How much does tire size effect speedometer?

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AyWoSch Motors

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Hey, just curious, do any of you know how far off the speedometer will be for each jump in tire size?
Figured id put it out there, any of you, who have figured this out already, share the knowledge.

I was wondering today, because i looked at the spec sheet in the glovebox, and my truck came with 235/75r15s originally in 1986, but I have 31x10.50R15s currently. Id guess a 235 is about a 29in, maybe a 30, so im an inch or 2 oversize.
How much would that effect the speed showing? Like lets say it says im going 60mph. Am i going 61, or 65, or... just curious.

And in town we have a few electronic speed limit signs that read you back your speed. Most cars im in, the sign reads alot slower than the speedo. Like in my yukon, sign says 39, truck says 45-46. My boss's truck, sign says 35, truck says 38. But in my caprice, sign says 39, car says 39.
Both of my 2 have tires bigger than they came factory, boss's truck is stock. So are the speedos off, or is the sign off, or both?

Also a sidenote: would changing the rearend to a different gear ratio effect the speedometer?
I assume anything different downstream of the transmission would change it, but maybe im wrong.

Just food for thought, and maybe a place to dump some trivia or info on speedo gears.
 

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...crickets...
It is obvious that larger tires will cause an error in the speedometer readings. The faster you go, the greater the error. I am running 33s so I put my GPS on the dash and compared the actual to the indicated. 45 mph indicated is 51 actual. 50 indicated is 57 actual.

Installing lower gears would bring it back closer to matching but I don't know how much. That is a simple mathematical formula but I am not digging into that right now.
 

AyWoSch Motors

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It is obvious that larger tires will cause an error in the speedometer readings. The faster you go, the greater the error. I am running 33s so I put my GPS on the dash and compared the actual to the indicated. 45 mph indicated is 51 actual. 50 indicated is 57 actual.

Installing lower gears would bring it back closer to matching but I don't know how much. That is a simple mathematical formula but I am not digging into that right now.
Ah, okay. I hadn't thought about getting a GPS app, thats a good idea.

Did your truck oginally have 235/75s as well?
If so, then thatd put my tires half way between yours and factory, so i could assume thatd put my speedo inaccuracy half way between yours and actual.
 

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There's a lot of variables. Without measuring, a 235/75 is probably closer to 28" ain't it? It will vary by brand as well. Also, I remember measuring the 31x10.5's that I pulled off of my Suburban years ago and was kinda surprised to see they measured less than 29".
 

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Also, increasing tire size will make your speedo read slower. In other words, you will be going faster than you were before, with the same speedo reading. The faster you go, the more inaccurate the speedo will be.
 

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235/75/15 comes in at 28.9".
Try this little widget. It makes the size process fun.

 

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Tire height is published by the manufacturers, although it may differ a little by brand for a given size. There are also many tire/gear/rpm calculators on the internet and you can use them to find rpm at different speeds, based on tire height and rear-end gearing.

It’s a very simple tool to get the answer for rpm and speed. However, manufacturers seem to make speedometers read a little low, maybe to keep you from speeding.

Your transmission or transfer case has a small housing where the speedometer cable connects, and the housing has two small gears inside. You can get different gear sets to make adjustments to the speedometer reading and make it match the tire size.
 

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The tire diameter ratio will be the speedometer error ratio, if you want to think of it that way. The math can be a little more complicated, but for normal ranges we're dealing with, going from a 30" tire to a 33" tire will be a 10% increase on diameter (3" is 10% of 30"), and a 10% increase on speedometer/odometer. So 70 becomes 77, 40 becomes 44, etc.
3.08, 3.42, 3.73, 4.10, and 4.56 gears are also about 10% different each step as a handy guide. Divide the old ratio by the new ratio and multiply that times your "old" speed on the dash and you get your new/real speed for more exact numbers.
And when you're all done with the math, get a free GPS speedometer for your phone and figure out if it's good enough to run, or if you need to play with the transmission speedometer gears to get it a little closer to reality :)
 

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I have 33's on mine now, works out to %14 larger than stock.
My speedo reads %14 slower than what I'm actually doing, confirmed with a GPS app.
I'm going to make a rpm chart with various common speeds, i.e. 35, 45, 55, 65, 75.
I'll use my tach as a speedo.
 

78 Jimmy 2WD

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This is the tool I use.


Put in the stock tire size or size you currently have, then put in the tire size you are looking at using to see the difference in speedo error.
Once you do the math, you will find the difference is a % that you can use @ any speed to do a correction, possibly in your head.
 

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