Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums General Tech Anyone else had a speedometer problem?

I made a 1,400 mile ride to Big Bend on my 2006 America and everything went fine. We did have temperature extremes from 20 degrees to 90 on the same day but the bike worked fine.

Now, when I first start riding the speedometer smoothly moves up to 120mph before I get out of 1st gear. After riding for a while it stays high and then drops back to normal speeds according to the tach.

Warranty ran out on the 29th of last month. Bike has 12,260 miles. Not much faith in dealer or Triumph. When this used to happen to cars, we would put graphite on the speedometer cable but the bike is not making the sounds a car used to.

Mine did that intermittently for a while but now it works fine. Still scratchin' my head over it. I know some have been replaced under warranty, but being the second owner, I didn't have that option. I'm wondering if anybody else had this issue that mysteriously disappeared?

my guess would be that the Speedo is AFU not the cable

i wouldn't count the dealer out without at least asking them - you're pretty close on warranty and if they can't help there the service desk may recognize the symptom. search here on "speedo" for discussions on problems but i think they've mostly been erratic readings cured by diddling or lubing the cable. Have you checked at least to see that everything is fastened tight and not binding anywhere? Is there anyone around you could swap cables or speedo heads with?

I must say, when I first read your post about how the speedo went smoothly to 120mph in first gear I was pretty impressed - it must feel great!

added: this thread has some suggestions

I had the same problem several years ago. First I lubed the cable with no results. Next I took the fitting off the speedometer and put a thin layer of greese on the gears. This helped at first but then it went crazy again. For the next several months it would act up occassionally. I found that if you rapped your kunckle on the face of the speedometer it usually would settle down. All of a sudden
it cleared it self up and hand no problems for the last year and a half. I have heard of several people with this problem but don't remember any fixes. One good thing that did come out of this was that I learned to judge my speed using my tach.

On the way home from the NE Rally 06 at Pat's, I had the
pleasure of having my speedo calibration confirmed by a
New York State Trooper. He said I was doing 87 in a 55.
I told him I was doing every bit of that! Indicated 95!
Wrote me up for 72. Thanks buddy, I paid the fine. $212.
I was haulin' a$$!
Uncle Charlie

Take it over to Jason at Lone Star. He will try to get it warranted for you. He is very good to deal with. he took care of mine when it broke at around 12k.

That is a $300.00 speedometer.

Mine went (replaced under warantee) tripometer would register 150 miles or more on a 50 mile ride...every thing else was fine...no real way to service these, so the whole thing was replaced...unfortunatly so was my milage count....so i put a little sticker on mine to keep the tally going....

Yep, My 12/02 america did same weird thing, 1st one in aust to play up and was replaced under waranty..
Took it to a dealer on east coast for a service 12,000km
(7,000miles)and he said whatsup with the speedo???? he took it for test ride and it did the 150km/h riding out the back lane..for the next 5000 kms home it played up,,,get on the bike first thing in morning ...fine, stop fill up with fuel and bingo 150 km/h on take off, tap it few times and it would settle back to normal and be fine the rest of the day no matter how many stops/starts, next day 2nd startup, same thing , weird weird weird, dealer pulled it apart and it all looked fine,fitted new speedo no more probs, 07 speedy now has 18000 kms (12,00miles) and been faultless, actually the whole bike has been excellent, cheers, Tadpole