speedometer error correction
 

How can I correct the error (7-10% optimistic) in my 07 R1200S speedo ???

Welcome to the forum............

Try calling Palo Alto Speedometer. I was referred to them a few years ago by Desmotosport for a Ducati Monster that was probably 30% optimistic.

Don't know because I haven't seen a 12S up close. On my R11S I finally said "SCREW IT!" did several checks to determine the actual error, then used a art/paint program on my Mac to generate a new speedo face. Printed it out, laminated it over the old face and haven't looked back. This winter I'm going to replace my temporary white face with a matching black face.

PS: I tried to reprogram the speedo circuit with the surface mount resistors, but that screwed up the accuracy of the odometer. My odometer is spot-on from the factory, so it became obvious to change the speedo face instead.

Can't you just do the gear math for a given tire size and have RPM reference points? Are there any math majors out there that can do this for a R11 and R12

It is a BMW.. you are supposed to have half a dozen electronic gizmos telling you speed, altitude, Zürich time, and such...

Take heart!

Depending on your current speed...

The R1100S speedo was 7-11% optimistic.

The R1200S speedo is only 4-6% optimistic per my GPS. It does feel slower than its going too.

So it's getting better. When the new BMW R1400S comes out soon it should only be 2-4% optimistic :)

"Can't you just do the gear math for a given tire size and have RPM reference points? Are there any math majors out there that can do this for a R11 and R12"

we tried that a few years ago when the speedometers only went to 85 MPH. didn't work. you couldn't take into account various factors, like aerodynamics, tire swelling at speed, etc....

at the time, we put a face on the tach, to read out MPH in top gear, similar to what moybin did. it worked up to about 90 mph, then got out of whack.


these days, a GPS is the only way. everyone/everything else will lie to you.

while it's standard for manufacturers to be "optimistic" with their speedo needles it can backfire. i recently heard a lot of rumblings from people who leased Honda cars that had a very optimistic speedo, and paid penalties based on mileage. last i heard, honda was wiggling around, making noises about the odomoeter being correct, but the speedo being a little off........hmmmmmmm.

Personally I find an optimistic speedometer can be dangerous if you are using it. You get into a herd of traffic that is all speeding or doing the genuine limit and you are believing the speedometer because you are a good citizen (or just got a ticket) and you can get mowed down. I like accuracy.

I never look at my speedometer, or my tach for that matter.

Can't say I look at the sights on my pistol when shooting either.. :)

bill, you could be a cop in LA.
you're qualified!

They ride and shoot instictively???

Or just randomly wound ??

:cool:

Speed first. Ask questions later.

On that note, I just finished Sport Riding Techniques by Nick Ienatsch (is that his real name?) and he claims that the California Highway Patrol instructs its moto officers to travel a "little" faster than the flow of traffic for safety reasons. On that basis, I would think you could get away with going traffic flow, plus 2 or 3 mph, at least in CA, regardless of what the speedo said. Not sure this would fly in Utah, but its actually what I pretty much do here.

Good one! :D

Travelling faster, or slower than traffic (and I have minimal here) makes perfect sense, and by default that's what I do.

Truthfully, I usually travel by instinct out here and staying very aware of any movement (traffic or other) within my lines of sight, forward and backward has served me well for tickets and animals. Only looking at the speedo or GPS out of curiosity or if I'm really trying to make time or a destination by a certain time.

most of the time, i use the gps for backup, but if you practice without any speed indicator at all, you can get a good feel for what "just a little bit faster" feels like.
it's not hard to do. around here, it's usually tollerated by CHP. most of the ones i've talked with tend to agree (at a bbq, not roadside).

going "lots faster" is also easy to spot, which is why so many guys get snuck up upon: no rear view habit, a component the bmw excels at compared to many others. (after all why look in the mirrors of your UJM motorcycle, since you can't tell a chp from a black ford fiesta with skis on the roof?).

speaking of, heads up: once again it's ski season in so cal....when everybody thinks almost everyone else is a cop because of the roof rack.....it's not ski season, it's panic brake practice season. heads up.

i got my first gps over the summer and i was surprised to see the speedo was off on my bikes and my car. my rockster's a full 5mph below the gps speedo. same was true in the '07 suburban i drove cross country. i've been doing the "zip car" since i moved out to SF and the prius was spot on and a mazda was down 3mph. that's 5 out 6 vehicle's off.

http://www.speedohealer.com/

Supposedly requires a "custom fit" for a BMW - not sure what this means.

Once you calibrate a speedo (either by timing mile markers or GPS), I've never thought it much of a big deal to simply do the math in my head (e.g., most speedos read about 5 mph high in the typical 60-80 mph freeway grind, so you just add 5 to the number on the face). But you do need to find out how much it is out.

On my Strom, someone made new gauge label faces with the correction built-in and I must admit it's nice to have the speedo dead nuts on, but I have to remind myself that there is no fudge factor with the number it is giving me - at first I found myself just racheting up my speed to my typical 5-10 above around town and this is risky with an accurate speedo.

- Mark

speeometer error
 

I like the idea of the re-done faceplate. Yes, I had a Vstrom too and some chap made re-printed gauge faces to correct the speed error for them. I remember the "healer" too. The Vstrom was waaay off, too. 15 percent on some cases. It was a heckuva bike, though. Quite a hotrod.

I had an 1150GS that was inaccurate as well but it was mechanical and all I had to do was to install a speedo drive from an R1150R model and that cleared everything up. I really dont know why the mfgs do this.

Anyone else have any suggestions of how to rectify the optimistic speedo on 1200S 's or any other late model BMW speedo, I guess.

The speed-corrected white gauge faces on the Strom dress it up a bit too.

http://www.whizmoandgizmo.com/Misc/WhiteGauges.jpg

The guy was selling his stuff through either or both of the Strom forums - I don't know if he had other models in mind or not. The only drawback is that the backlighting isn't as uniform as the stock gauges at night, but I don't do much night driving, so no biggee.

- Mark

Do it yourself reface.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/bmw-r1100s-r1200s-tech-forum/235351-speedo-reface.html

RB

Thanks for posting that link.. I have been looking for that!

[B]Ok guys, speedo healer people can make a fixer box for the BMW for 90-something euro (abt 140 -150 bucks). I guess nobody else has any better suggestion. I did notice the other day that an indicated 150 mph was only about 135. Seems like the error increases as you go up in mph.
I just dont understand why BMW does this. I have an 07 H-D Road King (believe it or not) and its speedo is almost dead-on accurate. My Guzzis are also MUCH closer in accuracy than the BMW. Come to think of it, my 1200GS is also inaccurate.

Can't comment on your accurate HD speedo, but most mfgs build-in optimistic speedos because by various national vehicle certification standards, it is illegal to build a speedo that reads too low. So to provide them a "fudge factor" to cover tolerances, different tire sizes, etc., they by design build them to read 5% high. So blame the safetycrats and lawyers.

- Mark

Harley speedometers are dead right on.

So is my Porsche 928.

Don't know whats up with BMW.

my understanding is that the Odo is set for dead accurate while the speedo is always set 2-5% fast. the Odo remember must be set dead-on by law. I run a GPS verified speedohealer on the RC51 and it works very well - and has the additional advantage of retarding your odo (for that 1% higher resale value)!

The reason Harley speedo's are so accurate is the range they run in is so narrow you'd never notice the variance.....

Ahhh, another insecure person. Most people bashing HD are those that have never been on one and that like stereotype to feel "superior." At the risk of being seduced into diverting this thread into a tit-for-tat bash fest I have to say this :

I have several bikes, ranging from a CBR1000RR to a HD RK, several BMW's and other Euro bikes. Theyre all good in their own way. My riding style is pretty much sport-oriented although I do a lot of long distance and offroad adventure treks.

If you havent tried an HD in the last 10years or so, you may be surprised. They are not your curvey-road-go-fast bike but, even there, with the right rider, they will surprise you.

I rode the RK to the West Bend national rally and ended up completing a 5000+ mile trip through Canada. The bike was awesome. On the highway, cruising at 90 mph, it turns 3200 rpm. Thats amazing to me. The fit and finish on the HD is exemplary.

One thing I like is that I dont have to carry a backpack full of spare final drive parts in case my final drive fails as has happened on my BMW's. In my BMW riding group of 12 BMW's, 7 riders have incurred final drive failures. When I travel on one of my BMW's I routinely carry a seal/bearing set in case it happens again.

Back to the thread, I still dont know why BMW supplies such inaccurate speedo.

Can someone tell me where the speedometer sensor/piclup is located on the R1200S ??? and what color the wires are going to it ????

I did the speedohealer on my '98 Honda VTR1000. It works when you finally set it up. It's a slight pain the butt to set up at first- tiny micro switches and an LED are the interface. Once programmed, it works though. I got the remote recall button too which gives you top speed you attained. Really cool. I'd like to see what it takes to install on the BMW.

Maybe we should do a group buy?

While I had the speedo and headlight out to facilitate changing the horn to the Stebel tone, I took the time to print out another corrected speedo face. Wifey had a GREAT idea, we took the paper to OfficeMax and had is laminated. Now it lays very flat. I thought about putting in the tick marks for kilometers, but then thought "fuggit, I'm not taking this baby to Canada any time soon".
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1198968276.jpg


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1198968311.jpg

Wow, I got to thinking about this issue during my recent trip. I just did a search and discovered this was my first post on this forum! Still no solution !??

Has anyone found a solution to the speedo error ?

A good GPS should do 'er, mate.

Oh sure. I have that. But I'd like to have my bike speedo working correctly. BMWs are notorious for this problem. For my G650, an industrious chap in Germany with a machine shop re-cut some sensor rings to correct the error. Works great.

Because it's required by European regulation.

It's called speedometer advance.

For one thing it compensates for fact that different tires ostensibly the same size aren't.

It's a super bad thing to have a speedo that reads slow, and it's pretty close to that with a dead-on speedo given variations noted.

BMW has produced service bulletins on this in the past essentially instructing dealers to explain to bike owners that it's simply the way it is. The bulletins also note that despite this, odometers are accurate.

That is BS, lol. You dont need a speedo 10 mph off the compensate for tires ! lololol Hey, also, I am not so sure the odometer is accurate. I ran a test on mine during my recent trip and, yes, the odometer registered more miles than it should have !

I've used Speedohealer on several bikes. It works great and you can even get the one that holds in memory your highest speed from last reset. Cool in a way.
Anyway, you can dial in your speedo spot on.

Yes, I am familar with it but will it work on a BMW with canbus ?

Since BMW speedometers always read faster than actual, I guess that means that you could run the bike out of warranty sooner than you actually do. Which also means that we don't get the gas mileage that we think we do.