Review of Harley Davidson Combination Speedometer/Tachometer

I have a 2009 Harley Davidson Road King Classic, which is the big touring bike with the police style windscreen, not the big faring. The speedometer is mounted on the gas tank and is pretty spartan. It includes the speedometer and idiot lights for the security system, low gas warning, engine, battery, cruise, ABS, and a 6th gear indicator. It also includes a small LCD readout that lets you cycle through five pieces of information: time, odometer, tripometer A, tripometer B and miles remaining.

Stock speedometer on Road King Classic
(click for larger view)

The biggest piece of missing data is engine speed, or a tachometer.

Harley just released a new unit that combines a speedometer and tachometer into one unit for a fairly reasonable price. It is $299 for the Road King units, and I got model 70900070, which is MPH only. They also have a MPH/KPH combo or KPH only. They also make a version for late model Dyna's and Softails. Harley has had combo units before, but they started around $499, which is pretty steep and in my opinion, they weren't terribly attractive.

New Combination Speedometer/Tachometer
(click for larger view)

The new unit, shown here, has all of the same idiot lights as the stock unit, but includes a few other items. It has a small tachometer on the right and a much larger LCD screen that conveys the same five screens the stock unit does, plus fuel level and gear indicators. The brushed aluminum face looks good on my bike and should go with any style you have.

Installation was a snap. Took my wife and me about 30-45 minutes. It is best to have a partner for some of it so you aren't having to worry about the console scratching the gas tank while removed. If you don't work on your bike much, or ever, or you don't have the serice manual, pay someone to install it. The instruction sheet is one of the worst HD has published and it assumes you have the service manual. It basically lists 4 steps.

1. See the service manual to remove the seat and main fuse.
2. See the service manual to remove the console.
3. See the service manual to remove the speedometer.
4. See the service manual to install the new speedometer.

Before doing that, you need to transfer your mileage from the old unit to the new unit. This is all done electronically with a cable and the on-board computer, but again, to find the right cables to connect, you need the service manual. If you are 100% clueless and have the service manual, you'll be fine. I guess HD wanted to save money on paper because all of the service manual instructions would have taken at least two more pieces of paper.

So what about the unit itself?

Once installed, everything works as expected except Tripometer B. It is preset at 30+ miles and as you ride, the miles tick down towards zero. This tells you how many miles you have left before the unit permanently mates itself to your bike's computer. Once that happens, there are no returns and no swapping bikes. It is also a bit of a theft deterrent, as anyone with common tools and 5 minutes could remove this from your bike. There is no point though because they'd just have a useless hunk of plastic. And it is plastic, but so is the stock unit. Once tripometer B hits zero, it starts functioning normally as a second tripometer, which I use for long trips to match miles with turning directions.

The fuel indicator on this device is much more useful than the large analog gauge on the left side of the gas tank, which I found to be so worthless I completely ignored it and just relied on how many miles I've ridden between fuel ups. That combined with the gas warning light have worked fine. The more accurate digital display on the speedometer is now at least as useful as a gas gauge in a car.

New Combo unit with lights on. This is the default
yellow/orange color.
(click for larger view)

The gear indicators, located in the LCD readout, are nice too. It calculates your gear by comparing your speed and engine RPMs. If you've changed gears ratios in your bike, you should contact Harley before installing this or the numbers may be off. I noticed too if I was feathering the clutch heavily in 2nd gear, the indicator would show I was in 1st, but was ok once I released the lever. In a bit of duplication, the gear indicator will show 6th gear and the big green 6 on the speedometer will light up just like the stock speedometer. Not sure why HD didn't remove the green indicator and just stick with those on the LCD.

I like the gear indicators because it often keeps me from needlessly shifting up or down and having to shift back. For example, my bike doesn't do well in 6th gear below 60mph and really likes it to be 65mph+. If I am on a road and it feels like it is winding out a bit, I can now look down and see I am in 5th and leave it alone if I am below those speeds. I know, some of you can tell just by the sound of the motor. Well, I can't. First of all I have three different ways to hear the motor. Daily commuting I wear a 3/4 helmet. For really short trips, I'll wear a half helmet and for long trips, I wear the half helmet with Radian custom molded ear plugs (which I highly recommend). Add to that going uphill in 5th gear at 55 has a different sound than going downhill in the same gear and same speed. I am not ashamed to admit I like the numbers.

Both the fuel gauge and gear indicator can be turned off in the settings if you don't like one or both of them.

The real reason for this unit though is the tachometer. I've never seen a car with a manual transmission that didn't have a tach, but it is odd that most bikes, at least most cruisers, don't have one. Very few Harley's have them except for most of the touring bikes, V-Rods and any of the CVOs. The Road Kings are in the touring family, but they don't have a tach. You just get a huge speedometer and tiny LCD readout for your clock and odometer. The tach on this new unit works well, though it is a bit small. My preference would have been to have the tach be where the speedometer is, and then where the tach is have a digital speedo readout. However, this layout works well and looks slick.

In addtion to disabling the fuel gauge or gear indicator, you can choose the colors of several areas of the device. There are 600 colors to choose from, which is way too many in my opinion. 32-64 colors would have been plenty. Going with 600 means there are too many shades to deal with. Just how many washed out greens do you need to choose from? This is what you can set:

• The unit as a whole. Everything is the same color.
• The speedo and tach face. These cannot be done separately for some reason.
• The speedo needle.
• The tach needle.
• The LCD readout at the bottom.

I've tried a number of combos, but finally settled on red for everything. It is the easiest to see. Color 509 seems to be the truest red available. There is also a dim/bright setting. I've heard some people think the bright setting is too distracting and reflects off of the windscreen, but I didn't find that to be the case.

There is also a light sensor on it somewhere. The unit doesn't light up at all in the daylight hours, but if you ride through a tunnel, within 2 seconds the lights will come on, and it of course comes on at night.

At $299, this is a fantastic deal and I highly recommend it for any Road King owner that has a model that supports it, which right now is 2008 and later. I've heard HD is working on similar versions for earlier Road Kings, but that is just rumor.