Hi
I wonder if someone has hd this problem or knows the possible cause/cure for it:
I purchased a 2001 XT600E about a month ago. It showed 13,000 miles and I had no reason to believe it had been tampered with, although its quite possible.
I am using the bike to commute to work everyday since, a daily return journey of around 100 miles.
Although the speedometer seems to show the correct speed, the mileage seems to be running at about 50% over the real distance made!
Is there any adjustment on the speedometer itself?
It even occurred to me that it could be registering kilometres instead of miles but then the odometer wouldn't say MPH but KMH instead.
Any ideas?
Many thanks for reading this.

Unplug the speedo cable

unplugging the cable is not an option for me I'm afraid. I need to keep track of the miles Ive done with each tank otherwise might get stuck on the motorway with no fuel (fr some reason reserve only seems to last 4 or 5 miles)
At the moment a full tank will do up to 280 miles (obviously this is completely inaccurate but at least is giving me a reference towards when to refill the tank)

Sounds like your odometer is in Kilometers. Some put a sticker with miles on the speedo, then forget about the Odometer. 1 mile = 1.6 Klm.
60 mph = 100 klmph. 100mph = 160 klmph.

Cheers from Oz.

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I'm not getting older; I'm just progressing through LIFE!! Harleys do not have a throttle- they have VOLUME control!!!

That sure is what it sounds like. In case it's not clear from the above, the conversion factor is approximately .6, so take your odometer reading (or change since last fillup) and multiply by .6 to get actual miles.

100 km = 60 miles. 280 km = 168 miles. Etc. If inclined to push your luck, bear in mind that the actual conversion factor is .62137.

mark

edit to move decimal point (duh!)

Heh. Reading in km was my first thought too. Is it possible for the odometer to read in km and the speedo in miles? I wouldn't have though so, unless it's a km head unit with an mph sticker over the speed divisions.

:confused1:

(One thing I always thought was strange. To get from km to miles, multiply by 0.62. To get from miles to km, multiply by 1.62. Near enough, anyway.)

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2006 XT660R daily ride, 1994 XT600E about to be reborn, Blog: http://goingfastgettingnowhere.blogspot.com/

Thanks for all your answers.

I just calculated the real mileage since my last filling using google maps, the result being exactly 134 miles;

this multiplied by 1.62 comes up as 217.08 and the bike is showing 212.7
I does look like the odometer is adding up km instead of miles!

Does anyone have any knowledge of the speedometer/odometer and whether there is any adjustment inside to "switch" it back to miles?

Regarding the speedometer I still think it's showing the speed in MPH and not KMH...

The previous owner must've replaced the original unit for that one thus your current situation...

My original speedometer has both Miles and KM written on it.
The odometer measured in miles. Same goes for the trip meter...


Vando

As per other posts, I think the Odo is recording Km run but it sounds like the clock face is calibrated in Miles; you can check that easily with a GPS (which will give a pretty accurate readout of your speed) or just by timing yourself over a known distance - such as the 1 mile markers on any motorway; ride at 60 MPH between any pair of markers and that should take 1 minute.

I suggest you just get used to it; I have, with a XT225 (Serow) although in this case (they are all "grey" imports) all of the clock face is in Km. and I have small stickers attached to mark the 30 MPH and 70 MPH positions (not that the serow ever gets to the 70 mark!).
There are no issues with the annual MOT test either.

I even think about fuel consumption in terms of Litres/Km for the serow; basically I have "gone metric" with the serow but I still think in terms of MPG (UK gallons of course) when riding other bikes.
Actually, I think more in terms of miles or Km per tank of fuel.

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Dave

Hello
Just a quick update, if anyone is interested.
Mounted a TomTom this morning.
Speed showing is spot on with the satnav - definitely in miles.
Odometer clocked 50 miles on a 31 mile run - definitely in Kilometres!

I wish I could set the odometer into miles.
Cant really comprehend how the same instrument can measure in two completely different units...

:confused1:

Hi, if the face of the speedo had been replaced with one in miles (correctly compensating) rather than km, this would explain the different readings. Andy

Andy's right, Manafas. This issue seems to have confused just about everybody but you need to forget about measuring two units because the speedometer itself, aside of the odometer section, does not display 'units', as such.

The odometer displays kilometers because that's what it's geared for.
The speedometer, however, effectively indicates just 0 to 100% and, if the panel on yours is marked up with a scale of 0-110mph, these will represent mph... Or if it were marked 0-10 bananas then maybe you'd think you were travelling at a rate of n bananas per um, season?

The point I'm trying to make is that the speedo' is just showing a linear 0-100% - whether this is to be interpreted as kph or mph is solely dependent on the markings printed/painted onto the plate in front of the needle: the needle points to the same position on that 0-100% scale, regardless. The odometer, on the other hand, actually does display an actual value.

As for the remedy, I just looked in the 4PT parts catalogue and there is only one speedo gear for two speedometers (one for the UK model), so it's a different (UK) speedo' unit that you might want... BUT I definitely recall seeing speedo kmh-mph converters advertised many (many) years ago and I'll bet that they still exist. I think they were primarily for cars, though, so I don't know whether they'd be a tad bulky or what. I had presumed them to work 'inline' - whether that would make the cable stick out too far on a bike, I don't know.

HTH

Thanks Andy and Bigfoot
Point taken about changing the speedometer face - however the current one seems to be original and has markings for both miles and kilometres (please see attached photo).
My point was I am not happy I'm pilling up the mileage (in this case KM) as if one day I want to sell the bike it will show an awful lot of miles that are not realistic at all...
Bigfoot - thanks for the explanation... Maybe I will consider changing the speedometer face into a "banana" scale reading?
I live in the UK by the way.

Interesting. Does it obscure the issue at all if I say that my 2003 XT600E's speedo does not have "110" on the scale, just the bar for 110mph?

Both the 'normal' speedo unit and the UK one were redesigned for the 4PT version - the part-number is prefixed by "4PT" in the 2001 parts catalogue. I wonder if you can get hold of a 'proper' UK speedo from a bike-breaker. Whether a potential purchaser of your bike will believe you about the old one that caused the discrepancy on the MoT mileage(!)-logging is anyone's guess, though.

I have seen a device advertised that sits below the speedo head (basically a small gearbox) and converts the input of the cable from miles to km or vice versa. Do a search for 'speedo healer', but be aware that there are other devices designed for electronic speedos which have the same name.

Or you could just get a larger front wheel - I reckon a 34" should be about right.

Either of these would correct your odo reading back to miles, but your speedo range will now be reading wrong. Perhaps best to live with it and offer any future purchaser a demonstration with the GPS to prove you are telling the truth.

Incidentally, Bigfoot, I don't think people responding to this thread were confused by the workings of the speedometer. The miles/km thing was identified straight away by chucky55 and others. What was confusing was an instrument with apparently contradictory scales for the two outputs.

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2006 XT660R daily ride, 1994 XT600E about to be reborn, Blog: http://goingfastgettingnowhere.blogspot.com/