Okay, I started to calibrate the Speed setting on my SG2 today, and I got some
interesting results.
I drove a measured route (the one for the upcoming mileage contest sponsored by
Acton Toyota and CleanMPG.com May 15th), that is 24.3 miles long as measured by Hobbit's GPS:
MPG rally 2011
I already had the Speed calibrated by '3' (my unit doesn't display a % symbol), and I drove the route, and got 22.5 miles on the stock odometer, and 22.9 miles on the Current Trip measurement. Please notice that 22.5 + 3% = 23.1, which is not all that close to what it showed.
So, I tried to figure out what factor would increase 22.5 up to 24.3, and I came up with 20 -- but it was obvious that was way too high by the time I got to the 5.8 mile turn onto Gay Road, so I did some more estimation, changed the factor to 10, and reset everything and returned to the beginning of the route, and it seemed a bit too high still, so went down to 9.
I drove the route a second time, and the stock odometer said 22.5 miles (same as before) and the SG2 Current Trip was 24.0 miles -- nearly there!
So, I increased the Speed calibration factor back to 10, and drove the course a third time -- and very strangely, the SG2 Current Trip now said 23.7! Wassup 'wid dat?!
Doing the math to correct the 22.5 miles on the odometer up to 24.3 is almost precisely 8%. Which is great, but I am even more puzzled about the SG2...
I ran out of time, but I am very curious to drive the course with the Speed factor set to 8 -- maybe somehow the time vs distance = speed calculation gets better when the factor is right on? Hmmm...