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C5- Speedo accuracy

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Old Apr 26, 2007 | 07:56 PM
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Default C5- Speedo accuracy

Friends
I posted a thread wondering how fast a C5 coupe was designed to
run at top end ( this day ). I got alot of interesting responces and
I thank you for them. Everyone was commenting about there speeds,
and I wonder how far off GM calculated their speedo's. Average cars
can be off by 5 mph and the higher the speed the more inaccurate
they can become.
Questioin: How accurate do you think your speedo is and do you
think as you get above 100 is it more inaccurate?
Road Pilot
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Old Apr 26, 2007 | 08:12 PM
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I had a bad speedo a few years ago and can tell you that GM posted a TSB (#83-83-16) stating the following "allowable" variances:

MPH : Variation
20 : +/- 4
45 : +/- 3
65 : +/- 2

As you can see the general trend as speed increases the allowable variance decreases. So i would assume the speedo would be dead-on at 100mph. However over 100mph i bet the speedo will start to lose it's accuracy.

Last edited by 97C5ENVY; Apr 26, 2007 at 08:16 PM.
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Old Apr 26, 2007 | 08:16 PM
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I have a canada cluster so I have a 300 mph speedo and its always 2-3 mph lower on the speedo than it is on the HUD
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Old Apr 26, 2007 | 08:44 PM
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How about we say that it is extremely accurate at any steady speed.

The speedo in the dash has lag, but the HUD does not.

I would find it hard to look at the dash speedo at top speed anyway
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Old Apr 26, 2007 | 09:54 PM
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Accuracy of newer speedometers in cars is not the same as the old pigs we used to drive. In the old cars the speedo was driven by a cable that turned a magnet which induced an electric field for the meter to measure. A lot of things could put them out of calibration. With the new cars the speedometer is still an analog meter but the signal is converted from a digital representation of the speed that the PCM gets from the VSS mounted in the transmission. The speed is calculated from knowing how many times the drive shaft turns per second. A lot more accurate than the spinning magnetic field. Now the analog meter has the same chance of error as the older speedometer analog meter but overall the system is more accurate. However, the HUD just displays the calculated speed and is the most accurate representation you can get depending on your tire size. In most cases it should be dead on.

Bill
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Old Apr 26, 2007 | 11:28 PM
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I compared what my tomtom unit was reporting to my speedo, and from 0-145mph (ran out of freeway) it was dead on.
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Old Apr 27, 2007 | 12:17 AM
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I also checked mine with a GPS and it was very close to perfect. I would say at most +-.25mph at 85mph.
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Old Apr 27, 2007 | 01:44 AM
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At 181 mph, the gps said 180.
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Old Apr 27, 2007 | 02:13 AM
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Originally Posted by gpracer1
At 181 mph, the gps said 180.
I wish there was somewhere in SoCal I could open er' up.
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