Speedometers

[grogee]

20 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

Saab had a decent solution I thought on the 9-5 where the scale above 100 was heavily condensed, allowing the bit you're actually going to read to be larger and clearer.

 

44 minutes ago, PhilA said:

Didn't SAAB have it so the scale changed once you got to 100, and each graduation became 20 or 25 instead of 10?

Yes. 

I haven't driven mine in the 'fun zone' yet but given that it's supposed to be packing 275bhp it would be fun to try. 

[DSdriver]

21 hours ago, Dyslexic Viking said:

This reminds me. This is the speedometer on a Norwegian sold so kmh diesel Bedford from the 1960s. And the speedometer goes to 140 kmh (86 mph) this will not go 140 even if you drove it off a cliff so why does it have this?  So I'm wondering the same thing.

Did they make a Bedford Lemming perhaps?

[Blake's Den]

I always thought (rightly or wrongly) that the needle position was all about aesthetics. So motorway crusing speed was with the needle  going vertically and the top speed dictated by the symmetry of the 0 mph.

Plenty of exceptions to this from my experience!

Vauxhall cavalier (and many other 90s Vauxhall's) have an asymmetric arc

Alfa 156 has zero at the 6 o'clock position (with 30 and 70 obscured by the steering wheel!)

Worst one I have ever seen was on a MK2 zafaria, I hate those with a passion after having some terrible ones as hire cars. 30 mph and 70mph are both smaller that all the other speeds. So the two speeds that you would use the most are the hardest to see. Slow clap Vauxhall and Opel!

[Asimo]

1 hour ago, Aston Martin said:

On the new M5 CS

That confused mess is in a BMW M5?

30 years ago.

 

[PhilA]

Not so much the speedometer, but my previous truck had a feature on the gauges that irritated the shit out of me.

The aux gauges on the right have nonsensical graduation.

Temperature, for instance.

For a start it goes 75 | 100 | 125 which is fine, in chunks of 25.

But the lines between?

The halfway big marks are 87½, and again 112½

Making the overall scale markings stupid.

75, 78⅛, 81¼, 84⅜, 87½, etc.

 

Phil

[rickvw72]

My old beetle has a high ratio GT Beetle gearbox (rocking horse poo!) and a 90 mph speedo.

Ive twice had it off the clock. 

Im still having therapy.

[grogee]

1 hour ago, PhilA said:

Not so much the speedometer, but my previous truck had a feature on the gauges that irritated the shit out of me.

The aux gauges on the right have nonsensical graduation.

Temperature, for instance.

For a start it goes 75 | 100 | 125 which is fine, in chunks of 25.

But the lines between?

The halfway big marks are 87½, and again 112½

Making the overall scale markings stupid.

75, 78⅛, 81¼, 84⅜, 87½, etc.

 

Phil

Ha! OCD much?

[grogee]

1 hour ago, Blake's Den said:

I always thought (rightly or wrongly) that the needle position was all about aesthetics. So motorway crusing speed was with the needle  going vertically and the top speed dictated by the symmetry of the 0 mph.

Plenty of exceptions to this from my experience!

Vauxhall cavalier (and many other 90s Vauxhall's) have an asymmetric arc

Alfa 156 has zero at the 6 o'clock position (with 30 and 70 obscured by the steering wheel!)

 

There should be a sub-thread for instrumentation font, good and bad. That Cavalier-era Vauxhall I really hated, like Comic Sans Serif. On the 'good' font, 80s Rovers looked cool AF. 

The Alfa 156 speedo is useless as you say. I spend more time looking at the temperature gauge on our 159, "just in case".

[PhilA]

1 hour ago, grogee said:

 80s Rovers 

That's called "Square 721", by the way. Casio liked it also.

[Lacquer Peel]

130mph in a 90bhp van. Aye. 

[Spurious]

On 7/10/2022 at 8:22 PM, Zelandeth said:

Saab had a decent solution I thought on the 9-5 where the scale above 100 was heavily condensed, allowing the bit you're actually going to read to be larger and clearer.

Best dashes going. 

 

The night mode automatically darkens the 90-160 portion too until you decide that 90mph isn't enough at 2am on the empty motorway. 

Soothing green and orange needles. Clear indications of speed. Speed front and centre as that's all that's essential to know 90% of the time. 

Trust the Swedes to do it right. 

[MrGTI6]

I'm sure I must have some mild form of OCD, as I detest speedometers with inconsistent increments. 

 

The speedo in the Volkswagen Up I was driving earlier really pissed me off. 0... 10... 20... 40? I kept finding myself bombing along at 40 through 30 zones.

 

 

Similarly, the Suzuki Ignis I was driving the other day really set me off. It goes up in increments of 20 up to 100, where it inexplicably jumps to 130. And what's that randomly squished between 100 and 130 in a smaller font? That'll be 110, of course. A 120mph speedo would've been fine. Why did Suzuki make such an unnecessary mess of this? I need to go and lie down...

[georgeinabz]

you have to do cool

Sent from my SM-P610 using Tapatalk

[georgeinabz]

On the new M5 CS the speedo goes to 200mph, but it's digital and so you'd spend your life only using the bottom cm to get to 40 anyway.
Surely with digital, you could make a "upto 70 mode" or a "look at my massive cock 200 mode"

Smart gives you depreciation values as your going along , handy , is the car connected to wbac

Sent from my SM-P610 using Tapatalk

[Sham]

I notice the new BMW dials reflect the hideous grill.. after all, if the driver doesn't mind being seen in it, he deserves to have to look at it too.

[red5]

4 hours ago, Blake's Den said:

I always thought (rightly or wrongly) that the needle position was all about aesthetics. So motorway crusing speed was with the needle  going vertically and the top speed dictated by the symmetry of the 0 mph.

Plenty of exceptions to this from my experience!

Vauxhall cavalier (and many other 90s Vauxhall's) have an asymmetric arc

Alfa 156 has zero at the 6 o'clock position (with 30 and 70 obscured by the steering wheel!)

Worst one I have ever seen was on a MK2 zafaria, I hate those with a passion after having some terrible ones as hire cars. 30 mph and 70mph are both smaller that all the other speeds. So the two speeds that you would use the most are the hardest to see. Slow clap Vauxhall and Opel!

 

Err, the easiest to see (at a gance) because they are different...and important...

[RayMK]

1961 Reliant Regal MKVI.  746cc, 17.5bhp when new.  Max speed is 62mph according to original road tests/brochures.  Speedo optimistically goes to 80mph.  Surprisingly, it will happily cruise at any speed from 30-55mph, although I usually keep out of the way on minor roads and cruise at 40mph.

 

[Zelandeth]

6 hours ago, grogee said:

I'm not sure the Capri used the same speedo as Cortina, I thought Capri had separate clocks unlike the integrated panel in Cortina. Someone will be along shortly to correct me I'm sure. 

Your point still stands though, if the mechanical speedo cable and clutch gubbins were common to both, such that speed x = angle A on both cars. 

I think ultimately I felt short-changed that my Dad's 1982 1.6L estate Cortina never did 140mph. 

I have a sneaking feeling that while they had separate dials visually that they were mounted to a single instrument panel behind the trim.  Lancia did a similar thing with the Trevi.

Looks like they're separate units from the outside.

All part of the same cluster once the covers are off though.

A very bonkers looking dash which actually works surprisingly well in the real world though.  Speedometer in that seems entirely reasonable as I don't doubt for a second that car would do a ton plus change.

1 hour ago, MrGTI6 said:

I'm sure I must have some mild form of OCD, as I detest speedometers with inconsistent increments. 

 

The speedo in the Volkswagen Up I was driving earlier really pissed me off. 0... 10... 20... 40? I kept finding myself bombing along at 40 through 30 zones.

 

That would drive me absolutely mad...What on earth were they thinking when that was signed off?!?  You shouldn't have to do mental math when looking at a speedometer to figure out where the heck 30, 50 and 70 are.  The 10 mph markers should be distinct from the 5s...

Even on US cars with the 85mph setup (where the marked speeds generally WERE the 5s, as that's what most speed limits were) they're generally still perfectly clear.  Exhibit A being the dash in my husband's 1989 Cavalier from back when he still lived in the US.

Yes it looks odd given we're used to seeing round numbers marked, but it's still immediately obvious where 20, 30, 40, 50 and 70 are...

A 140mph speedometer in an Up makes about as much sense as an ashtray on a motorbike anyway...It's a city runaround.  There's absolutely no reason whatsoever for it to have anything beyond the 110 one that was fitted to the Pug 107 etc...

[ETCHY]

The 997cc 105e Anglia i had, had a 90mph speedo. I reckon the only way it would've got to that is falling off a cliff.

[MorrisItalSLX]

[AnnoyingPentium]

6 minutes ago, MorrisItalSLX said:

"Milk gets sour, you know. Unless it's UHT milk. But there's no demand for that because it's shite."

[Blake's Den]

2 minutes ago, AnnoyingPentium said:

"Milk gets sour, you know. Unless it's UHT milk. But there's no demand for that because it's shite."

Best Father Ted quote ever!

[warren t claim]

On 7/10/2022 at 8:24 PM, Missy Charm said:

Let's say that the Cortina dates from 1978 (I don't know, but let's not be too pedantic).  In 1978 Ford's were also making the 3.0 Capri, which had a claimed top speed of 123 mph; it was probably their fastest production car at that point.  A 140 mph speedometer would be ideal for the Capri as it covers the full theoretical speed range and has a little bit left over.  

The 2.3 Cortina of the same year could do 108 mph.  Adding a similar 20 mph margin of grace gives 128 mph, or near as damnit 130 mph.  That leads to the question of whether it would be worth specially manufacturing and calibrating a 130 mph clock, which would have a different scale, when the 140 mph clock from the Capri is sitting in the stockroom.  The answer is 'no'.  

Even as a Ford fan I'd say that the 2.3 Cortina was barely any faster than the 2.0. 108 may be a bit optimistic. every 1.6/2.0 Mk4 I owned would indicate more than 100mph flat out.

 

It's the odometers Ford fitted that surprise me as even the Mk7 Escort initially came fitted with a five figure odometer. Was that a UK only feature as 99,999 miles is only about 62000 KMS and surely the Metric market needed a six figure odo?

[UltraWomble]

I'd often* wondered about why the speedo on the Honda Sky went to 60 when the bike only did 30.

However a comparison with the foreign market variants leads to some explanation.

Where 60KMH is 37mph.

 

[Dyslexic Viking]

6 hours ago, warren t claim said:

It's the odometers Ford fitted that surprise me as even the Mk7 Escort initially came fitted with a five figure odometer. Was that a UK only feature as 99,999 miles is only about 62000 KMS and surely the Metric market needed a six figure odo?

The MK7 Escort with metric odometer also only came with 5. The picture below is a Norwegian sold 1997 model.

[grogee]

14 hours ago, MrGTI6 said:

I'm sure I must have some mild form of OCD, as I detest speedometers with inconsistent increments. 

 

The speedo in the Volkswagen Up I was driving earlier really pissed me off. 0... 10... 20... 40? I kept finding myself bombing along at 40 through 30 zones.

 

 

Similarly, the Suzuki Ignis I was driving the other day really set me off. It goes up in increments of 20 up to 100, where it inexplicably jumps to 130. And what's that randomly squished between 100 and 130 in a smaller font? That'll be 110, of course. A 120mph speedo would've been fine. Why did Suzuki make such an unnecessary mess of this? I need to go and lie down...

Both of those can get in the bin. That Suzuki is a bugger's muddle. How did they reach the conclusion that it was acceptable?

[grogee]

13 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

I have a sneaking feeling that while they had separate dials visually that they were mounted to a single instrument panel behind the trim.  Lancia did a similar thing with the Trevi.

All part of the same cluster once the covers are off though.

A very bonkers looking dash which actually works surprisingly well in the real world though.  Speedometer in that seems entirely reasonable as I don't doubt for a second that car would do a ton plus change.

That Lancia suffers from the same instrumentation issue as most Italians of the era - it is never stationary and the engine is never switched off. 

Why couldn't they just let the needle rest at zero? How hard can it be?

[JimH]

Here's an odd inner scale.

And in French...

[JimH]

I always thought it odd that the speedo on the Goddess flipped the numbers round depending on their position. Nice clear scale, though.

 

[JimH]

Weird, non-linear scale and a wildly ambitious maximum reading when the vehicle was capable of an absolute maximum of 28 mph with a freaky odometer layout as an added bonus. This is the speedo from the Scammel Pioneer.