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·Copied from another forum, what do you think? Are the speedo errors on purpose? Is this why speedometers/odometers are off on Goldwings?
I have driven Toyotas of some discription for over 20 years ,and have had nothing but good things to say about the company,their engineering,vehicle longevity and performance.All that has changed after my purchase of an '09 Tacoma late last month.I noticed on the way home with it that everyone seemed to be in a bigger hurry than normal, but it didn't click until I installed my GPS in it a few days later that the speedometer was off.I checked my speedometer against the speedo check section of highway not far from my house ,and found that it agreed with my GPS.I even asked an WSP officer that was fueling his car next to me ,if he would pace me for a mile or so on the highway (most departments calibrate speedos on a regular basis), and again the results were the same. My speedo reads fast by almost 7% ,which translates to 4 MPH at 60.This may not sound too bad until you realise what this affects.My factory 36 Mo 36000 mile warranty will expire early by 2500+ miles which is a couple of months normal driving for me.My 84 Mo 100,000 mile extended warranty that I purchased will expire almost 7000 miles early or nearly 5 Mo.When I contacted the dealer they had me bring it in and checked it.They told me that it was within spec., and there was no way to calibrate it so that it would read properly.The Toyota "acceptable indication error" sheet I was shown is heavily weighted to the high side( 59.5 -63.5 at 60 MPH for example)I contacted Toyota directly and got the same answer, "we are real sorry, but not enough to do anything about it".Basically Toyota has decided that they will cut their warranty costs,increase their MPG ratings(1.3mpg in my case) and shorten their maintenance intervals(get to sell more filters and oil) ,on the customers dime.If Toyota engineers can't figure out a speedometer(a seemingly simple task that car makers have been doing accurately for over 100 years) ,it doesn't infuse me with confidence in the truly important engineering tasks like drivetrain, electronics and safety.I urge all of you who own Toyotas and for that matter any make car or truck, to check and see if your speedo is accurate.I have a feeling that this is not an isolated incident, and you should see if your warranty will run out sooner than it should, and if so let the car makers hear about it.If we make enough noise they will at least know that they were caught in their little scam, and might think twice next time some bean counter comes to them with this kind of crap.
