# Speedometer question.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speedometer-question/24499>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 4, 2000, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speedometer-question/24499 "2000-07-04T00:40:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\
**Post date:** [July 4, 2000, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speedometer-question/24499/1 "2000-07-04T00:40:40Z")

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The speedometer on my Harley has a digital/electronic odometer. I came to a stop sign yesterday and noticed the speedo was stuck on 35 miles an hour. Hmmmm. It never did that before. So I turned the bike off, then restarted, and sure enough, the speedometer reset itself to 0 mph. All would have been fine until I noticed the odometer now reads r9475. I have no idea where the “r” came from, but worst of all, my bike does not have 9475 miles on it! It barely has 4000! Because this is considered a minor repair I can’t get it fixed until the first week of August. The speedo seems to be working fine now, except for the “r” and the advanced mileage on the odometer. Has this ever happened to any of you with electronic odometers? What was the cause?

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**Author:** ![Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)\
**Post date:** [July 4, 2000, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speedometer-question/24499/2 "2000-07-04T01:17:13Z")

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Sounds like a bad readout. Kinda like turning on a solar powered calculator and getting weird symbols. Check the manual if you have one. You may be able to reset the readout. Otherwise you’ll probably have to have it replaced. I’m not sure how you’ll get the new one to correctly show the mileage, though, since there are strict laws about odometer tampering.

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**Author:** ![Great\_Dave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/46a35a/32.png) [@Great\_Dave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Dave)\
**Post date:** [July 4, 2000, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speedometer-question/24499/3 "2000-07-04T05:42:28Z")

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try the Car Talk section at [cars.com](http://cars.com)

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**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\
**Post date:** [July 5, 2000, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speedometer-question/24499/4 "2000-07-05T17:56:19Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> try the Car Talk section at [cars.com](http://cars.com)

And be sure to let us know what you find out.