Miles or kilometers?

Mycroft H

Who still uses the 'old' system? Who still measures distance in miles and speed in mph? Or consumption in mpg?

Or who is a fully complying european and uses metric system for everything?

I for one use the old system. I've no concept of speed in km/h. Say he was doing 110kph and I will still convert that to 70mph. And i still dont get the km per liter or liter per km.......

mikemac

They stopped teaching the imperial system in school over twenty years ago.

I suppose it was easy for me as I wasn't long driving when the metric system was introduced. So I switched straight away.

As for mpg??
Does your odometer show miles (possibly it does)
Do you buy fuel by the gallon? Certainly not

L/100 km seems so much easier to me

Get with the times old timer

peasant

Fully metric here, always have been. Only since I moved here did I have to grapple with miles, mpg and my personal bugbear ...feckin' inches and fractions thereof.

Having said that, Im not completely "modern" either. I still can't think in kw and much prefer the old fashioned PS and I guess I will never fill my tyres with x hectopascal of air ...bar all the way.

Pete4779

l per 100km is a bit insane though. It makes more sense to have km per litre, so you know immediately with 10 litres I can travel x km.

You're journey is 78km, how much fuel do you put it when you only understand l/100km? It's counterintuitive. It's useful as a manufacturing figure to gain lifetime consumption figures for press releases, but litres per km, or km per litre makes more sense from the consumer perspective IMHO.

Henry Ford III

I still think in imperial units. Old habits die hard.

mike65

I somehow think in both at the same time except for fuel consumption - mpg clearly easier than liters per 100 km.

Gumbo

metric for work (Draughtsman)
but im purely MPH in the car, just cant get my head around the whole L/100km etc etc (although never really looked into it)

EPM

Dont really mind whether the car is in miles or kilometres...mines in km's but that means the stoooopid l/100km craic. I could get my head around mpg if it could be changed but sadly it cant. The only figure I have in my head is that 7.0 is ok (40mpg) but haven't the foggiest on how to do a quick calculation on it

mumblin deaf ro

What about horse power - isn't there any more modern way of expressing a car's power power?

Masada

Im metric in everything except the speedo, i hate to hear people saying "i was doing 180 down the motorway there the other day". i'm old fashioned and it makes more sense to me to say 110mph.

Creamy Goodness

road signs are in km/hr so i use that.

plus my speedometer is only in km/hr so i just use that.

Bandara

still on the old system....

stopped by a unmarked cop car about 6 months ago, was tearing home from work about 11pm on the empty motorway at about 90 mph, copper drives up behind me flashes the lights etc and I pull over.

He's giving me serious lackery about what if a small child (with the head of a baby deer that does lots of charity work for the blind orphans of fatima etc etc) had run out in front of me (on a motorway, about 9 miles from the nearest house, at 11 at night).

Then he starts talking rubbish about me aparently doing over 150, to whcih I let rip and tell him not to be so ridiculous that my car is not capable of doing 150mph and to cop on to himself and stop talking sh!te.

I kind of realised towards the end of my scornful rant that he meant 150kph.

That'll be two points pls. Thank you officer.

:rolleyes:

mickdw

My car clocks are in Km but i still use miles and mpg in my thought process. Luckily, I can also set my car to show trip info etc in miles together with a little digital display of speed in mph also if required.

mike65

mumblin deaf ro wrote: »

What about horse power - isn't there any more modern way of expressing a car's power power?

PS is used on le continent but its BHP by another name really.

Dartz

mike65 wrote: »

PS is used on le continent but its BHP by another name really.

kW... kiloWatts. Same as an electric fire.

Can't remember the conversion between kW and BHP off the top of my head though, mind.

Mycroft H

1hp = 746watts

So your 110hp diesel = 82060watts or 82kW.

Or 27 standard kettles

Mena

I had only just got used to miles when we switched over to Km's. which I've been using for over 35 years. BHP is starting to make sense but Kw is still the preferred unit.

MPG? Still no freeking clue what a gallon is, let alone a mile and certainly not arsed to figure it out. l/100km or km/litre make perfect sense to me.

Green Hornet

I've a Civic and it has a digital display which can interchange between both at the flick of a switch. Trouble is that it makes it too easy to continue to use the old mph system. I've tried to change but can't get used to kph.

Shouldn't really have a choice but I imagine it's cheaper to use the one console for Eurpoean and US markets rather than manufacture 2 separate units.

ShooterSF

Only 24 but use imperial Every distance sign I divide by 10 multiply by 6. Add one for every 40km. I don't even think about it anymore it's automatic.

Wertz

I'm dual use myself...I measure and relate distances in miles...a KM has very little actual meaning to me.
I use MPG for my consumption, as I find it much easier to equate than L/100km (even though it's years since petrol was even sold by the gallon).
Speed, I use KMph (although my speedo is mph with the small secondary KM dial) since that's what's on the signage.
I can work in either (same when it comes to any imperial/metric system) but I just prefer it the above way...

Lauder

Im 21, and even though I was never formally taught the Imperial system, i use it for most things, its far easier to understand and more practical.

I still use feet for my height, stones for my weight, pounds getting rashers in the butchers, and MPH in the car.

The imperial system has its failings, but it is easier to understand than metric. Its easier to VISUALISE imperial measures.

Mycroft H

ShooterSF wrote: »

Only 24 but use imperial Every distance sign I divide by 10 multiply by 6. Add one for every 40km. I don't even think about it anymore it's automatic.

Except i divide by 8 and multiply by 5. More accurate!

mikemac

Lauder wrote: »

I still use feet for my height, stones for my weight, pounds getting rashers in the butchers, and MPH in the car.

Indeed, I remember getting strange looks at a butcher counter asking for 200gm of mince

Lauder wrote: »

Its easier to VISUALISE imperial measures.

Not realy, it's just easier to visualize what you are used to as you have reference points and you're able to compare them in your own mind
Look at rugby, in newspaper articles they sometimes list player as maybe 1m 90cm and 92kg in their previews
Now if you know the player, it's easy to see.

I know I'm 1m 77cm but I've no idea what's that in feet & inches. Works for me

jozi

Had gotten used to feet/inches/mph after moving here. Prefer km/m/cm to miles, can't see the sense in XX inches XX/XX of an inch.

When driving I convert to mph because at a glance its the easiest to see on the speedo. Can't relate to L/100km, MPG I can in the sence that I know higher is better but not in how far it takes me.

congo_90

I'm 18, typically being brought up in school with metric measurements (construction,engineering, phyics, maths) I would prefer now-adays to use metric. I can relate speeds in either and I can't ger my head around yards,inches etc!
was looking at tiles today for the bathroom per yard.. the guy got pissed when I asked him if he knew metre squared!

My car is in mph but the car I first drove was an 06 so it was metric all the way.
Like most the whole L/100km is annoying and is the only measurement i'd prefer imperial to simply because it's easier!

Km/h Ftw

unkel

I use them all, some a bit more than others. The only one I never liked using (and have most difficulty converting to without a calculator) was the l per 100km...

Pete4779 wrote: »

l per 100km is a bit insane though. It makes more sense to have km per litre, so you know immediately with 10 litres I can travel x km.

You're journey is 78km, how much fuel do you put it when you only understand l/100km? It's counterintuitive.

+1

Fishtits

I use both systems every day, whatever the punter prefers...

Metric all the way IMHO, far simpler.

L1011

peasant wrote: »

Fully metric here, always have been. Only since I moved here did I have to grapple with miles, mpg and my personal bugbear ...feckin' inches and fractions thereof.

Having said that, Im not completely "modern" either. I still can't think in kw and much prefer the old fashioned PS and I guess I will never fill my tyres with x hectopascal of air ...bar all the way.

Thankfully bar is metric and an accepted measurement to use within the SI system (but isn't the SI unit obviously). PSI, on the other hand...

NewApproach

mikemac wrote: »

They stopped teaching the imperial system in school over twenty years ago.

I suppose it was easy for me as I wasn't long driving when the metric system was introduced. So I switched straight away.

I started learning to drive only after the metric came in yet I would still tend to use imperial when talking about speed. Why I'm not too sure, probably a) becuase the speedo's primary reading in miles and b) becuase most people still use miles (at least I find), so using k's would just be arkward.

Saying that I can convert them easily enough in my head, but default thinking is miles!

L-M

I'm still on miles/ mpg etc.

I wish I could understand that whole litres per kilometer, but I couldn't be arsed. I haven't come across one person/customer who has asked me the consumption in litres per kilometer.

unkel

Limerick man wrote: »

I haven't come across one person/customer who has asked me the consumption in litres per kilometer.

I'm not surprised

L-M

unkel wrote: »

I'm not surprised

Hardy har har har:pac:

Edit: When some one does ask, I'll be suprised, as I don't know. I must find them out, lol.

2nd edit: Per 100, same thing... Lol, I thought you were joking at the lack of customers.

L1011

Limerick man wrote: »

Hardy har har har:pac:

Edit: When some one does ask, I'll be suprised, as I don't know. I must find them out, lol.

2nd edit: Per 100, same thing... Lol, I thought you were joking at the lack of customers.

You'd have some vehicles where litres per kilometre wouldn't be far off though, right?

L-M

Arrgghh go away, lol. You can't say anything around here without being picked up on it:pac:

leeroybrown

I've converted over recently as all the instruments in my latest car are in Km.

The 'litres per 100km' actually makes sense when you think about it. As an inverse measurement it shows the actual saving in fuel rather than the change in efficiency. Using the classic miles per gallon measurement tends to hide the fact that the a 2mpg increase in efficiency means very little to someone getting 50mpg but an awful lot to someone (like me) getting closer to 20mpg around town. It does result in a very easily comparable figure for efficiency.

zilog_jones

Grew up with metric stuff, never bothered with most imperial measurements, e.g. never really used stone because our weighing scale doesn't have them and I could never be arsed dividing by 14, same for pounds, feet, etc. Who actually knows how many feet or yards are in a mile? (no looking up now )

Only started driving in 2006, but rarely get to drive a post-metric car. So speed limit speeds are metric for me, but anything under 30MPH is imperial (don't ask!). Long distances here are km, but my trip counter and odometer are miles and never bother converting. I use MPG because as proven by this thread only weird people and dem foreigners use l/100km - gallons serve no other purpose for me. PSI because bars just seem too large for tyre pressure (decimal fractions? Get outta here). BHP because PS is equally silly and only Aussies use kW for cars. Torques are Nm though!

So yeah, it's a mess...

McSpud

Car has mph so I still convert back to mph. Even if car was metric not sure I would change. Maybe I would change for distances but don't think I would stop talking about speed in mph yet...

Zube

Limerick man wrote: »

I wish I could understand that whole litres per kilometer, but I couldn't be arsed.

I never bothered until I got the current car, where the trip computer is either in metric or imperial. Since I use km, I get l/100Km on the computer, so I looked it up.

6 is 45 mpg, 7 is 40, 9 is 30. That covers the range I need.

In theory, 3 is 90 mpg (remember the three litre polo from a couple of years back?), and 14 is 12, but I never see those figures.

Dampsquid

To convert from mpg to l/100km, just divide the mpg value into 280.

eg. 40mpg = 280/40= 7 l/100km