that the wrong wheel size will still throw it off.

As a driver of many different vehicles here is a general odometer test that I've used to check odo accuracy. At any mile marker note the odo reading (trip as well). for the next 3 or greater mile markers does the odo roll within a tenth of a mile? If it does, I'm happy.
I noticed my STi speedo reads approx 4-5 mph faster than actual, but the odo rolls on the mile marker numbers, so I don't complain. I'd like to see GPS versus speedo comparisons with other vehicles.

To be honest, and I worked for eight years on a big three technical assistance line. If the speedo error is less than 5 mph and the odo is on the numbers there is no action that we suggested or required the dealer to perform. At lower speeds < 35 mph the accuracy had to be within 2-3 mph, but at higher speeds if it was around +-5 we would not suggest any change.

Try as you might, you will just make yourself sick pushing this issue.

DonttryMe:banana: