Freelander 1 speddometer accuracy

Shortly after buying my Freelander 1 I quickly became suspsisious that the speedometer was reading high. I was always being tailgated when I was 'doing the speed limit' and gap was opening up in front. Then I noticed that everytime I ecountered one of these annoying speed limit boards that flash your speed, whatever it is, it was always lower than what the clock said. To prove this once and for all I used a GPS receiver to verify velocity and discovered that the speedometer reads 16% high consitently.

I have also noticed that I can be in a queue of traffic following a 'slow' Freelander, and guess what, my speedometer says I'm doing the speed limt, which I know I'm not. Therefore I wonder if this a design issue rather than an isolated fault with my car. I understand the Speedometer gets output from ABS sensors so theres no easy way to address this.

Now I use the GPS to set my target speed and use the main clock as reference. No tailgating, well not as much, and better fuel economy, which is great news.

Of course the other thing to consider is the log. The car records 88,000 miles but this may be high. I do not yet know if this is affecting the log so I can not say that 88000 miles is actually 76,200 miles. No grounds for affecting the sale price but it would be useful to know exactly how much work your machine has done.

Anyone else noticed this?

the majority of speedo's in most cars overread by ~10%

ste220 said:

the majority of speedo's in most cars overread by ~10%

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I believe that speedometers are accurate to 10% rather than over read by this amount. However, all my previous cars have been more accurate than 10% and never this far out.

At least it makes it more difficult to get done for speeding.....

mines like it too. 70mph on speedo shows about 66 on GPS. Last week speedo was showing bob-on 50, GPS showing 47, and I still got double-flashed in a 50. Just waiting for the ticket to arrive so I can dispute it. Think (hope) the camera got confused because I was shielding a corsa in front, then as we went through the camera I changed lanes a bit rapidly and all of a sudden revealed the car a bit in front.

Hope your're right, they got me with the hairdryer on Weds, my birthday as well. Only cheered by greetings from Landyzone!

the othere week I went through one at 55 in a 50 in my bmw had a sleepless nite 3 point = bye bye licence told a mate who is a traffic plod and he reckons it will not activate till 58 and they allow for variations on speedos put my gps on and it shows 4 or 5 mph difference

Shove some 215/80/15s or 205/8016s or equivalent RR tyres on to get speedo to read fairly accurate ....most are about 10% down

And for those who finks that they get 40mpg from td4 try again with speedo reading accurate

Mine reads high by about 10%. Think they do it on purpose to make the M.P.G. look better.

Yup. Mine reads high, always has done. I travel at 10% above prevailing speed limit to prevent annoying following cars too much.
I always reckoned the schoolboy engineers who misdesigned the freelander needed new batteries in their calculators.

I'm reading 10% high at 30mph, but at 50mph it's nearly accurate.

yeah, mine is about an extra +5, 4mph. So when I'm the motorway (where BMWs and Range Rover Sports fly by at the speed of light), I do 70mph but on TomTom says I'm doing 66mph.

SappyTech said:

yeah, mine is about an extra +5, 4mph. So when I'm the motorway (where BMWs and Range Rover Sports fly by at the speed of light), I do 70mph but on TomTom says I'm doing 66mph.

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same fer me too.....:doh: .....