Latest news with #speedometer
Motor 1
01-07-2025
- Automotive
- Motor 1
‘Look at This. Tell Me What's Wrong:' Man's Wife Has A Volkswagen Atlas. He Can't Tell if the Speedometer Works
A man hops into his wife's beloved Volkswagen Atlas and is immediately confused by how the speedometer is labeled. Luckily, the internet was around to offer an easy explanation. TikTok user Nick (@younglawyer) posed the question in a video posted on Saturday. 'Listen, maybe I'm an idiot, but can someone explain this to me, please?' he says to start the video. 'My wife has a Volkswagen Atlas. Look at the speedometer. Look at this. Tell me what's wrong.' He then turns his camera around to show the speedometer in question. 'You guys see those little lines? And the little lines, each one is the same distance apart?' he asks. 'Tell me why it goes space, line, 5, space, 10, space, 20—OK, whoa, that was a huge jump—and then, small space between 20 and 25.' He points out the inconsistent spacing and numbering. 'The math's not mathing. Maybe it's girl math. I don't know. Let me know,' he says. Viewers Suggest It's Because Volkswagen Is German In the comments section, viewers jumped in to help. Several pointed out that because Volkswagen is a German automaker, its speedometers are designed to accommodate both kilometers per hour (kph) and miles per hour (mph). Of course, that design would lead to uneven spacing when the gauge is marked in mph. One person speculated, 'It would be evenly spaced for kilometers. They just put mph digits wherever they lined up appropriately, maybe? Weird no matter what.' A second person said, 'It's not because it's kph, it's because they want to use the same gauge for kph and mph and the font would be too small if you used 10 unit major increments all the way through the range. It is weird they have two different range increments. It's probably they just wanted highway speeds for both kph and mph to be near the top.' A third user joked, 'German to English translation.' How Does the Global Auto Market Play into This? Some users in the comments section implied that not designing a speedometer especially for the US market reflected poorly on Volkswagen's commitment to design. But it's important to note that automakers frequently share parts and source parts from other countries to keep prices down. That's why the industry balked at US President Donald Trump's proposed tariff hike . It makes sense that certain parts of the vehicle you bought from a German company would be designed with the idea that it would eventually be sold in countries around the world. How to Change the Units of Measure in Your Volkswagen Depending on the model, it's fairly easy to change the units of measurement in your Volkswagen from imperial to metric and back. Drivers can do this by going into their vehicle's settings menu. Myers Hunt Club Volkswagen offers this helpful tutorial on YouTube. Motor1 reached out to Nick via TikTok comment and direct message for comment. Now Trending 'Always [Do] Your Diligence:' Facebook Marketplace Customer Buys Car in Walmart Parking Lot. Then His Mechanic Checks the Carfax 'Looks Like We Both Winning:' Lyft Customer Gets Charged $80 for Ride. Then She Asks Her Driver This Question That Saves Her $40 Get the best news, reviews, columns, and more delivered straight to your inbox, daily. back Sign up For more information, read our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use . Share this Story Facebook X LinkedIn Flipboard Reddit WhatsApp E-Mail Got a tip for us? Email: tips@ Join the conversation ( )
Times
11-06-2025
- Automotive
- Times
Does changing my car's wheel size affect the speedometer?
Q. I want to put 21in alloys on my Porsche Cayenne, replacing the 20in wheels. It occurred to me that I may have to recalibrate the speedometer and odometer to take account of the larger circumference of the tyre. Is this correct and, if so, how do I do it? GF, Renfrew A. Speedometers work by counting how many times the wheels rotate over a given time. A wheel covers a fixed distance each time it turns (the circumference) so a speedo can work out how much distance it has covered and the speed. You would think that changing the size of the wheels alters the circumference, so the speedo will be affected, but remember that what we refer to as the wheel is actually the combination of the metal wheel and the tyre. If you are moving to a larger wheel, you simply fit thinner tyres so the overall diameter and circumference stays roughly the same. • Is it worth getting my car's paintwork and upholstery treated? If the overall diameter of the new wheels is within 1 per cent of the diameter of the current ones it will make virtually no difference to your speedo and odometer. You can work this out for yourself if you're reasonably adept at basic arithmetic, although it is slightly complicated by the fact that tyres are one of the few products that mix metric and imperial measurements in their specification — tyre width is in millimetres, wheel size is in inches. If you want to do the sums, there's an example later. Thankfully, there are easier options. One is to use an online tyre-size calculator; these are available on many tyre suppliers' websites. Even simpler is to consult your owner's handbook. Without knowing the year and exact model of your Cayenne, we can't give you the right sizes, but if you don't have the handbook, go to and enter your vehicle identification number. The site will bring up the official handbook for your car and you can look up Porsche's recommended tyres sizes for different wheels. • Does a car's colour affect its resale value? As an example, we picked a 2023, petrol, 6-cylinder model. The right size for a 20in wheel, front axle, is 275/45 ZR20 whereas for the 21in wheel it's 285/40 ZR21. The first number, 275 or 285, is the width of the tyre in mm, the second is the aspect ratio, or the thickness (height) of the tyre as a percentage of the width. The number after the ZR is the wheel diameter in inches. So, for the smaller 20in wheel the tyre is 123.75mm thick and for the larger, 21in wheel the tyre is thinner, at 114mm. Convert to inches and the total diameter of the 20in fitment is 29.74in, and the 21in wheel plus tyre is 29.98in. Of course, the important figure is the overall circumference (ie the distance covered for each turn of the wheel) and to get that, multiply the diameter by π (3.142). So, the 20in set-up travels 93.44in (2,373mm) for each turn and the 21in goes for 94.17in (2,392mm). This is a difference of well under 1 per cent and will make no discernible difference to the speedo or odometer. As a comparison, it's not much more than the difference in circumference between a new tyre and one worn down to 2mm tread depth. • How can I tell how old my tyres are? One last word of caution: on many later models of Cayenne, there is a menu option that enables you to set the wheel size. This seems to give only the tyre-pressure monitoring system the right information about wheel diameter and doesn't affect the speedometer calibration. So, look in the handbook and buy the tyre size Porsche recommends for your new 21in wheels and you will still have a speedometer and odometer as accurate as with the 20in Shallcross, independent motoring expertPost your motoring questions below or send to carclinic@
Auto Car
25-05-2025
- Automotive
- Auto Car
Digital or analogue: which is best for instrument clusters?
This is down to the size of the digits, but so glacial is the normal rate of change in daily driving anyway that going by the numbers isn't too much of a drag. And with a mildly hybridised engine, an automatic gearbox, busy traffic and New York state's typical upper speed limit of 55mph, it's not like I'm paying the slightest bit of attention to the rev counter either. Were the rotary dial bigger and the supposed speed limit a small red telltale needle, I think the display would be more useful. As I find myself nearing a speed limit from above or below, it would be better to have a needle showing how quickly I'm closing in on it, but the instrument has been relegated to minor or cancelled status. And this is the case all over the car business. Of the new cars I've tested recently, only in a Caterham Seven and a Morgan Supersport have I been overtly aware of a speedo needle spinning around a dial – and the Morgan had a supplementary digital numeric display too. Even in Porsches and Ferraris, where you would expect the needle to move quickly, you find numbers for the speed, alongside, thankfully still, dials for the revs. I think there's an inevitability about this. Two large numerals take up less space than even a small dial, and it's not like one can do away with a digital screen entirely, because modern legislation requires that the driver is presented with ample – often too much – information.
