Incorrect Speedometer - Golf mkVII?

[DV52]

Your argument falls down at the first hurdle because not all cars have canbus.

Hillbilly: hi again and thanks for your response. Yep, you have identified the pivotal basis for my argument. That's exactly why the ADR's "nanny" rules prevail. It's all because not every car on the road has a CAN bus! Man-we have got to give credit to those far sighted legislators- if only they could turn their superior intellect to solving world poverty (only kidding)!

[DV52]

I do wonder if the bigger issue isn't so much our (crap) speedos or our crap laws that say our speed limit is a limit & you'll be punished if you exceed it.

eg: In Australia on a 2 lane motorway you'll often get Joe Blow in his Jetta driving along at the front of the queue in the RH lane. Beside him is a truck which is speed limited to 100. Joe Blow thinks the truck is being naughty because Joe's speedo says 110kph when in fact Joe is only doing 101kph. Joe is a law abiding citizen and wants to retain his right to travel at the speed limit and overtake so Joe just sits there with a 1kph variation between him & the truck beside him while the traffic banks up behind him & Joe gets angrier & angrier because those folks who have a speedo that is only reading 4kph under (the minimum allowable variation under the ADR) are getting more and more frustrated.

Of course, in Europe, the UK & the USA (I've driven in all three and seen how people drive) they don't seem to be as hung up about speed limits & Joe Bloe would give the throttle a squirt & move over. People overseas don't seem to take as much offence at being told to get out of the way.

BTW: I still claim the odometer is wrong too (about 3%-5%), therefore many people are getting their 15k service done at about 14250-14500km. It's not much but over 10 years....

brad:I agree. Your example (much more eloquently put than my explanation) is what I meant by the "two speed phenomenon" that is becoming more prevalent on our roads!

[Hillbilly]

I do wonder if the bigger issue isn't so much our (crap) speedos or our crap laws that say our speed limit is a limit & you'll be punished if you exceed it.

eg: In Australia on a 2 lane motorway you'll often get Joe Blow in his Jetta driving along at the front of the queue in the RH lane. Beside him is a truck which is speed limited to 100. Joe Blow thinks the truck is being naughty because Joe's speedo says 110kph when in fact Joe is only doing 101kph. Joe is a law abiding citizen and wants to retain his right to travel at the speed limit and overtake so Joe just sits there with a 1kph variation between him & the truck beside him while the traffic banks up behind him & Joe gets angrier & angrier because those folks who have a speedo that is only reading 4kph under (the minimum allowable variation under the ADR) are getting more and more frustrated.

Of course, in Europe, the UK & the USA (I've driven in all three and seen how people drive) they don't seem to be as hung up about speed limits & Joe Bloe would give the throttle a squirt & move over. People overseas don't seem to take as much offence at being told to get out of the way.

BTW: I still claim the odometer is wrong too (about 3%-5%), therefore many people are getting their 15k service done at about 14250-14500km. It's not much but over 10 years....

For a change we agree LOL .

Have just done 13,000k in Canada and USA and if we werent travelling about 8 MPH OVER the limit you got blown into the weeds.
Passed lots of Highway Patrol cars who didnt move for that speed but dont try more than 12 over or they would have you.

None of this every K over rubbish. They had heaps of signs about seatbelts though.
Much more realistic speed limits as well. Up to 85mph in lots of places and the roads werent as good as the Gold Coast highway either.
Thank god as we were doing 500m some days

Incidentally my Landcruiser reads Dead on at 100kph on standard tyres and has from new so must comply with ADR rules

[i286]

I do wonder if the bigger issue isn't so much our (crap) speedos or our crap laws that say our speed limit is a limit & you'll be punished if you exceed it.

eg: In Australia on a 2 lane motorway you'll often get Joe Blow in his Jetta driving along at the front of the queue in the RH lane. Beside him is a truck which is speed limited to 100. Joe Blow thinks the truck is being naughty because Joe's speedo says 110kph when in fact Joe is only doing 101kph. Joe is a law abiding citizen and wants to retain his right to travel at the speed limit and overtake so Joe just sits there with a 1kph variation between him & the truck beside him while the traffic banks up behind him & Joe gets angrier & angrier because those folks who have a speedo that is only reading 4kph under (the minimum allowable variation under the ADR) are getting more and more frustrated.

Of course, in Europe, the UK & the USA (I've driven in all three and seen how people drive) they don't seem to be as hung up about speed limits & Joe Bloe would give the throttle a squirt & move over. People overseas don't seem to take as much offence at being told to get out of the way.

BTW: I still claim the odometer is wrong too (about 3%-5%), therefore many people are getting their 15k service done at about 14250-14500km. It's not much but over 10 years....

brad, completely agree with you. We are on the same page here. Pity there isn't more people out there who actually understand the facts you wrote about and correct their habits, we would have safer roads and much more enjoyable drive.
So called "do gooders" are causing even more delays and frustration which in extreme cases end up as a road rage, which is not only ugly but dangerous and completely unnecessary and avoidable.

There is a handbook called Driving in Victoria: Rules and responsibilities , on the page 64 it is about overtaking on a two way road. I will quote part of it
" When safe, accelerate and overtake the vehicle, then indicate left when safe to return to your lane. You must not exceed the speed limit at any time. ".

Well, this is plain wrong, it is dangerous and unfortunately unsafe. To overtake safely on a two way road you actually need to exceed the speed limit for a short time. I am talking about 15-20 kmh over the limit for a few seconds. It is necessary to spend least amount of time on the "wrong" side of the road.

Folks, do not get me wrong on this. I do not promote, encourage or call for road users to ignore or break the road rules and to create their own rules. Not at all. At the end of the day we all want to get where we are going unscratched and safe.

I challenge the Government, Police, VicRoads, Road trauma experts and all other people involved in creating of this particular rule to undertake simple demonstration of the same and to see if they like it.
I am more than happy to volunteer myself, my car, my time and fuel cost to prove my point.

Hillbilly, thanks for sharing your overseas experience. It is really necessary to have first hand experience of driving in other developed countries around the globe to see how some of the rules we have could be altered and result in increased safety.

[brad]

Another small observation but in Europe a lot of the trucks are speed limited to 80 or 90 kph (I have no idea if this is country specific or done by a random number generator). Because the trucks are going so much slower, overtaking is pretty easy even if you're in a 1.6L Opel Zafira with 4 up.

[AALocksmiths]

I don't know if the MK7 cluster is the same setup as the MK4 but on the 4 you can remove the needles and push them back on in any position, so you would be able to move the needle to read accurately instead of playing around with the electronics. This way would be a bit more fiddly as you would have to move the needle, put the cluster back together then go for a drive, then repeat until it is correct

[pologti18t]

The ADR has been harmonised with the EU. So blame those bunch of nanny-meisters.

[Eaglehawk]

To overtake safely on a two way road you actually need to exceed the speed limit for a short time. I am talking about 15-20 kmh over the limit for a few seconds. It is necessary to spend least amount of time on the "wrong" side of the road.

I've done this very manoeuvre in front of an unmarked cop car. It was a single lane each way, 80 km/h. I was behind a semi trailer doing 60km/h. I waited for the broken lines, and started the overtake. Another car appeared, so I completed the overtake by hitting at least 110.

The cop didn't catch up until at least 5km further down. He thought my overtake was "bordering on unsafe", but let me off with a warning because he saw I didn't continue to exceed the speed limit during the rest of the 5km. (Obviously, THEY had to exceed the speed limit to catch up with me, I found that mildly ironic...)

I totally agree with you. The rule is stupid, and not a safe "law". I don't want to be stuck unseen behind a slow large vehicle, nor would I put my family at risk doing <20km/h faster "overtake".

[Mountainman]

BTW: I still claim the odometer is wrong too (about 3%-5%), therefore many people are getting their 15k service done at about 14250-14500km. It's not much but over 10 years....

My Mk7 Golf has an odo that is nowhere as inaccurate as the speedo which reads 105 at a true 100. When the odo has indicated 100km the Garmin sat nav says 99.1km. So I guess I'm only getting my services done about 140km to early.

My Forester is even more inaccurate - speedo 100 = 93 and odo 100km = 98.7km.

Typically most people seem to cruise on an indicated 110 in 100 zones but I notice they nearly all seem to slow up to an indicated 100 or less when going through the fixed speed cameras.

[frogg]

Just did an interesting test.... Recently got a ODB2 bluetooth device. When comparing the EHS and GPS speeds on my phone, they are roughly within 0.5 km/H of eachother, however both the digital speed and needle display about 4-5 km/H above these.....

So I guess it is hard to tell whether the odo is over reading by much.... There will Def be more discrepancy as the tyres wear, but the EHS speed will also be out of this is the case?

Unless they can do some trickery that works out what the rolling Diameter of the tyre should be based on the ABS sensors and performs some autocorrection of the value to the ECU?

I Could just be full of s#!t though....