So I picked up my car on Saturday, and was shocked to see it was using 10.7 litres per 100km, which I assumed was the standard form of metric fuel consumption, which equates to about 25mpg!!!.

On further inspection, it seems the figure is actual 10.7 litres per 100 miles , which is about 45mpg (much more like it).

Anyone know why there would be a strange mixture of metric and imperial units in this reading?

Seems a bit odd to me, can't see any way to change it to mpg either.

Presumably it measures fuel usage in lites and distance in your countries distance unit (miles in the UK), in an attempt to be helpful. I have no idea if firmware/software updates are available though

You can change the computer to read KM (l / 100km, avg speed in km, dist to 0 in km) or to imperial, but I stupidly assumed that changing it to imperial (avg speed in miles, dist to 0 in miles) would change to the standard mpg figure, but it doesn't, it comes up with some bastardized metric and imperial lovechild!!!!.

Minor annoyance in an otherwise decent car!

I imgaine your brain will soon get used to it. It's pretty handy for working out price/mile too, with the volume in litres.

Thats actually a very good point.

Considering our fuel is brought in litres, and our distances are in miles, that figure makes perfect sense!!!, its blindingly obvious now!

Quote from danowat :

Considering our fuel is brought in litres, and our distances are in miles

cue laughter from other countries on both sides of the atlantic...

When you think about it, many of our units of measurement are strange combinations of metric and imperial.

Yes, like road-signs. Large distances are measured in miles, small distances in metres.

So you can have 'parking 1/2 a mile' followed by 'parking 200m' a bit further on. I imagine it's to do with having to use the units that people are most familiar with for something like driving, where you only have a second to interpret what you see. When the change to metric came in, yards were very easy to replace with metres, as they're pretty much the same, but miles to km is harder for people to make the psychological change.

Forgive my blatant ignorance in this post as I've only been on this side of the puddle - but why would the UK measure distances in miles while everything else is metric? Why would you not keep the simplicity of meters, and kilometers... Damn, and here I though the United States was idiotic for choosing a, very odd system for measure. 12in = 1foot, 3feet = 1yrd. WTF? I mean, when you grow up using it there is no problem - until you get into physics and then conversions are just plain stupid compared to the lovely metric system based on 10, imagine that - a system based off the number system that we use! Far too much sense there. But then to go a step further and combine metric volume with imperial distance - WTF??? You just blew my mind...

On the other hand, even though the math is easier and cleaner with the metric system, I can't exactly relate to the numbers. I am still working on it, and I know some of the exact conversion multipliers - but I am talking about being able to judge things without converting. For instance I know a 2 story building is somewhere around 18 to 20 feet tall. But without manually thinking about it I couldn't guess how tall it is in meters. (I can compare 18 feet = 6 yards which roughly equals 6 meters...) Ahh well /rant.

Because "we" don't like change.

Road signs in the UK are in imperial - miles and yards. However, as a yard is pretty much the same as a meter, they can be used interchangeably up to small distances.

The cost of changing everything to metric would be huge, and it would be a complete waste of money. Nobody would gain anything from the change, other than other services (NHS or prisons or childcare or road maintenance) having to cut back. And I think the services are rather more important than the units used on the road signs.

Besides, imperial isn't actually worse.

No-one likes change. You just need to bring these things in slowly. If all the units suddenly changed overnight there would be chaos (at least for a few months until everyone gets used to them) as no-one would be able to accurately judge anything without having to perform mental calculations, and when you're driving at 70mph those few extra seconds can be dangerous.

Give it a few years and we'll be quoting fuel efficiencies in l/km, but until then be happy we've got as far as l/mile.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Road signs in the UK are in imperial - miles and yards. However, as a yard is pretty much the same as a meter, they can be used interchangeably up to small distances.

The cost of changing everything to metric would be huge, and it would be a complete waste of money. Nobody would gain anything from the change, other than other services (NHS or prisons or childcare or road maintenance) having to cut back. And I think the services are rather more important than the units used on the road signs.

Besides, imperial isn't actually worse.

I never said imperial was worse, but it does make mathematics more complicated; 100cm = 0.1m but 100in != .1 1.0 10.0 or any other clean number of another imperial unit be feet, yards or whatever. 100cm is also 0.0001km another, still clean example of moving the decimal point. (I believe I moved it correctly :P). I wasnt recommending changing that either, but I was surprised to learn that distances are in miles in the UK - dunno, I just never knew that and had always assumed it was all done with the metric system.

Quote from blackbird04217 :

100cm is also 0.0001km another, still clean example of moving the decimal point. (I believe I moved it correctly :P).

You did not.

It is the same with alot of things though, decimalisation was supposed to make things easier due to the points you raised with the maths but it just failed. You buy petrol in litres, but your beer in pints. We use miles not km. Ask 99% of people how tall they are and they will tell you in feet and inches, or how heavy and it will be in stones/pounds not metres or Kg. Strange but true lol.

100 cm = 1m
centi = 1/100th
it's as simple as that.

Although I seem to have trouble understanding why you would use the imperial standard, (which is a bit hard to learn) and THEN mix it with the normal system to create a semi-imperial system which is even more complicated.
@Earth: drive right, use metrical system, done.

Quote from Greboth :

It is the same with alot of things though, decimalisation was supposed to make things easier due to the points you raised with the maths but it just failed. You buy petrol in litres, but your beer in pints. We use miles not km. Ask 99% of people how tall they are and they will tell you in feet and inches, or how heavy and it will be in stones/pounds not metres or Kg. Strange but true lol.

That is what I was talking about with it is easier to relate / compare with the imperial system. But that is also because we grew up relating to that system. If from day one I was taught to measure myself in centimeters, then I would have a pretty damn good idea of how far something is in cm, m or km... But I didn't so I have to figure it out but process of knowing that 1yd is near 1m in length and then follow through comparing that way.

About the beer in pints, well that is still part of the same thing. We buy milk in gallons and gas in gallons. And some drinks come in quarts/liters which are close enough to compare (although again not exact). So if we had always bought, measured and used liters there would be no issue comparing/relating the sizes. This is getting slightly off the original topic. i just pointed out that I hadn't known distances (or other things for that matter) were measured using the same system that is common on this side of the puddle - and I didn't realize this from the sake of being mocked by others how superior the metric system is. Which it isn't superior in anyway until it comes to simplifying the math, and even then as long as you know 12in are in 1foot you can use math to convert for you...

At work everything we do is pressurized. We work with one piece of equipment in PSI. The next equipment in the process is in MPa. The final finished part is molded in bar.

We buy pop (soda probably for you guys, it's pop in Pittsburgh/western PA) in 12 ounce cans, 24 ounce bottles, and then 2 liter bottles. Milk is broken down to gallon, half gallon, quart, and pint, but fuel is in gallons to fraction of gallons.

A recipe may call for a tablespoon of butter, or it can call for a 1/4 pound of butter.

If you work on your car, it really gets messed up. You may need a 9/16 inch wrench for this bolt, but the next bolt you need a 14 mm wrench.

why don't we just abolish the imperial system altogether?

I was thinking completely the same over past few years. Why do you still use it? Especially americans, who always search for methods to ease your's life, but imperial system just complicates it
1km=1000m
1m=100cm
1cm=10mm and so on... and in imperial... TBH I don't even know how much is what

I think it all boils down to what you are used to.

I was brought up on feet and inches, stones and pounds and miles, because of that it is much easier (and quicker) for me to visualize imperial measurements, if someone says to me, I drove at 83mph today, I can picture that, if someone says, I drove at 116km/h today, without working it out, I can't visualize how fast that is, its the same with height and weight.

Tyres are weird like that for mixing inperial and metric too, for example 195/50/15.

195mm wide, the sidewall height is 50% of the width, then the diameter of the tyre? 15 inches!

Give it time.
We only introduced the decimal system for money in 1971.

Quote from danowat :

I think it all boils down to what you are used to.

I was brought up on feet and inches, stones and pounds and miles, because of that it is much easier (and quicker) for me to visualize imperial measurements, if someone says to me, I drove at 83mph today, I can picture that, if someone says, I drove at 116km/h today, without working it out, I can't visualize how fast that is, its the same with height and weight.

But seriously dude,

A stone?
that's just... no
And what's up with this feet and inches, when do you go from feet to inch and etc.
just 1 meter and 70 cm or 1,70 meter is sooooo much easier.
It's just useable.

Pfff......bloody euros.....

A stone is 14lbs of course, and a foot is 12 inches, makes perfect sense to me.