My car has an old Chinese VDO Speedo that is run off a cable. It is 8 mph fast and the needle jumps all over the place and the speedo makes all types of squealing and grinding noises. I was thinking of replacing it with a GPS driven VDO Speedo from Special Edition. Any thoughts? Anyone have experience going this route. I can't get my old one fixed for what I can buy a new one from Special Edition for. Comments appreciated.
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I did this. The new GPS gauges are smaller in diameter (& note period accurate) than the Chinese gauges. If you change, I recommend doing all and Carey can provide you with gaskets to make up the difference so that they match. Here’s what my dash looks like after the swap.
With the Suby setup, you’ll need to keep the speedo cable because it drives a sender that feeds the ECU, but you can tuck that up under the dash.
Also, to avoid GPS access time, the gauges are hot at all times which means you have to keep an eye on the battery. I can go about 10 days before my battery is dead, but I’m also running a smaller track battery.
There is a bit of a lag on the speedo when you accelerate, but it’s tolerable.
I’m very happy that I made the switch.
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Thanks, I was thinking of switching just the Speedo for now. He is sending a trim ring to fill the space. Now I wonder what it will look like next to the other gauges.
It will look smaller. If you want it to look good you should probably get the whole kit. So far as I know, nobody doesn't like the new gauges—big improvement over the Chinese pseudo-VDOs.
That said, your symptoms sound like you have a kinked or failing cable. Buy a new one, install it carefully, with no sharp bends, and see what happens.
I am very please with my GPS speedometer purchased recently from Beck. Yes, it is slightly smaller but with the gasket provided by Carey it will fit just fine in a Vintage Speedster instrument panel and very few if any will notice the difference.
It's very accurate and makes a big difference if you like to drive fast out in the country with the secure knowledge that you will always know exactly how fast you are going.
cp. . . with no tickets yet.
Thanks Cliff. If you could send me a pic. of your dash it would help me decide if I am going to mix Carey's Speedo with my existing gauges.
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I did mine a couple of years ago when the gauge set was fairly new. Carey was great to work with and the set looks great. I did not wire it hot all the time so there were no issues with battery draw. It takes a little time to power up and acquire the necessary satellites but then it's just fine.