2nd Gen Non-Engine/Transmission odometer error

[BMote]

Have been tracking fuel consumotion closely lately, My mileage was 10-12mpg during cold weather, has lately been 18-19 with one tank at 21. 8mpg. Had to keep foot out of pedal for that feat. Stayed below 60mph. However I have noticed that the trip odometer does not measure the same mileage as odometer. Subtracting previous mileage from present gave 489 mi, while trip odom registered 378.



Has anyone else seen this ??????



2001 w250 auto, reg cab, long box high cap 285 tires

 

[ToolManTimTaylor]

Silly Question but were both Trip and ODO zeroed out at a good point? I. E 49,500 that way there is no mistake? Or are you looking at the overhead DTE reading? I did that one once when I bought the truck to only find out that I had only gone 75 miles on a full tank 6. 5 hours later up in VT/Canada LOL!!! Reality was I had 75 miles left on that tank and felt pretty dumb and when I compared mileage to the Odometer

 

[VicR]

I notice you have 285's, but I can't imagine that would cause the issue because I think both get the info from the same source, but I could be mistaken.



If you know anybody with a hand-held GPS you can determine which, if either, is correct.



-Vic

 

[BMote]

Never thought of using a gps. Will check that out. Thanks Bryan

 

[dmhollister]

I have found that the trip odometer will not cycle over 1000 miles if it reaches 999 it goes back to zero. I have not found that the odometer and overhead console are different.

 

[fortunate1]

I've got oversized tires too, and that will affect the odo some. The difference you note (111 miles out of 378) is way more than tires will give. I used a gps, highway mile markers, and my odo to guage their accuracy a while back. I found that if I used the gps as the standard (supposedly accurate positioning to within 15-20 ft), then the mile markers on the highways (I-64 and again on I-95 in VA) were pretty accurate. 100 miles measured on the markers yielded 100. 1 miles on the gps. So you can use the mile markers for a good estimate if you don't have a gps. I found that when I drove an actual 100 miles that my odo showed only 97. 3 miles because of the oversized tires. A 2% to 3% variation is all that tires should give; your difference was about 10 times that. So go on a long, continuous highway trip and write down the starting and finishing odo and marker numbers. I think that the trip should be at least 100 miles, and the longer the better to help with total accuracy. Individual markers may be +/- one mile, but over the long haul all that will even out and they're pretty accurate.

 

[BMote]

O. K. Here's the scoop.



Just finished a 4 day trip using a g. p. s. and some serious difference shows up.



G. P. S. mileage 1270

Odometer 1263

Trip odometer 926



Not a significant difference between odometer and gps, but certainly can't rely on trip meter for any accuracy. I don't know if there is a different signal to trigger digital odometer than trip meter. Had very interesting time of it all. Speedometer did register about 2 mph different at 60 (slower), this doesn't agree with odometer slight difference. This is about a 3% error, and should show up on odometer as 36 mile difference.

Anyhow, I know a lot more now than I did last week.

 

[TRAMPLINEMAN]

My dad has a 99 and the two of his are way off too. The odo. and his GPS are almost dead on, but the trip is always way off. He's had it replaced a couple of times, but no change.

 

[Vaughn MacKenzie]

Evidently there's a glitch with the speedo sensor processing or it's not catching all of the pulses. This is one of the strangest problems I've read about since joining TDR in 1999