Date:         Fri, 4 Aug 2006 07:08:54 -0700
Reply-To:     Rich Bennington <rich.bennington@CHARTER.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Rich Bennington <rich.bennington@CHARTER.NET>
Subject:      Re: Reasonable cruising speed?
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Date:    Thu, 3 Aug 2006 16:18:58 -0700
From:    Geo & Kathleen Hahn <ahwahnee@CYBERTRAILS.COM>
Subject: Re: Reasonable cruising speed?

Loren Busch wrote:

> ...An acquaintance of mine that used to drive a cherry '90 Westy, 4
> speed, and never got above 55, consistently got 21 to 23 mpg.  And she
> put a lot of miles on her rig before selling it and going to something
> bigger.


Indeed, I suspect one reason my 84 got so many trouble-free miles out of the
original engine (220K) was because the speedo was so far off (indicated 72 =
actual 55) that we always thought we were going much faster than we were.  I
knew it was off but didn't fully appreciate by how much.

Geo
>
Maybe not.  The speedometer and odometer are fed separately.  While the
odometer typically will be a little off(3%), an old speedometer can read
10-15% off or more.  My speedometer was about the same as yours on my 84.
Supposedly, you can try and tighten the speedometer spring and get it closer
to reality.  I purchased a newer dash console, so I haven't tried that.

Rich