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      11-10-2017, 07:10 PM   #1
BobsM3Coupe
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Speedometer/Odometer Optimistic

I've had my M40i over a week now and I knew the speedometer was reading to fast. So I brought along my Garmin GPS and used an app on my phone to confirm.
Speedometer reads 4 mph fast and the odometer registers an extra 4.4 miles in 18.7 actual miles. Boy, at this rate I'll only be able to put 24,000 actual miles on my 30,000 lease. Those who purchase/finance with the 50,000 mile warranty will be up in about 41,000 actual miles. I hope my math is incorrect.

My vehicle has the 21" wheels with Bridgestone Alenza tires.

I placed a call to BMW for them to look into it.

Anyone else who has taken delivery, doesn't matter which model of X3, check theirs out. Maybe the 21's are to blame. Either way, BMW is going to have to do something about this problem.
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      11-10-2017, 07:23 PM   #2
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BobsM3Coupe View Post
I've had my M40i over a week now and I knew the speedometer was reading to fast. So I brought along my Garmin GPS and used an app on my phone to confirm.
Speedometer reads 4 mph fast and the odometer registers an extra 4.4 miles in 18.7 actual miles. Boy, at this rate I'll only be able to put 24,000 actual miles on my 30,000 lease. Those who purchase/finance with the 50,000 mile warranty will be up in about 41,000 actual miles. I hope my math is incorrect.

My vehicle has the 21" wheels with Bridgestone Alenza tires.

I placed a call to BMW for them to look into it.

Anyone else who has taken delivery, doesn't matter which model of X3, check theirs out. Maybe the 21's are to blame. Either way, BMW is going to have to do something about this problem.
That's quite a bit. You should say it in terms of percent though, 4 mph too fast at 90 mph might actually be within normal speedo margin of error, but based on you saying it reads 18.7 miles as 23.1 that would mean it is more like 24% optimistic. At 60 mph it would read 74.4 mph, that's broken! When it says you're going 60mph, you're actually slowing traffic to 48mph.

You could also test it with a mile marker test. You can look up how to do it, but you can basically set the cruise control and time how long it takes you to go five miles according to highway mile markers, and do the math to get the error.

New tires tend to read a bit high, when your tires are worn the circumference will shrink quite a bit and the speedo will then read a few miles slow. You lose about 2/3" in diameter over the life of your tire and that will change your speedo by 1-2 mph at 60 mph.
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      11-10-2017, 08:10 PM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sor View Post
That's quite a bit. You should say it in terms of percent though, 4 mph too fast at 90 mph might actually be within normal speedo margin of error, but based on you saying it reads 18.7 miles as 23.1 that would mean it is more like 24% optimistic. At 60 mph it would read 74.4 mph, that's broken! When it says you're going 60mph, you're actually slowing traffic to 48mph.

You could also test it with a mile marker test. You can look up how to do it, but you can basically set the cruise control and time how long it takes you to go five miles according to highway mile markers, and do the math to get the error.

New tires tend to read a bit high, when your tires are worn the circumference will shrink quite a bit and the speedo will then read a few miles slow. You lose about 2/3" in diameter over the life of your tire and that will change your speedo by 1-2 mph at 60 mph.
Up to 70 mph, it always reads 3-4 mph fast. So whatever that is in percentage, I don't know. Even going past one of those radar speed limit signs, same thing, speedometer reads 3 mph faster than the radar speed.

I would think as the tires wear, the speedo/odo will read even faster. It does on motorcycles. As the tire diameter shrinks from wear, the tire spins faster and will make the speedo/odo read even faster.
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      11-10-2017, 09:07 PM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BobsM3Coupe View Post
Up to 70 mph, it always reads 3-4 mph fast. So whatever that is in percentage, I don't know. Even going past one of those radar speed limit signs, same thing, speedometer reads 3 mph faster than the radar speed.

I would think as the tires wear, the speedo/odo will read even faster. It does on motorcycles. As the tire diameter shrinks from wear, the tire spins faster and will make the speedo/odo read even faster.
You’ll be going slower at the same RPM, covering less ground per wheel revolution due to the smaller circumference. Or looking at it the other way the tachometer would read higher at the same land speed as the tires get smaller, but since the car measures land speed by RPM you wouldn’t be able to see the higher RPM at the same speed, you wouldn’t know what true speed you were going to compare.

Edit: so I think I misunderstood what you were saying, it’s true that if you’re going say 35mph and your speedo says 40, if you later go 35mph with smaller tires it will say maybe 42 due to the higher revs. Conversely what I say above is also true, if you go 35 according to your speedo, you’ll get slower in real speed as your tires wear.

At any rate there seems to be a discrepancy in the odometer, I’d focus on that first because it sounds like a way bigger variance than the speedo numbers.

Last edited by sor; 11-10-2017 at 09:26 PM..
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      11-10-2017, 09:15 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BobsM3Coupe View Post
Up to 70 mph, it always reads 3-4 mph fast. So whatever that is in percentage, I don't know. Even going past one of those radar speed limit signs, same thing, speedometer reads 3 mph faster than the radar speed.

I would think as the tires wear, the speedo/odo will read even faster. It does on motorcycles. As the tire diameter shrinks from wear, the tire spins faster and will make the speedo/odo read even faster.
Reading off by 3-4mph at speed is no big deal, within normal variance. Especially police speed traps, they’re not very accurate to such a degree. Being off by 24% on distance traveled is a huge deal, and I’d expect that would show a giant variance in your speed.

Find a relatively straight stretch of highway and check your odometer against the mile markers.

Last edited by sor; 11-10-2017 at 09:27 PM..
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      11-11-2017, 01:18 AM   #6
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O.O I see a "....gate" coming :s
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      11-11-2017, 06:01 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BobsM3Coupe View Post
I've had my M40i over a week now and I knew the speedometer was reading to fast. So I brought along my Garmin GPS and used an app on my phone to confirm.
Speedometer reads 4 mph fast and the odometer registers an extra 4.4 miles in 18.7 actual miles. Boy, at this rate I'll only be able to put 24,000 actual miles on my 30,000 lease. Those who purchase/finance with the 50,000 mile warranty will be up in about 41,000 actual miles. I hope my math is incorrect. My vehicle has the 21" wheels with Bridgestone Alenza tires. I placed a call to BMW for them to look into it. Anyone else who has taken delivery, doesn't matter which model of X3, check theirs out. Maybe the 21's are to blame. Either way, BMW is going to have to do something about this problem.
Got back from our second >300 mile day trip in a row late last night, majority on Interstate roads. Went through some construction zones which dropped speed down to 60mph with a radar sign indicating oncoming speed. One time last night we were the only vehicle which could have been in its capture zone and it pegged us to the exact mph as on our HUD at that moment. We have the 19" Yokohamas.
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      01-22-2020, 04:29 PM   #8
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I know this is an old thread, but thought I'd post here before making a duplicate.

I'm less than a month into my X3 (G01) M40i with 21" wheels. I'm losing miles at a fairly rapid pace. In 766 miles driven so far, I've lost about 45 miles unaccountable for. GPS history (google maps) and my per trip tracker I use for business mileage both agree, but the car mileage is consistently about 6% over. So on a 100 mile trip, the car reads 106.

I've traveled the exact same route many times in my prior 2 cars and never had this issue. Could the car be miscalibrated to the tire size?

I have two concerns with this:

First is that it's going to cost me miles on my lease so 30k miles becomes 28,300.
Second, I cannot suddenly bill more miles for the same drive, and my mileage log is therefor completely messed up. This is becoming a major pain in the but.

Waiting for a call back from the dealer. Anyone have a suggestion or solution in the meantime?

Thanks!
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      01-22-2020, 05:13 PM   #9
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It's very normal for a speedo to read high. Every car I've ever had has read 2-4 MPH fast at an actual 70 MPH. I think manufacturers do this intentionally.

It's completely 100% unacceptable, however, for an odometer to read high, particularly by a ridiculous 6%. I would definitely try a mile marker test as recommended earlier in the thread. If yours is indeed overstating your mileage that feels kind of...litigable.
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      01-22-2020, 05:46 PM   #10
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It’s perfectly understandable. The car was designed by Germans, so blame it on the metric system.
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      01-22-2020, 05:57 PM   #11
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All brands no? Not just BMW and surely not a new phenomenon
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      01-22-2020, 06:42 PM   #12
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The speedo thing can be 'corrected' with coding:

https://f30.bimmerpost.com/forums/sh....php?t=1278717

What's up with that odometer though?!
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      01-22-2020, 08:00 PM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BobsM3Coupe View Post
I've had my M40i over a week now and I knew the speedometer was reading to fast. So I brought along my Garmin GPS and used an app on my phone to confirm.
Speedometer reads 4 mph fast and the odometer registers an extra 4.4 miles in 18.7 actual miles. Boy, at this rate I'll only be able to put 24,000 actual miles on my 30,000 lease. Those who purchase/finance with the 50,000 mile warranty will be up in about 41,000 actual miles. I hope my math is incorrect.

My vehicle has the 21" wheels with Bridgestone Alenza tires.

I placed a call to BMW for them to look into it.

Anyone else who has taken delivery, doesn't matter which model of X3, check theirs out. Maybe the 21's are to blame. Either way, BMW is going to have to do something about this problem.
Wondering if you found a resolution to this?

I picked up my 2020 M40i with 21's just shy of a month ago, and I've noticed the same issue, though less severe. The Odometer seems to be over by about 6% - it's 42 miles over what I've actually driven - after 703 real miles of driving the odo reads 745. I have a service appointment tomorrow. 🤞
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      01-22-2020, 08:06 PM   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dmicah View Post
It's very normal for a speedo to read high. Every car I've ever had has read 2-4 MPH fast at an actual 70 MPH. I think manufacturers do this intentionally.

It's completely 100% unacceptable, however, for an odometer to read high, particularly by a ridiculous 6%. I would definitely try a mile marker test as recommended earlier in the thread. If yours is indeed overstating your mileage that feels kind of...litigable.
Yeah, Spedo is about 4 MPH high (97 on GPS reads 101 on HUD &#128513. That's fine. But the Odo needs to be accurate and definitely isn't. Have a 100 mile drive on Friday, so I plan to track it and take photos of odo and screen shots of phone. Funny thing (not laughing) is even built in Nav disagrees with car's odo for trip distance.
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      01-22-2020, 09:29 PM   #15
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Just tested new 2020 X3 x30i. 74 on phone speedometer was 77 on car speedometer. Haven’t tested odo yet.
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      01-22-2020, 10:08 PM   #16
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveW3000 View Post
Yeah, Spedo is about 4 MPH high (97 on GPS reads 101 on HUD &#128513. That's fine. But the Odo needs to be accurate and definitely isn't. Have a 100 mile drive on Friday, so I plan to track it and take photos of odo and screen shots of phone. Funny thing (not laughing) is even built in Nav disagrees with car's odo for trip distance.
Super not cool. Particularly in a lease situation such as you have. Sorry to hear it, man.
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      01-23-2020, 11:09 AM   #17
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Mine runs 2MPH over actual across the board, this is typically dialled in for safety reasons to hopefully stop you getting done for speeding, the irony In Sport Plus mode with the Alpina dash tuned in I have 2 digital readouts in the centre of the dash, both read slightly different, I assume they are reading info from different parts of the system.
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      01-23-2020, 04:33 PM   #18
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This is often the case with ANY BMW . I own three. I've done some minor tire size changes to compensate when they're worn- odometer should not be out though..
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      01-23-2020, 05:16 PM   #19
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Try looking through google, previous years BMW owners (myself included), noticed this and it had been explained about a german law, something to do with reading high so you could never blame speeding on tire size or wear, iirc. Speedometers are no longer hooked up directly to the transmission, they are algorithm based on gear, throttle etc. Therefore, you are not incurring extra mileage for having the speedometer being off.
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      01-23-2020, 05:19 PM   #20
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveW3000 View Post
Wondering if you found a resolution to this?

I picked up my 2020 M40i with 21's just shy of a month ago, and I've noticed the same issue, though less severe. The Odometer seems to be over by about 6% - it's 42 miles over what I've actually driven - after 703 real miles of driving the odo reads 745. I have a service appointment tomorrow. 🤞
How would you know the "correct" with that level of certainty?
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      01-23-2020, 07:03 PM   #21
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Mine is definitely 3-4mph too high.. so I go 5-10 mph faster.
Seriously I hate that it's not spot on..

My Toyota and Lexus are nearly spot on the speedometer.


Hmm.. so has someone discovered a way to code it right? The linked post is about 3+ years old.
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      01-23-2020, 07:11 PM   #22
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I have a same issue. Looks like I'm leaving my car on the treadmill at nights

Last edited by GoodGuyAvi; 01-23-2020 at 07:44 PM..
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