Digital GPS speedo offers peace of mind in older cars

Lots of people get in touch with CarsGuide to complain about the accuracy of their car’s speedometer.

When you drive an old HiLux ute, as I do, you often wonder just how far from the mark the speedometer needle could be pointing.

Now I don’t have to wonder, or worry, after a $130 dive into the world of the web.

I’ve found a wireless digital speedomer that uses GPS satellites to give me a continuous and accurate read on my speed.

It’s a Mitsugawa product and I struck up a friendship recently when driving a new Mazda MX-5 in Scotland, where local rules mean the kilometres-per-hour speedometer had to be supplemented by something reading in old-school miles-and-hour.

I found the two-inch Mitsugawa - in a country where metric millimetres are still overruled by historic inches - clear, accurate and easy to position. It can be charged from a car’s power socket and has a powerful suction cap to fix it to the inside of the windscreen.

Back at home, an identical device now allows me to check the accuracy of every test car’s speedometer, as well as providing an easy and instant heads-up display, as well as better clarity than lots of cars with tightly packed readings in a compact dial.

My stick-on speedometer runs for 20-ish hours between USB plug-ins, is well lit for night work, and is a lot cheaper than a full-scale GPS satellite navigation system that provides similar accuracy but with a much smaller speedometer readout.

What are your thoughts on speedometer accuracy, especially in older cars? What other products or solutions have you used or heard about? Let us know in the comments section below.