Carry a hand held GPS with you and compare the two.
Hey TJM, we see a lot of annoyed angry people who find out something about their car they don't like and then come here and vent about what a POS lexus is and how they will never buy another one. With that in mind, some people are of the opinion that many of these statements are emotionally based and find it unreasonable to purchase a car based on speedo calibration alone.
Additionally, please excuse my uninformed-idiot post above. Apparently the ODO which determines your warranty coverage is fed from a different more accurate source.
My Jeep is old-school, and the tranny output feeds both the speedo and ODO. The Lexus is not like that. I mistakingly tried to equate the two.
I did some more research because I seemed to remember that my M3 always indicated a bit high on the speedo.
More info from the BMW people I used to run with:
With this in mind, you may not want to buy the German competition for your next car either.
Maybe a nice Tahoe or Jeep Grand Cherokee?
Thanks for your comments -
Never in any of my posts did I either call my 350 a POS or am I emotional about this ( There are more important things than this to stress about). I'm simply annoyed. Thanks for your research on BMW - I am aware of auto companies not wanting to err on the other side of the spectrum but the results of the class action suit mentioned below sort of go contrary to that. I have heard from several sources that the Lexus odometer is fed with another sensor so at least my warranty isn't being compromised. I guess with Honda, the same sensors fed both and it turned into a class action suit -
The recent class action lawsuit was ‘Karen Vaughn Vs. American Honda Motor CO., Et AL. Civil action No. 2:04-CV-142 where the speedometer and the mileage were only overstated by 3.75% and Honda not only had to provide restitution to its customers but changed its specification to +/- 2.5 % (vs. – 0 and + 7 that appears to be set by Lexus and BMW). By setting the tolerance to +/- 2.5% the mean would center on zero error, instead of the mean centering on +3.5% which is the case for Lexus and BMW. That does expose Honda to the 'speeding' issue if the odometer reads slow but you usually don't get a ticket for being 2.5% over the speed limit anyway.
Bottom line - as I said above - I'm just annoyed because I got one at the far side of the tolerance. I have had 3 loaner cars from Lexus (for service, etc) over the last year or so and I have checked all three of them and of course they were dead nuts on the mark!