In the UK and western Europe speedometers over read your speed by about 10%, but when I was in Canada I noticed the speed seemed to be very accurate. Was this just the car I was in or is this standard practice?
2007-09-04 03:31:36 · 7 answers · asked by Anonymous in Cars & Transportation ➔ Safety
"In the UK and western Europe speedometers over read your speed by about 10%!"
Says who?
What about Eastern European, Japanese, Korean, Indian etc., cars on our roads?
Are you saying they all show different values for the same speed?
I think someone is having you on!
2007-09-04 03:49:38 · answer #1 · answered by Hugo Fitch 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋
in the USA at the time your vehicle was produced, there were a lot of people who flew to Germany to take delivery of their new MB vehicle, it included a 2 week tour of the country where you accumulated enough mileage to pass a known mile point then when you were going to return to the US and ship your vehicle home, you were shipping a used car and it saved a ton of money for the owner. It was a loophole as I remember those vehicles, now known as gray market cars in California (because they were not necessarily made to pass emission control laws in the US), anyway they had a speedometer that displayed KM/hr and not MPH. Sometime in the mid 80's, American car makers had both, if standard, the miles were on the outside of the circle and kilos were on the inner track, basically it used the same needle, it made it easier than converting in your head as you are driving. If electronic you could push the reset button and it would switch between miles and kilos. Try pushing the buttons on the speedo and see which it has. You may want to look under the hood and see what country that vehicle was originally designed for, I know they are real popular in Seattle where they convert them to run of recycled cooking grease from fast food restaurants, they say the exhaust then smells like french fries. good luck!
2016-05-21 01:18:01 · answer #2 · answered by ? 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Most likely the car you were in. It is also possible that you had clear traffic allowing you to move at a fairly constant speed, which could explain the perceived accuracy. Without an external measuring device known to be accurate, you would have to depend on covering a particular distance in a given time. Canadian highway signs are also more accurate in terms of distance to locations down the road.
2007-09-04 03:43:38 · answer #3 · answered by fangtaiyang 7 · 1⤊ 2⤋
most are very accurate... i have noticed Toyota's tend to say you are going faster than you really are....
here in California we have marked 5 mile calibration zones along the highways
2007-09-04 03:46:44 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
all speedometers are very accurate, until you pass 100 mph then they are about 10-15% inaccurate
2007-09-04 03:40:21 · answer #5 · answered by andy f 2 · 0⤊ 3⤋
The length of the American mile (in the U.S.A.) is only 1000 yards, not 1760 yards as in the U.K.
2007-09-04 04:12:42 · answer #6 · answered by Ridgmonthome 1 · 0⤊ 5⤋
Ridgmonthome: a mile is 5,280 feet...no matter where you go.
2007-09-04 05:25:58 · answer #7 · answered by ? 4 · 4⤊ 0⤋