900 custom

[jfrd65]

I just bought my first bike...a kawa. 900 custom....and today while riding to the shop to get my new pipe installed my wife who was following told me that i was consistently doing 15mph less than the speedo on the bike.....does anyone else have this problem and if so can it be fixed? i asked the dealer and they said "this is common and there is no fix for it" my problem is that they didn't tell me this before the purchase and now they can't fix it....i bought a broke bike brand new.....help!

[GregR1]

borrow a GPS unit and double-check it. maybe the family car is a bit off as well, in the opposite direction (unlikely, but...) check it at a few speeds, too, like 20mph and 65mph, just to see how the difference is.

[jfrd65]

thanks i will try that....but is this that common? by this much?

[GregR1]

probably not that much, but i think that your measuring method isn't accurate (well, i wouldn't ever expect it to be). i mean, you and the other car would have to have a dead-accurate relative speed, not catching up or falling back ever so slowly - which might be hard to do visually.

if you're off by 5mph at the higher speeds, then it's probably not too bad and keeps your speeding in check. but 15mph is quite a bit - even if it's at 85mph.

[omegajim]

+1, I remember reading car and driver and other car magazines and the speedos were rarely ever off by more then 1 mph (even at 10).

A stretch of road, a gps, bet you'll find the speedo within 2 mph of actual, at the most.

[Funkmon]

Motorcycles are notorious for being around 10 per cent off. I'd try to make them fix it anyway.

[Sgt Mike]

Ask that question here, that's the Vulcan forum website. You'll have to sign up just like you did here.

VROC: Discussion Group: Web Forum

[jfrd65]

thanks to everyone

[Randune]

All the 900's for some reason are 10% slow on the Speedo. As far as I've been able to tell there is no easy fix short of bending the needle and I don't want to go there. Also my buddies C50 was the same way.
Have no clue as to why, I've just learned to live with it.

[GregR1]

Originally Posted by Randune

All the 900's for some reason are 10% slow on the Speedo. As far as I've been able to tell there is no easy fix short of bending the needle...

bending the needle won't accomplish that. nor will any other mechanical change that you can do on that cluster. you'd have to hack into the electronics to do a -10% on the speedo stepper motor, or get a different speedo overlay (circlular sticker with numbers) that's compensated - VERY custom, and likely quite a lot of $$$ for a one-of.

[texrider]

Some of the easier things to do are installing a "speedo-healer" device which alters the signal being received from the speed sensor, install the Scootworks overdrive front sprocket to slow the engine down a bit, or mount a 200 tire on the back, to get a similar final drive reduction effect.

There are custom speedometer face plates available that are made with the numerals offset to give compensation, but most of them seem to have demonic or pornographic art on them...

[wildwolf]

Buy a bicycle computer, run the wiring yourself, and calibrate correctly yourself, then follow it instead of the speedo. Should put you out about $15-20.

[omegajim]

There are custom speedometer face plates available that are made with the numerals offset to give compensation, but most of them seem to have demonic or pornographic art on them...

......and the downside is what exactly? We're talking motorcycles here, not exactly your grand-dads Lincoln Town Car.

[texrider]

I like Town Cars!

[omegajim]

In my opinion, liking town cars around here is the equivalent of liking a scooter; yeah sure, it may be the case, but you may not want to admit it around here.

Hell, I liked the old man's Oldsmobile when I was a kid; road nice and went over 120 mph. Actually, more like 130, but the speedo only went to 120. Now that was a car. Not a poofy Town car. Unless they put 325 horse Mustang V-8's in Town Car's.

[wildwolf]

I'd own an LTC. I currently have a Buick LeSabre...biggest car I've had to date....not as big as some out there, but I can see myself driving these bigger cars now until I quit driving. Nice & comfy, especially on longer trips. Short trips..I have my bikes.

[mtalicarox]

my bike AND jeep are off by 4 MPH accoring to radar