Odometer - New here so may have been covered previously

[rutger]

I have an '013 RTS and my wife has a '014 RTL and on both bikes the trip meters are very accurate.

Like with in .1 of a mile over a 5 mile interstate check. But also on both bikes the odometer milage reading isn't even close to being accurate. The miles clicking off will vary from .6 of a mile to 1.3 miles from one mile to the next.

And these are digital read outs. Has anyone else noticed this.

My wife's bike has piled up an addition 400 miles of none existing milages per her odometer vs the total trip readouts.

Only reason we even found this out was because we've been recording every full up and miles road from day one on hers and the trip totals were 1831 where the odometer read out was 2217 yesterday. then started watching the odometer and was astonished at how inaccurate it was simple mile to mile. Astonishingly inaccurate!!

[Bob Denman]

I think that she's sneaking out, to go on rides without you...

Seriously??
I'm pretty sure that no adjustments to the system are possible...

[rutger]

Wondering if anyone lease has noticed this. At that rate her bike and possibly both bikes along with who knows how many others are piling up none existence miles at an astonishing rate. A bike with 5,000 miles actually only has 4,000 miles on it.

Depreciating the value of the bike.

[retread]

I haven't paid close attention to the odometers on my Spyders, but I do know that the speedometers have been 3 mph fast on each one.

john

[rutger]

I haven't paid close attention to the odometers on my Spyders, but I do know that the speedometers have been 3 mph fast on each one.

john

You may want to check it out. They are so inaccurate just mile to mile it's astonishing and the 6100 miles I thought I got on my first rear time may have actually been less than 5,000 plus over a few years of riding and what you may believe is 50,000 miles may actually be less than 40,000 at trade in time.

I cant even imagine what the problem could be. How can the trip meter he reading so accurately and the total odometer reading be so far off on consecutive miles. As much as a 1/2 mile or more just from one mile to the next.

[PrairieSpyder]

I haven't paid close attention to the odometers on my Spyders, but I do know that the speedometers have been 3 mph fast on each one.

john

I've hear this is common on motorcycles, that the manufacturers do that on purpose. I'm not sure why.

I also track my MPG, but I use my odometer reading. If it was racking up extra miles, I'd be seeing better mileage, but I'm not. I may have to do a comparison on my next trip.

[rutger]

I've hear this is common on motorcycles, that the manufacturers do that on purpose. I'm not sure why.

I also track my MPG, but I use my odometer reading. If it was racking up extra miles, I'd be seeing better mileage, but I'm not. I may have to do a comparison on my next trip.

I can't even figure out how you could possible program a digital read out to be this inconsistent. It's literally off by up to 1/2 mile from mile to mile. And on both bikes. And speed doesn't seem to be the problem.

One mile will click off on the odometer at a .6 of a mile on the trip tick and the next mile won't click off till 1.2 or 1.3 miles on the trip tick. I can't even imagine HOW you could program it to be that far off.

[Dan McNally]

Good thing the BEST warranty is in years and not miles!

[BikerDoc]

Fortunately mileage does not affect our warranties..... I had noticed the inaccurate speedometer reading so on a recent 1000 mile ride I compared the bike mileage with googles maps and my garmin gps mileage (where the actual speed seems to display). In the end my Spyder had only 17 miles more on the odometer than google and garmin who were within 2 miles of each other....

[2RTsGV]

Fortunately mileage does not affect our warranties..... I had noticed the inaccurate speedometer reading so on a recent 1000 mile ride I compared the bike mileage with googles maps and my garmin gps mileage (where the actual speed seems to display). In the end my Spyder had only 17 miles more on the odometer than google and garmin who were within 2 miles of each other....

I am wondering if maybe one (ie: the mileage or the Trip) is set to Kilometers instead of miles. that sort of difference (.6 miles) aligns with the difference in calculation - 1km = .6m

Just a thought

[Chupaca]

I don't pay attention to mileage mpg's etc having to much fun ryding and using my RS for all the reasons I bought it and this is not one of them (just me). But there are several comparisons made here. Bike to bike (same models) bike to bike (different brands) spyder to the many GPS's and to road markings. The whole system depends on the sensors sending data to the cluster. This would be where to start looking..bent out of place wrong position different size tires and air pressure etc. Maybe a glitch in the conversion of kilometers and miles. Could have some buds correction program...

[bruiser]

Haven't noticed a big difference in mileage but noticed a difference in mph between bikes.

[rutger]

I am wondering if maybe one (ie: the mileage or the Trip) is set to Kilometers instead of miles. that sort of difference (.6 miles) aligns with the difference in calculation - 1km = .6m

Just a thought

Thought of that, even though both indicate miles. The difference works out to about 20%. Not 40%. Miles clicking off on the odometer are not consistent to any distance traveled or seemingly speed related. Mile to Mile the odometer will click off a mile on both Spyders anywhere from .6 up to 1.3 actually miles traveled. Same 5 mile trip check on interstate showed 5.9 miles on the odometer and 5.1 on the trip indicator. (The 5.1 works out to about 100 Ft per mile and that's pretty close. The 5.9 works out to nearly 1/6 of a mile off per mile.)

And that's astonishingly inaccurate as well as poor quality for such an expensive machine.

I've been riding bikes for over 50 years. Honda's mostly and Valkyries for the last 17, one with over 127,000 miles on it and I've never seen an odometer do this or this far off on any car or bike.

At this rate a bike ridden for 40,000 miles will indicate 50,000 at trade in.

I can't even figure out HOW the trip indicator can be so actuate mile after mile and the odometer in the very same cluster can be so inconsistent and inaccurate at the very same time?

[Bob Denman]

It's starting to sound like a, "take it to your dealer", sort of a thing...
Good luck; please let us know how you proceed with this!

[rutger]

Haven't noticed a big difference in mileage but noticed a difference in mph between bikes.

At least on our's there is very little difference in MPH between the two bikes. Set speed control at 65 on both and the '014 has to be bumped down a mph every now and then and then bumped back up to keep up so difference is well under 1 mph, at least a 65 mph.

[rutger]

It's starting to sound like a, "take it to your dealer", sort of a thing...
Good luck; please let us know how you proceed with this!

The '014 is getting a new speedo cluster due to condensation behind the plastic but seeing as both bikes act the same (two different year models), I'm doubtful that's the problem. Kind of believe their all doing this. At least the last couple of years worth.

But how? How can the trip indicator be almost dead on and the odometer in the same cluster be SO inaccurate, mile per mile? Aren't both running off the very same set up?

[ARtraveler]

When we go on a 100 + mile ride, we set the B trip meter to zero so that we can keep track of our trip mileage. The end results are usually a few tenths off when comparing one to the other.

I have always attributed that to the difference in tires from one to the other. One always has "newer" tires. A newer tire would give a slightly lower reading since more territory was covered per rotation. I think I got this right.

[Bob Denman]

Correct...
Newer tire: slightly taller diameter and larger rolling circumference... fewer rotations per mile, so fewer miles are registered.

I may be dumb; but I'm not uneducated!

[missouriboy]

I have an '013 RTS and my wife has a '014 RTL and on both bikes the trip meters are very accurate.

Like with in .1 of a mile over a 5 mile interstate check. But also on both bikes the odometer milage reading isn't even close to being accurate. The miles clicking off will vary from .6 of a mile to 1.3 miles from one mile to the next.

And these are digital read outs. Has anyone else noticed this.

My wife's bike has piled up an addition 400 miles of none existing milages per her odometer vs the total trip readouts.

Only reason we even found this out was because we've been recording every full up and miles road from day one on hers and the trip totals were 1831 where the odometer read out was 2217 yesterday. then started watching the odometer and was astonished at how inaccurate it was simple mile to mile. Astonishingly inaccurate!!

I have long noticed that the total miles DO tick over at an unpredictable variance from the trip miles. I don't know the variance, but let's accept your observation of .6 to 1.3 miles per tick-over.

I have always surmised that this difference is because the total miles display gets updated at a LOWER PRIORITY than the trip miles display. Because the latter is in TENTHS and the former is in WHOLE MILES only? By priority, I mean that Miss Nanny is very, very busy and must tend to high-priority chores with more urgency, and then does the low-priority stuff (like total miles) when she can finally get a ROUND TUIT.

Since reading this thread, I've been watching my three displays, and notice NO 20% error between them, only a mile or so, and this is because it's impossible to accurately compare a TENTHS display to WHOLE NUMBER display. Especially if they truly do get updated at different priorities (instead of at the same time, which is how I would program it... I think!).

Now, I also surmise that miles/kilometers are not even stored anywhere, but are simply computed from scratch each time the screen-display is updated. Constantly storing them is an unnecessary burden for Miss Nanny! Only the total wheel-count needs to be permanently stored, for the life of the machine, and then all displays are computed from that value, when needed. There would be two more such counter-fields, one for each trip meter; when you reset them, the main counter is simply copied to it, then its display is computed from the difference between it and the total counter. That's why its display is always zero at reset, though the counter is not really zero at all!

Disclaimer: I am not an engineer or programmer for this system, nor have I ever played one on TV. I'm just saying this is how it would work, or something like this, if I were doing the job!

Therefore: I find it difficult to believe that there would be any 20% discrepancy between these displays... at least I have satisfied myself that MY Spyder, at 20,600 miles, has no such discrepancy.

[PrairieSpyder]

I have long noticed that the total miles DO tick over at an unpredictable variance from the trip miles. I don't know the variance, but let's accept your observation of .6 to 1.3 miles per tick-over.

I have always surmised that this difference is because the total miles display gets updated at a LOWER PRIORITY than the trip miles display. Because the latter is in TENTHS and the former is in WHOLE MILES only? By priority, I mean that Miss Nanny is very, very busy and must tend to high-priority chores with more urgency, and then does the low-priority stuff (like total miles) when she can finally get a ROUND TUIT.

Since reading this thread, I've been watching my three displays, and notice NO 20% error between them, only a mile or so, and this is because it's impossible to accurately compare a TENTHS display to WHOLE NUMBER display. Especially if they truly do get updated at different priorities (instead of at the same time, which is how I would program it... I think!).

Now, I also surmise that miles/kilometers are not even stored anywhere, but are simply computed from scratch each time the screen-display is updated. Constantly storing them is an unnecessary burden for Miss Nanny! Only the total wheel-count needs to be permanently stored, for the life of the machine, and then all displays are computed from that value, when needed. There would be two more such counter-fields, one for each trip meter; when you reset them, the main counter is simply copied to it, then its display is computed from the difference between it and the total counter. That's why its display is always zero at reset, though the counter is not really zero at all!

Disclaimer: I am not an engineer or programmer for this system, nor have I ever played one on TV. I'm just saying this is how it would work, or something like this, if I were doing the job!

Therefore: I find it difficult to believe that there would be any 20% discrepancy between these displays... at least I have satisfied myself that MY Spyder, at 20,600 miles, has no such discrepancy.

Nice try, but I don't think your assumptions will hold water. I have been a systems analyst, though we wouldn't know about how the Spyder systems work without having the algorithms to see, or commentary from the system developers.

In a system you have 2 costs: storage and processing. When storage costs more than processing, you recalculate whenever you need to. When processing is more expensive you use storage and retrieve as needed. Your speculation about the system recalculating mileage each time you turn on your Spyder heavily uses both storage and processing - keeping lots of mileage numbers and adding them up every time you turn on the key. It's also overly complex, when all the system really has to do is store three numbers: the last odometer reading, and the Trip A and Trip B totals. (Even though the odometer doesn't display tenths of miles, the system has to keep track of it to know when to incrementally increase the display.) No processing is needed except to retrieve those three pieces of data and put them in the appropriate area of the display.

As to prioritization of the ongoing addition of miles to the trip counters and odometer, I doubt that is necessary. The same input (not sure of this, but maybe number of rotations of the rear tire) go into a trigger to advance the three data fields. and a simple "add .1 mile" isn't that complex of a process. In fact, the same .1 mile increment probably goes into the odometer total, but it doesn't display an increase until it occurs 10 times.

[Bob Denman]

Patti...
I have no idea what you just said...
But it sure sounds good!
I'm just gonna ride mine.
Each mile that I've added; is less important to me, than the next mile that I'll add...

[Oldmanzues]

Patti...
I have no idea what you just said...
But it sure sounds good!
I'm just gonna ride mine.
Each mile that I've added; is less important to me, than the next mile that I'll add...

Iagree with this other Bob. I am one too.
My speedometer seems to agree with my GPS on that account. I would suggest writing down the milage at the start of a trip/time period, then seting the trip to 0 and after 200 or three hundred miles checking the difference.
Just a thought
Oldmanzues

[missouriboy]

Hi Patti

It's great to see your intelligent reply with further analysis, but I must still respectfully disagree with your conclusions. Your approach of using the 2 costs is very good, but the analysis doesn't compare all the required activity deeply enough, in my opinion.

I'll expand on this by embedding my comments within your quote, in bold like this. And then follow-up with......... after the quote.

Nice try, but I don't think your assumptions will hold water. I have been a systems analyst, though we wouldn't know about how the Spyder systems work without having the algorithms to see, or commentary from the system developers.
I'll attempt to demonstrate that my assumptions could hold water quite well. I too have enjoyed a very successful career as a programmer/analyst, although in a quite different field than would be required here. (Manufacturing, production control, etc. on mainframe and mini-computers.)

In a system you have 2 costs: storage and processing. When storage costs more than processing, you recalculate whenever you need to. When processing is more expensive you use storage and retrieve as needed. So far, so good. Excellent, in fact! Your speculation about the system recalculating mileage each time you turn on your Spyder NO, NO, much more often than that. Every 1/10th of a mile, at least. heavily uses both storage and processing - keeping lots of mileage numbers NO. No mileage numbers, just one simple count of total wheel revolutions, as they occur. and adding them up every time you turn on the key. Again, boot-up is not described here, though it would be involved also, of course.


It's also overly complex, when all the system really has to do is store three numbers: the last odometer reading, and the Trip A and Trip B totals. This is where I believe your analysis isn't thorough enough: first the system needn't store "odometer" readings at all; this is what I say is too expensive. To do so would require computing them from the wheel-counter each time that counter increments. For an 80-inch tire tread, that counter increments 792 times per mile, which at 60mph would be 792rpm, or 47,520 times each hour. The least expensive thing for the system to be doing this often is to increment and store ONE simple counter (for the life of the machine). All other desired information is converted from this one count. But there is NO NEED to do the conversion every time the counter increments. This is what I say is an unnecessary burden on Miss Nanny, because such information is not needed with every wheel turn. It's only needed every 79.2 turns, at the event of having covered .1 linear mile. How would it know when .1 mile has been covered? This could be incorporated in the much higher-priority task that updates the speedometer display, that is also being driven by the wheel-count function, compared against elapsed time. There would be an algorithm in that routine to indicate when to invoke the odometer display task, which would within itself reset the event-indicator used by the speedometer task.

(Even though the odometer doesn't display tenths of miles, the system has to keep track of it to know when to incrementally increase the display.) No processing is needed except to retrieve those three pieces of data and put them in the appropriate area of the display.

As to prioritization of the ongoing addition of miles to the trip counters and odometer, I doubt that is necessary. The same input (not sure of this, but maybe number of rotations of the rear tire) go into a trigger to advance the three data fields. and a simple "add .1 mile" isn't that complex of a process. In fact, the same .1 mile increment probably goes into the odometer total, but it doesn't display an increase until it occurs 10 times.

Remember, the system must accommodate the user-selectable option to give the displays in either kilometers or miles. A single running copy of each processing task would serve either choice because it would use constants that get initiated during the user setup function. All these constants would have many decimal places, to provide accuracy in the rounded, truncated output.

We haven't analyzed the speedometer task at all, but it would be heavily coordinated in all of this, and leads me to surmise about the task prioritizing within a very busy multi-tasking system. Other tasks would have even higher priority than these, as they would have to do with safety and these are only casual displays.

You're right that we cannot know the whole truth until someone more knowledgeable chimes in. But it's been fun to speculate and debate with you about it; it keeps the ol' gray matter exercised, doesn't it?
What a great forum!

[ARtraveler]

Well...at least we got some good technical stuff to spar about. Just what the posters were screaming for about a week or so ago.

[Bob Denman]