[zroger73]

When I arrived at work this morning, it occurred to me that my trip odometer is reading too low. It reads 14.1 miles from my garage at home to my parking spot at work. My past vehicles have read 14.4 miles which is the same distance shown on Google Maps. I take the exact same route every day. I haven't tested the speedometer or total odometer. If everything is reading 2% too low (which I suspect may be the case since the speedometer and odometers use the same pulses from the vehicle speed sensor), then my actual fuel economy will be 2% higher than the manually calculated amount, which is almost 0.5 MPG at 23 MPG. I'm also getting 720 "extra" miles of full warranty and 1,200 miles of powertrain warranty. If I had a choice, I'd rather it read too low than too high.

 

[cccbock]

Interesting. Honda has had problems with this in the past...going the other direction.

 

[ridged]

I have always used the mile posts along interstate highways to check mine. They seem to be pretty darn accurate. One mile between mile posts and sixty seconds to travel between them at 60 MPH indicates accurate odometer and speedometer respectively.

 

[toddyridge]

Interesting indeed.....

......wonder how it would check over a longer distance like 50 miles between Interstate mile markers?

 

[ridged]

The distance shouldn't affect the accuracy.

 

[zroger73]

The problem with using only one mile marker is that with a -2% error, the trip odometer would calculate 0.98 miles internally which would still display as 1.0 miles on the trip odometer and 1 mile on the odometer. It would take at least 5 mile markers to reveal the inaccuracy since the trip computer only displays in tenths, not hundredths. Ten mile markers = 9.8 miles. A hundred-mile trip would register as 98 miles.

 

[ridged]

Good point, Roger.