Fuel economy.....Metric

bert wouda · Post by **bert wouda** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 7:24 pm

We measure our speed and distance by Kilometres, ...and fill our tanks
with Liters ,... pay with Dollars ...all our spanners and sockets are
metric ( thanks the lord )
(it's all metric and so easy to understand ) ...why convert it by
miles and gallons ...!!! ???

BERT

P.S
it's not my intention to offend !!

*******************

Euen · Post by **Euen** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 8:57 pm

Hi Bert

No offence taken.

Unlike you, many of us grew up with miles, gallons, feet and inches etc.
While we have accepted metrics for most things, mpg still seems to be more
widely understood than l/100km, as does a pint as opposed to 600ml!

Cheers
Euen

animalmagic · Post by **animalmagic** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 11:47 pm

Here in UK, they sell fuel by the litre but mileage is still in miles.
Perhaps we should be using litres/100 miles

By the time I was old enough to legally drive (I learnt at age 12!) NZ was
already metric, but I still think in terms of mpg and litres/100km doesn't
mean a thing...

Oh, and an aftermarket CAI, header and back box can give you improved mpg
(or litre/100 km). My overall average over 4 years was around 33mpg with a
peak of 35mpg until I fitted the CAI, etc, now (over the last year) it's
more like 36mpg. Roof is always down. Mine's a 2000 NB 1.8 with LSD.

--
Regards Terry

A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches
is never sure.

--

EricW · Post by **EricW** » Sun Jun 26, 2005 9:31 am

I guess it is all in the way your mind is trained to think. Having been
bought up in MPG it seems much more useful to me to work from known facts.

For instance, if I know that my destination is 30 miles away and my car does
25 miles to the gallon, I know, easily, that if I have two gallons in my
tank, I am going to get there. We do the same calculation for most things,
if a Cessna 172 uses 33 litres an hour, we know we need 66 litres for a 2
hour flight (plus reserves of course)

If my destination is 196 km away and my car does 10.3 L/100km, that, to me,
is not an intutuitive calculation, it is backwards. Mentally, it does not
create a picture.

It would be easier if we said that the car does about 9 km to the litre,
that creates a picture but we dont express it that way.

Hope that explains it

Eric

MX5PWR · Post by **MX5PWR** » Sun Jun 26, 2005 10:43 am

Like you Eric, I have been bought up by both my Grandfather and Father to
think in MPG and I doubt my first car which was a 1958 Humber 80 would have
been too happy having Litres put in it !!!

When buying timber, I realy confuse it by wanting 2 Mtre of 4 x 2 !! go
figure.

Nigel

poison · Post by **poison** » Sun Jun 26, 2005 11:23 am

Also doing the 'ton' will never be right in the metric system... 160km/hr
just does not sound the same.

Gazza
"PO1SON"

EricW · Post by **EricW** » Sun Jun 26, 2005 5:39 pm

Oooh! you have made me go all nostalgic!

I also had a Humber 80, a yellow and cream one, can't quite recall the year,
but it could have been a '58, it was the model before the one with little,
turned over, fins. I stilll see one puttering up the Northern Motorway some
nights.

Actually, for their time they were a damned good car, they were not cheap,
about 1100 quid new. I think it was '64 that one won the Monte Carlo and
East African rallies and there were a lot of hot ones about, they handled
very well for their day. But can you imagine racing with a column change,
hell, some of our younger members have probably never even seen one. It is
not everything that has changed for the best!

Eric

bert wouda · Post by **bert wouda** » Sun Jun 26, 2005 5:51 pm

I had a Loydd Alexander 1957 (made by Borgward - Germany ) ... 2
Cylinder Overhead Cam (chain ) and frontwheel drive ( bought it for 25
dollars !!! )
made my own big bore , and cruised along the dyks !!!

BERT
***************

Who is online