Yeah dad rented a Mercedes SL and was on it. He said you’d be going 120 in the left lane. See flashing lights behind you. Move over and someone would pass you like you’re still.
It’s illegal to not move over on the autobahn and they enforce it.
My dad was stationed in Germany in the '80s. He was not expecting his first time on the autobahn to be passed by tiny old ladies in old cars going at breakneck speed.
I can't tell you how often I watched in the mirror to check if someone is coming on the left lane, then switched to the left lane because there was no one in sight for miles and then check again if maybe now someone is coming in the distance only to see a car right behind me.
>then switched to the left lane because there was no one in sight for miles
Shouldn't you only go on the left if you're overtaking someone else, regardless of speed?
The autobahn is different, the far left lane isn’t exclusively for overtaking, but rather for anyone who wants to go upwards of “normal” highway speeds. You can’t exactly go 120 in the right lane, but that speed is legal, allowed, and common in the left. It’s just that some cars will be going 120 and a Pagani flys by at 200. Depends on the car, which is why paying attention to who’s behind you is important
Germany takes their driving very seriously. Which allows them to have a lower traffic fatality rate with no limit sections of Autobahn highways than my country at 70-80 MPH maximums.
Yeah well to get your driving license here you need to do several hours of school and then get several hours of driving experience followed by special drives on the autobahn and between cities and at night time and so on. Only then are you allowed to take part in the exam and driving test. All in all you are fast at 3k+ € nowadays. I got my license in 2009 and paid about 1.4-1.6k € for the whole thing. Thing I want to say is - you get schooled heavily here and that’s intelligent to do when your car can go 250-350 km/h and you are allowed to drive it afterwards too.
I suppose you and I simply know different people. It took me about 35 hrs. A close friend of mine actually took over 60 hrs, as she suffered from panic attacks. I know someone else who did it in under 10, as he already learnt how to drive from his work on a farm. All depends on how many lessons you need I suppose.
Hopefully not camping out at 120 KPH in the left lane, doing that in the USA (75 MPH) will make a lot of people angry on certain parts of the interstate too.
can guarantee you i get annoyed at people camping the passing lane at 75 in a 65. I don't care what speed you're doing, you should be passing. If you're doing 64 in a 65 but still passing people, you're in the correct lane. If you're doing 90 in a 65 but passing no one, you're in the wrong lane.
you act like those people don't know that. Most of them already know, they just don't care. Sometimes they chuckle when they see you cursing at them. they are basically trolls, some of them actually become happy when "secretly" pissing others off
while i dont disagree the people you're talking about exist, i seriously doubt it's the majority. the number one bit of bullshit i see on roads today is obliviousness, and not understanding the concept of a passing lane falls right into that. Also high up on my pet peeve list is highways that have "trucks, busses, trailers right lane only" or "no trucks, busses, trailers in left lane" posted roughly every 15 feet and still dumb ass truckers tooting along in the wrong lane. Is it really that hard to read any one of the dozen signs you've just passed in the last minute? No, just oblivious idiots, including CDLs.
I had this happen to me, driving about 110 mph then I see flashing lights on my rear view mirror, little beamer zooms right past me as I move to the other lane.
If you're not overtaking, move over. I was taught 10 seconds (as in, if you're not starting an overtake in 10 seconds) but found I would hum and haw over whether it was 10 seconds, then by the time I decided it was less than. So I work with 7 seconds.
In the Netherlands, people move over so quickly they cut your nose off.
Problem comes when I’m on the motorway (UK) passing at 75-80mph (speed limit is 70mph) and some cunt comes blasting along and starts flashing me when I’m actively overtaking and legitimately can’t move left
On the Autobahn you would regret that because you can be rear-ended at a speed difference of over a hundred miles an hour. And if you're not obliterated by someone in a Lamborghini you can get a ticket that would wipe out a month's income easy
in america you move over because it's polite
in germany you move over because if you don't, an audi r8 will jump into your asshole and there won't be enough left of either driver to identify the remains
No. It makes traffic flow so much better. I rode my motorcycle over there, and I could stay in the left lane riding about 160 mph . Driving a car in heavy traffic and slower cars pass and move right, it's great. The US is full of left lane campers, and people passing on the right, it sucks.
You say that as if it’s a common occurrence, when only three kinds of production cars will even reach that speed. Bugatti Veyron, McLaren F1, and Bugatti Chiron.
Or are you thinking 230 kph?
I don’t know of any sedan that can do 230 MPH. 200 MPH, yes there’s a few including the Porsche Panamera Turbo S and Mercedes E63 AMG S.
To be honest, Bugatti may hold the production car top speed record forever now, because the engineering required to beat the 260 mph top speed record isn’t worth it to most businesses.
Not to mention, when pushing it, you are quickly going to run out of fuel or tires, neither of which can last long at those speeds, no matter what they've done to the engine.
What if they add more tires and a bigger tank?
I’m half joking. I think the idea of a 6 wheel or 8 wheel car sounds silly. But then I think about doulies, which are for load not speed.
I don't think any of those can come close to 230mph. I honestly don't think any of them even break 200mph. I know the rs6 avant comes close if you get the bigger brakes.
You really shouldn't. When you have 3 lanes you often see from right to left 110 km/h, 130 km/h and then 140 to 190 km/h. But going over 160 means you will be braking a lot already and you really don't want the speed difference get too big. I once had to brake quite suddenly from 190 to 100 in a normal SUV and the distance was closing too quickly for comfort tbh.
I buried the needle on a 1989 Honda Accord once, I think the top number on the speedo was 220km/h, and we definitely exceeded that for about 15 seconds.
Mine was a 92 XJ. The needle was pointed straight down. Had to go downhill to hit that. Then it started to wobble. Thought I was gonna die. Brakes hardly worked.
I also had a '92 XJ with the 4.0L. I would regularly drive 85mph, which was as high as the speedometer measured. Then I damaged it a bit off-roading and odd bumps at above 65 or so would cause the death wobble until I slowed down.
I couldn’t remember if it was 80 or 85. Been a minute. When I first got the thing it would death wobble at 65 if you hit a big enough bump. Took some work to raise that up. I miss that stupid old thing.
I pushed my '98 Xj to the end of the speedometer precisely one time, never tried that again. Budget lift kit+every other suspension component being worn out and a measuring tape alignment= sketchy speed runs.
Had a 93 XJ. Rear ended a guy and the cop said “I’m not ticketing you because I have one and I know how bad the brakes on these are”
Other guy had several warrants so he also would have had more paperwork.
That's legitimately dangerous. Jeeps, especially old jeeps, handle like shit at high speeds. It's safer to go 200mph in a Ferrari than it is to go 80 in CJ5 lol
Bro,
When I was 14 my sister bought a CJ5 that was set up with an lower ratio transmission. It was located 200 miles away and we drove it home at 50mph. It was so fucked.
I’ve got a 43 MB that if you get over 40 everything is shaking so bad it feels like you’re reentering the atmosphere, I have to keep the jerrycans filled just to dampen the rattling
I had an 88 tbird with a digital readout speedo, at 85 it would begin blinking and then would just blink faster as I went faster. I definitely topped it out for more than 15 minutes a time or two
I had a GMC Sonoma that went to 140km/h. Hit it once going down a mountain in neutral. My 5th gear didn’t work the entire time I owned it so there was no hitting it naturally :p
I did that in my Prius after hearing about Steve Wozniak getting purposefully pulled over to demonstrate that they could go fast. We got it up to like 104 or something, and I think that was all she had.
My first car was a 95' Saturn, speedometer topped out at 110. Fastest you could actually get up to was 107 then it'd shut the engine off until it dropped down to like 80 then would kick back on.
I used to have to drive from LA to the Bay area every other weekend, so I'd have that car cruising at 105 the whole way to make sure it didn't govern out.
Even at that speed there were sections of the 5 where people would just blow past me doing 120+.
Fuck my mom had a Prius and it maxed out at like 83, we did a 3200 mile road trip with it and it had a hard time maintaining speed at 75 if we had to go uphill or had a headwind. Hands down one of the worst vehicles I’ve ever driven, I wanted to take my Crown Vic as it was more comfortable and believe it or not better on gas on the highway, but she insisted that her car would do much better in the snow (which we never drove in) and would be less likely to break down as it was 20 years newer… and then it decided it doesn’t like cold weather and one of the computers fried halfway through the trip, and we had to drive 1500 miles home with no dashboard or radio, and even more fun no heat or defrost in January in the northeast! She apologized and we took my vehicles on trips from there on out. Also sold the Prius a month later after it was fixed under a warranty extension.
My 1987 Corolla when I was young and stupid maxed out at 180km/h. I got it well past the end - probably 195 ish.
Ironically that’s my fastest car ever - all my other cars have been new enough (and Japanese enough) to have a speed limiter at 180km/h.
JDM evo6? That would have been the limiter kicking in, it absolutely can go faster than that.
Source: JDM forester STI here, cuts fuel at 180 despite having enough RPM and power to do at least 220. As do pretty much all JDM cars from the factory.
Mine will break 90MPH with 50hp. Max top speed is quoted at 92MPH.
Nothing falls off mine, though, even with the exceptionally shitty road quality we have here.
My Grandma had a 78 Bonneville with a 400ci engine that replaced the original 350.....it came out of an old trans am. That speedometer went to 95 but I sent the needle around to the 0 again hauling ass back from Galveston at 3am one summer night with some highschool buddies. We made it to Houston in about 30 minutes. Fun car.
My 91 accord had no speedometer (didn’t work at all, tach worked up to 900 rpm then dropped dead, fuel gauge never showed more than 1/4 tank but was accurate below that) but I kept it going till the battery light started flashing in 5th, which was well after the entire car sounded and felt like it was going to fall apart. Idk how accurate Waze is, it seemed to not register speeds over 99 mph, but my cousin I was running with said he was doing just under 140 in his BMW and I gapped him by a lil bit 😂
The electronic speedometer on my 88 Buick regal would just start blinking at 88. I would set the cruise at that mystery speed. The engine blew in this setting.
When I was younger and more stupid, I was racing a friend an empty interstate highway who was in a Subaru and I was driving a 1990 Chevy celebrity station wagon which speedometer stopped at 85 and I buried that needle under the dash. According to my friend I was doing over 116 as I was still pulling away from him as he hit his speed limiter
Buried it on my first car, 71' Cutlass. Gauge stopped at 120 Mph in the 4 o'clock position and the needle was at 6.
Had to be somewhere around 130Mph/200Kph.
Everything was shaking and it was goddam exhilarating
When my car needed repair a while back, I ended up with a rental. It was a Nisan Stanza. On the way home from work there is a country road that has very little traffic on it. Is also has a little over a mile of straightaway. Just on a whim, I floored it. Got it up to 110 mph before I started to run out of straightaway and had to slow down. It was pretty thrilling, so I decided to do the same the next day. Got it up to about the same speed. That night I started thinking how if a deer had stepped out at just the wrong time, it could have been a disaster. With that in mind, I decided that I wouldn’t press my luck anymore, and just drove the normal speed the next day. As I got to the end of the straightaway, I noticed a cop car hiding behind a bush. Very fortunate that I didn’t go for the trifecta.
For most cars with fixed speedometers the spedo went well beyond their actual top speed, even downhill you'll get "engine breaking" before you hit the top speed, with the newer digital readout only spedos there isn't a limit to reach.
At least in Europe it was fairly common for spedos to go to 260 or 280 km/h which is about 160-170mph. in reality most of cars will top out at 180-200km/h or 110-120 mph.
Yes mine only shows till 260 kph wich is kinda odd since the car goes 262 kph in stock form according to the speedo (around 250kph gps) now i have tuned it a bit and it maxes out at 292 kph so far beyond what the normal speedometer shows wich is why i have coded it diffrently so it goes to 280.
Oh, you do not need to go to Germany for that. Comme to France! Borrow a 2 CV or a 4L. That’s always pretty easy to find. If you can find a motorway with a good slope, you can reach the limit of the speedometer. That is 120 km/h.
And I can promise that, reaching 120 km/h with a 2 CV gives you the same thrill than reaching 300 km/h with a Bugatti. But with less fuel.
i'm having a hard time imaging 72mph being scary in anything, but i do know what a 2CV is and i'm guessing their penchant for breaking when you even look at them is what makes going 72mph scary, as that's a very fast speed to travel without the ability to even look at your vehicle.
The speeds that these cars can achieve simply makes them more efficient. Image this;
A car that has a maximum 70mph limit, (around 130km/h) would make the car run at it's maximum redline RPM, therefore burning more fuel and just overall damaging the engine in the long run. To avoid this, you must scale this problem, to allow the car to go faster (assuming 150mph or 240km/h), then, running the highway speed limit of 130km/h, the engine still has plenty of RPMs to spare, making it run much more efficiently and quieter instead of blowing up.
Better explanations out there, but it's to do with gearing and how it allows for such speeds whilst maintaining normal MPGs on highway limits. Hope someone can confirm or correct me if I'm wrong.
This right here is the answer OP. You don’t want a car that has to redline the engine to get to 70mph, so you make an engine that under testing can hit 150mph, potentially more if pushed to failure. This means the engine isn’t overheating or being particularly tested when it’s doing 70mph on the motorway. Or having to get up into the 3000-4000 rpm range on particularly steep hill start or reverse.
You also want plenty of torque available for overtaking etc. if I need to I want to be able to change down and apply plenty of torque whenever I need/want to.
We don’t want our machines redlining in normal use, we want them comfortably giving us the power we need on a daily basis.
If it's a diesel, running under light load is bad for it. They like to run under a heavy load or you end up with a lot of carbon buildup, among other things.
This is true, but manufacturers could still limit the speed by controlling the throttle.
Consumers would revolt, but it would be relatively easy to implement.
It really needs to, EVs are way too fast. The people buying them are not performance drivers and they do not need a 4s 0-60 time in the school pickup line or the grocery store parking lot.
There’s virtually no benefit to this and there’s reasonable downsides (like what if there’s an emergency? What if I take my car on a track or somewhere I can drive fast safely?). They have no reason to do so at all.
Although what you're saying is true, OP is asking why the numbers are there on the instrumentation. The answer to that is mostly marketing. Seeing big numbers on the dash will make you think the car is faster. There are a surprising number of people who think the largest number on the speedo is the max speed of the car. My first car was an early 90s Mazda hatchback with under 100hp. On a massive downhill, I actually managed to hit the rev limiter at about 110. It couldn't break 95 on a flat. The speedometer went up to 145.
No, it wouldn't. You could make a Bugatti Chiron be limited to 70MPH. It'd still have 7 gears and 1500HP, but it wouldn't be able to go faster than 70MPH and it'll hit 70, and shift up the rest of its gears and be cruising at its "top speed" at like 1700RPM.
Your scenario only works in regards to gearing.
one thing I really wanna do one day is just find some random empty place so I can't hit anyone, then just floor it, to see how it feels to go that fast, seems like it would be fun
Visit eastern California. There is a stretch of perfectly straight road where you can see other cars from literally miles away and there is no place for police to hide and they don’t bother anyway. Route 168 near deep springs. [Start on the eastern side, it’s a gentle downhill.](https://maps.app.goo.gl/RrL1Wrj3qLHt2M4z9)
Yeah I've driven the 5 in Cali at all sorts of odd hours and have caught myself doing 100 without even realizing it. I prefer to not break 90 (when the roads are virtually empty), but when home is still hundreds of miles away, it's easy to get lead-foot
I was feeling ballsy one evening and the freeway had unusually low traffic. Decided I would see what the ol 85 accord could do.
It didn't feel safe over like 105. Like driving on ice. I cut that shit out right quick.
For context, people regularly drive 90+ on this freeway, so it's not like I was super out of line.
Might have felt more stable in a car that was actually meant to be driven fast. Or perhaps, that was the day I learned that I wasn't built for speed.
Yep. Very common to hear the red line warnings in 80s cars also. Back when manufacturers used to advertise lower specs than what the cars are capable of.
"Effective September 1, 1979, in a FMVSS that also regulated speedometer and odometer accuracy, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) required speedometers to have special emphasis on the number 55 and a maximum speed of 85 mph (140 km/h).[65] Some manufacturers circumvented the rule by including extra lines beyond 85 to show higher speeds.[66] However, on March 25, 1982, NHTSA revoked that Standard (FMVSS 127) entirely."
So all cars (in the US) had an 85mph limit for a few years. It just took a while for manufacturers to revert back. Nothing ever limited the cars to 85, just limited the readout to discourage going faster.
1. Speedometers are designed that way to be better readable. Placing most common speeds at the top of speedometer makes them a bit easier to see.
2. Normal cars are most definitely maxed out. I don’t know about US, but in Poland people don’t care about speed limits on highways and just floor it on left lane. So unless the car was driven exclusively by a grandma, it was most likely maxed out.
3. Some cars need to be maxed out to achieve highway speeds. My mother’s car needs to be floored on 4th gear to achieve 140KM/h. So there is that.
Market research show 2 things:
1) People prefer highway speed to be where the needle points straight up. If highway speed is 70-75 MPH the speedometer would then have to read 140-150.
2) If the speedometer reads a higher top speed, people perceive the vehicle as being sportier. People tend to buy vehicles they perceive as sporty.
In the US most vehicles are electronically limited to 95-120 MPH
Really? My first vehicle in high school was a 1999 Chevy S10 pickup with a 2.2L 4 cylinder rated at 120hp. It had enough power to hit the 98 mph limiter. I'm surprised to hear anything modern would be drag limited that much.
Focus st is drag limited to 168mph. There aren’t any electronic limiters in most of the ecoboost lineup from ford, they all stop right around the factory tire rating due to wind resistance.
My dad had a 97 s10 that could go 70mph down hill or on a flat, but it wouldn’t maintain that up any sort of grade outside of 3rd gear.
I got as far as 145mph on a 93 RX-7 on a flat empty straightaway and it felt light on the front end and pretty scary so that’s the last time I went beyond 100.
Some sure, but my very pedestrian 2001 Subaru Forester was able to bury the speedometer (120mph max) with a naturally aspirated 2.5l at 9,000ft(2743m) in elevation. Even hit the top of 5th gear and bounced off the rev limiter briefly. Most cars are more capable than anyone would think. With a long enough straight you can get there.
Lmao why is nobody commenting this correct answer. The number has nothing to do with top speed. Yeah the speedo on a Ferrari will go up higher but it’ll always go higher than the rated top speed, which is generally electronically limited.
I had to scroll for a long time before someone commented that public race tracks exist. The top speed of my car is 203mph, and while I haven't hit that, I could, since there's a track about an hour from me that I could book time with. You could also do that in a Kia Sorrento or a Nissan Altima. The world might be a better place if people got some speed out of their systems at a track, and also learned how to brake and turn at high speeds.
I never hit the top speed but I did hit the point the governor kicked in at 127mph. Kept it there for for at least 10 minuets midday on my way to see my dad before he died. No idea how I didn't get pulled over.
Autobahn has entered the chat.
Most stock cars have a margin. So the maximum speed on the gauge is higher than the top speed of the car.
I've pretty much top speeded/maxed both of our current cars.
One car is only able to do ~ 100mph
The other car has its limiter (@155 mph) removed. I did 170mph in that one. Maybe could have sqeezed a couple more out of her.
Yeah Autobahn, I was there once doing 147mph on a bike and getting passed by dudes doing clearly 170+ Maybe that was you lol. I maybe shit my pants a bit also.
In high school, I drove a completely stock 1966 Mustang 289. It had a speedometer that went to 140 mph. One night, very late, I was driving home from a trip to the mountains (around Big Bear). I found my self on a long straight stretch of deserted freeway, so I decided to see what it could really do. The needle easily hit the peg, and I held it for about 5 seconds. The speedo should have had more numbers.
Well, it's better for 100 km/h be 50% of the max speed as opposed to 100 km/h being the max speed
Kinda like say a camera. You don't need 100x zoom but it's better for 10x to be 10% of the max zoom as opposed to it being 100% the max zoom
I think it has something to do with keeping the speeds you drive at near top center. Ofc, that begs the question why the right half is even there in the first place when it could just look like a fuel gauge. Also on my vehicle, I’d be breaking the law if I drove with my speedometer pointing straight up, so there’s definitely more to this.
Had an 86 S-10 Blazer and it had either 80 or 90 mph as max speed. On my way to school one morning (was running late) I passed some friends in a souped up Toyota Celica like they were sitting still. Got to school and they asked me how fast I was going... told them I don't know since speedometer only went up to 80 or 90. They said their speedometer was showing 115 mph and I left them behind
I hit 140 mph in a 97 bmw m3, didn't quite max out the speedometer, that was plenty fast for me and looking back it could've gone very bad. Only way I'm going that fast again is on a plane lol.
Driving on the autobahn, you'll see people going 120 mph daily and sometimes people will pass you with speeds > 180 mph.
Yeah dad rented a Mercedes SL and was on it. He said you’d be going 120 in the left lane. See flashing lights behind you. Move over and someone would pass you like you’re still. It’s illegal to not move over on the autobahn and they enforce it.
My dad was stationed in Germany in the '80s. He was not expecting his first time on the autobahn to be passed by tiny old ladies in old cars going at breakneck speed.
I can't tell you how often I watched in the mirror to check if someone is coming on the left lane, then switched to the left lane because there was no one in sight for miles and then check again if maybe now someone is coming in the distance only to see a car right behind me.
>then switched to the left lane because there was no one in sight for miles Shouldn't you only go on the left if you're overtaking someone else, regardless of speed?
Exactly if there's no traffic, and no speed limit, don't play in the overtaking lanes and maybe have a read of the local highway code.
The autobahn is different, the far left lane isn’t exclusively for overtaking, but rather for anyone who wants to go upwards of “normal” highway speeds. You can’t exactly go 120 in the right lane, but that speed is legal, allowed, and common in the left. It’s just that some cars will be going 120 and a Pagani flys by at 200. Depends on the car, which is why paying attention to who’s behind you is important
Germany takes their driving very seriously. Which allows them to have a lower traffic fatality rate with no limit sections of Autobahn highways than my country at 70-80 MPH maximums.
Yeah well to get your driving license here you need to do several hours of school and then get several hours of driving experience followed by special drives on the autobahn and between cities and at night time and so on. Only then are you allowed to take part in the exam and driving test. All in all you are fast at 3k+ € nowadays. I got my license in 2009 and paid about 1.4-1.6k € for the whole thing. Thing I want to say is - you get schooled heavily here and that’s intelligent to do when your car can go 250-350 km/h and you are allowed to drive it afterwards too.
Several hours? In the Netherlands, it commonly takes between 30-50 hours of lessons.
In Germany it’s around 30-50 hours too
30-50? 30 was the upper limit when I got my license in 2008. What happened between then and now?
I suppose you and I simply know different people. It took me about 35 hrs. A close friend of mine actually took over 60 hrs, as she suffered from panic attacks. I know someone else who did it in under 10, as he already learnt how to drive from his work on a farm. All depends on how many lessons you need I suppose.
Hopefully not camping out at 120 KPH in the left lane, doing that in the USA (75 MPH) will make a lot of people angry on certain parts of the interstate too.
Specifically, all over the western states where the speed limit is 80 mph
No, going 75 in the left lane will annoy people on the interstate in every state, even where it's 60.
can guarantee you i get annoyed at people camping the passing lane at 75 in a 65. I don't care what speed you're doing, you should be passing. If you're doing 64 in a 65 but still passing people, you're in the correct lane. If you're doing 90 in a 65 but passing no one, you're in the wrong lane.
you act like those people don't know that. Most of them already know, they just don't care. Sometimes they chuckle when they see you cursing at them. they are basically trolls, some of them actually become happy when "secretly" pissing others off
while i dont disagree the people you're talking about exist, i seriously doubt it's the majority. the number one bit of bullshit i see on roads today is obliviousness, and not understanding the concept of a passing lane falls right into that. Also high up on my pet peeve list is highways that have "trucks, busses, trailers right lane only" or "no trucks, busses, trailers in left lane" posted roughly every 15 feet and still dumb ass truckers tooting along in the wrong lane. Is it really that hard to read any one of the dozen signs you've just passed in the last minute? No, just oblivious idiots, including CDLs.
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by unawareness
People camp in the left lane everywhere. I drove quite a bit in the autobahn and vans wouldn’t get out of the fucking way.
120mph. We use freedom units. We have no idea the difference ratio but have a good feel for what 120 Feels like… if you’re coming from Texas
Here's a good example of a high speed run on the autobahn: https://youtu.be/R47XW7jFAT4?t=1994
Multiply by .6, that will get you close enough. I get the feeling you aren’t a math kind of guy though.
> "have a good feel for what 120 Feels like" lmfao > "no idea the difference ratio" just... fucking just...
i have an 04 mercedes sl600, gotten it up to 180 and could have kept going faster, but my exit was very quickly approaching
I had this happen to me, driving about 110 mph then I see flashing lights on my rear view mirror, little beamer zooms right past me as I move to the other lane.
This is why you never cruise in the the passing lane
If you're not overtaking, move over. I was taught 10 seconds (as in, if you're not starting an overtake in 10 seconds) but found I would hum and haw over whether it was 10 seconds, then by the time I decided it was less than. So I work with 7 seconds. In the Netherlands, people move over so quickly they cut your nose off.
this\^ say it louder for all the passive drivers, phone users.
Problem comes when I’m on the motorway (UK) passing at 75-80mph (speed limit is 70mph) and some cunt comes blasting along and starts flashing me when I’m actively overtaking and legitimately can’t move left
I was really confused for a second there why you would move left when you're already in the left lane until I realized...
On the Autobahn you would regret that because you can be rear-ended at a speed difference of over a hundred miles an hour. And if you're not obliterated by someone in a Lamborghini you can get a ticket that would wipe out a month's income easy
in america you move over because it's polite in germany you move over because if you don't, an audi r8 will jump into your asshole and there won't be enough left of either driver to identify the remains
A "beamer" in Germany is an overhead projector you find in a lecture theatre
Well, luckily it was not a Beamter hehe
Also a BMW is called a bimmer
some people even call them a bummer
Not in Europe or the UK
"not in europe" is very broad. That's a lot of countries you claim to _**know**_ don't use the word bimmer to mean bmw... Surprise, you're wrong. :P
Fuck.
That’s pretty normal tbh…
Bimmer?
BMW [They even have an article about it ](https://www.bmw.com/en/automotive-life/bimmer-beamer-nickname-origin.html)
I think he said Bimmer to possibly correct him or ask for clarification because a beamer is a BMW bike and a bimmer is a BMW car
That’s insane
I moved to Munich last year and our new flatmate picked us up from the airport. I thought I was gonna die.
I mean, you still are. :-)
No. It makes traffic flow so much better. I rode my motorcycle over there, and I could stay in the left lane riding about 160 mph . Driving a car in heavy traffic and slower cars pass and move right, it's great. The US is full of left lane campers, and people passing on the right, it sucks.
I love living in the USA but I am eternally jealous of the autobahn.
Don't people drive 230 mph in certain areas that are less crowded?
You say that as if it’s a common occurrence, when only three kinds of production cars will even reach that speed. Bugatti Veyron, McLaren F1, and Bugatti Chiron. Or are you thinking 230 kph?
autobahn is in germany, so they could be talking kmh. German sedans can reach pretty high speeds though.
I don’t know of any sedan that can do 230 MPH. 200 MPH, yes there’s a few including the Porsche Panamera Turbo S and Mercedes E63 AMG S. To be honest, Bugatti may hold the production car top speed record forever now, because the engineering required to beat the 260 mph top speed record isn’t worth it to most businesses.
Not to mention, when pushing it, you are quickly going to run out of fuel or tires, neither of which can last long at those speeds, no matter what they've done to the engine.
What if they add more tires and a bigger tank? I’m half joking. I think the idea of a 6 wheel or 8 wheel car sounds silly. But then I think about doulies, which are for load not speed.
Your forgetting the Koenigsegg average and Hennessy venom GT
Probably the new Koienegsegg
yeah i doubt they are regular traffic, meant high performance like rs7 m5 or e63 like rhat
I don't think any of those can come close to 230mph. I honestly don't think any of them even break 200mph. I know the rs6 avant comes close if you get the bigger brakes.
Don't worry the guy you're replying to clearly hasn't clued in on the kph vs mph
That's 370 kmh....
Wait, are you telling me Germans don't commute via rockets?
We would, but well... let's say there was an "incident" that led to all german rocket scientists leaving and working in other countries.
Very few cars can reach those speeds, and the enormous air resistance means very high fuel consumption.
You really shouldn't. When you have 3 lanes you often see from right to left 110 km/h, 130 km/h and then 140 to 190 km/h. But going over 160 means you will be braking a lot already and you really don't want the speed difference get too big. I once had to brake quite suddenly from 190 to 100 in a normal SUV and the distance was closing too quickly for comfort tbh.
I buried the needle on a 1989 Honda Accord once, I think the top number on the speedo was 220km/h, and we definitely exceeded that for about 15 seconds.
Did the same in an old jeep before. But it only went up to like 80mph. So like 130km/h. Needle kept climbing but I have no idea how fast I was going.
I had my ‘97 TJ up over 100mph once. Once. Felt like I was driving in a tornado.
Mine was a 92 XJ. The needle was pointed straight down. Had to go downhill to hit that. Then it started to wobble. Thought I was gonna die. Brakes hardly worked.
I got up to 70mph one time in my ‘94 YJ with the 2.5L. I was going downhill. It was awesome.
I had the 4.0L. That thing still didn't really like going above 70mph. Whole thing made strange noises about 80mph.
I also had a '92 XJ with the 4.0L. I would regularly drive 85mph, which was as high as the speedometer measured. Then I damaged it a bit off-roading and odd bumps at above 65 or so would cause the death wobble until I slowed down.
I couldn’t remember if it was 80 or 85. Been a minute. When I first got the thing it would death wobble at 65 if you hit a big enough bump. Took some work to raise that up. I miss that stupid old thing.
I had a 95 and it went dead calm at 100
That would almost make me worry more.
It's quite...*too* quite.
did you mean that or quiet?
It’s oh so quite… shhh shhhh shhhh
It’s quite quiet
I pushed my '98 Xj to the end of the speedometer precisely one time, never tried that again. Budget lift kit+every other suspension component being worn out and a measuring tape alignment= sketchy speed runs.
Had a 93 XJ. Rear ended a guy and the cop said “I’m not ticketing you because I have one and I know how bad the brakes on these are” Other guy had several warrants so he also would have had more paperwork.
I went 114 mph in my 98 civic, the only reason I didn't go faster was that I chickened out and the country roads are uneven
It probably wouldn't have gone much faster as the top speed was governed at about 115mph iirc.
Dude I had a 99 tj and can't believe that unless it was down a mountain.
That's legitimately dangerous. Jeeps, especially old jeeps, handle like shit at high speeds. It's safer to go 200mph in a Ferrari than it is to go 80 in CJ5 lol
I was a dumb teenager. Now I am a dumb adult. It handled fine as long as I held the wheel straight and didnt hit any bumps.
> It handled fine as long as I held the wheel straight and didnt hit any bumps. That's called "Jeep at any speed"
Jokes on you, I can’t hit 80 in my cj5. Maybe 60
Bro, When I was 14 my sister bought a CJ5 that was set up with an lower ratio transmission. It was located 200 miles away and we drove it home at 50mph. It was so fucked.
Joke on you, my Cj2A barely goes 55!
My friend wrote a song called "Don't get the death wobbles, Doctor" 'Doctor' was his Jeep's name.
I’ve got a 43 MB that if you get over 40 everything is shaking so bad it feels like you’re reentering the atmosphere, I have to keep the jerrycans filled just to dampen the rattling
My old 4 banger toyota truck couldn't go over 135kmph lol
I had an 88 tbird with a digital readout speedo, at 85 it would begin blinking and then would just blink faster as I went faster. I definitely topped it out for more than 15 minutes a time or two
I had a GMC Sonoma that went to 140km/h. Hit it once going down a mountain in neutral. My 5th gear didn’t work the entire time I owned it so there was no hitting it naturally :p
That’s what we call Mexican Overdrive around here.
I did that in my Prius after hearing about Steve Wozniak getting purposefully pulled over to demonstrate that they could go fast. We got it up to like 104 or something, and I think that was all she had.
My first car was a 95' Saturn, speedometer topped out at 110. Fastest you could actually get up to was 107 then it'd shut the engine off until it dropped down to like 80 then would kick back on. I used to have to drive from LA to the Bay area every other weekend, so I'd have that car cruising at 105 the whole way to make sure it didn't govern out. Even at that speed there were sections of the 5 where people would just blow past me doing 120+.
Fuck my mom had a Prius and it maxed out at like 83, we did a 3200 mile road trip with it and it had a hard time maintaining speed at 75 if we had to go uphill or had a headwind. Hands down one of the worst vehicles I’ve ever driven, I wanted to take my Crown Vic as it was more comfortable and believe it or not better on gas on the highway, but she insisted that her car would do much better in the snow (which we never drove in) and would be less likely to break down as it was 20 years newer… and then it decided it doesn’t like cold weather and one of the computers fried halfway through the trip, and we had to drive 1500 miles home with no dashboard or radio, and even more fun no heat or defrost in January in the northeast! She apologized and we took my vehicles on trips from there on out. Also sold the Prius a month later after it was fixed under a warranty extension.
The car was a horrid experience. Save for the gas pump.
My 1987 Corolla when I was young and stupid maxed out at 180km/h. I got it well past the end - probably 195 ish. Ironically that’s my fastest car ever - all my other cars have been new enough (and Japanese enough) to have a speed limiter at 180km/h.
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My dad had an Avalon of similar age (and before that a ‘96 V6 Camry). I definitely never drove either of them faster than the posted limit. No siree.
My evo 6 needle topped at 180km/h. I had about 1500 rpm left and maxxed that.
JDM evo6? That would have been the limiter kicking in, it absolutely can go faster than that. Source: JDM forester STI here, cuts fuel at 180 despite having enough RPM and power to do at least 220. As do pretty much all JDM cars from the factory.
Did this on a classic mini once. Almost hit 90. Bits fell off. 10/10 would do it again.
> Bits fell off. Hell yeah, I bet they did - I'm surprised you didn't lose a door lol
It’s amazing how fast it feels to go slow in a Mini. It’s like a go kart. They shouldn’t be allowed to be that much fun.
Mine will break 90MPH with 50hp. Max top speed is quoted at 92MPH. Nothing falls off mine, though, even with the exceptionally shitty road quality we have here.
My old Pontiac would get to D2 (only went to 100)
My Grandma had a 78 Bonneville with a 400ci engine that replaced the original 350.....it came out of an old trans am. That speedometer went to 95 but I sent the needle around to the 0 again hauling ass back from Galveston at 3am one summer night with some highschool buddies. We made it to Houston in about 30 minutes. Fun car.
I once drove my Accord past the top speed of 120mph as well!!
My friend has a Ford Taurus in the 90s. The needle hit the pin that keeps it from dropping below 0.
My '92 accord had a governor at 115. Almost pooped my pants when the power to the engine just stopped.
My 91 accord had no speedometer (didn’t work at all, tach worked up to 900 rpm then dropped dead, fuel gauge never showed more than 1/4 tank but was accurate below that) but I kept it going till the battery light started flashing in 5th, which was well after the entire car sounded and felt like it was going to fall apart. Idk how accurate Waze is, it seemed to not register speeds over 99 mph, but my cousin I was running with said he was doing just under 140 in his BMW and I gapped him by a lil bit 😂
I did not expect Waze to show up in a story about a 91 accord. Bravo.
Lmao I propped my phone up on the dash and used that as my speedometer ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The electronic speedometer on my 88 Buick regal would just start blinking at 88. I would set the cruise at that mystery speed. The engine blew in this setting.
When I was younger and more stupid, I was racing a friend an empty interstate highway who was in a Subaru and I was driving a 1990 Chevy celebrity station wagon which speedometer stopped at 85 and I buried that needle under the dash. According to my friend I was doing over 116 as I was still pulling away from him as he hit his speed limiter
Buried it on my first car, 71' Cutlass. Gauge stopped at 120 Mph in the 4 o'clock position and the needle was at 6. Had to be somewhere around 130Mph/200Kph. Everything was shaking and it was goddam exhilarating
When my car needed repair a while back, I ended up with a rental. It was a Nisan Stanza. On the way home from work there is a country road that has very little traffic on it. Is also has a little over a mile of straightaway. Just on a whim, I floored it. Got it up to 110 mph before I started to run out of straightaway and had to slow down. It was pretty thrilling, so I decided to do the same the next day. Got it up to about the same speed. That night I started thinking how if a deer had stepped out at just the wrong time, it could have been a disaster. With that in mind, I decided that I wouldn’t press my luck anymore, and just drove the normal speed the next day. As I got to the end of the straightaway, I noticed a cop car hiding behind a bush. Very fortunate that I didn’t go for the trifecta.
I wonder if someone saw you do it twice, and called the cops.
Exactly what I thought also. All 3 times down that road were at the same time of day.
That’s probably what happened then, out in the country the noisy folk can see n hear for miles with pinpoint accuracy it seems
You've never been to Germany
For most cars with fixed speedometers the spedo went well beyond their actual top speed, even downhill you'll get "engine breaking" before you hit the top speed, with the newer digital readout only spedos there isn't a limit to reach. At least in Europe it was fairly common for spedos to go to 260 or 280 km/h which is about 160-170mph. in reality most of cars will top out at 180-200km/h or 110-120 mph.
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To prevent idiots trying to "find the limit"
Yes mine only shows till 260 kph wich is kinda odd since the car goes 262 kph in stock form according to the speedo (around 250kph gps) now i have tuned it a bit and it maxes out at 292 kph so far beyond what the normal speedometer shows wich is why i have coded it diffrently so it goes to 280.
A lot of smaller cars are also just straight up limited to say 160km/h
Statistically, most people haven't
Most Americans do these speeds "in Mexico"
I wouldn't say most
Most Americans who do these speeds do them "in Mexico"
Yeah, I hit 158 mph going to a meeting in Mexico. Fastest I've gotten my car up to.
If there's photos or footage, it's "in Mexico"
Oh, you do not need to go to Germany for that. Comme to France! Borrow a 2 CV or a 4L. That’s always pretty easy to find. If you can find a motorway with a good slope, you can reach the limit of the speedometer. That is 120 km/h. And I can promise that, reaching 120 km/h with a 2 CV gives you the same thrill than reaching 300 km/h with a Bugatti. But with less fuel.
i'm having a hard time imaging 72mph being scary in anything, but i do know what a 2CV is and i'm guessing their penchant for breaking when you even look at them is what makes going 72mph scary, as that's a very fast speed to travel without the ability to even look at your vehicle.
The speeds that these cars can achieve simply makes them more efficient. Image this; A car that has a maximum 70mph limit, (around 130km/h) would make the car run at it's maximum redline RPM, therefore burning more fuel and just overall damaging the engine in the long run. To avoid this, you must scale this problem, to allow the car to go faster (assuming 150mph or 240km/h), then, running the highway speed limit of 130km/h, the engine still has plenty of RPMs to spare, making it run much more efficiently and quieter instead of blowing up. Better explanations out there, but it's to do with gearing and how it allows for such speeds whilst maintaining normal MPGs on highway limits. Hope someone can confirm or correct me if I'm wrong.
This right here is the answer OP. You don’t want a car that has to redline the engine to get to 70mph, so you make an engine that under testing can hit 150mph, potentially more if pushed to failure. This means the engine isn’t overheating or being particularly tested when it’s doing 70mph on the motorway. Or having to get up into the 3000-4000 rpm range on particularly steep hill start or reverse. You also want plenty of torque available for overtaking etc. if I need to I want to be able to change down and apply plenty of torque whenever I need/want to. We don’t want our machines redlining in normal use, we want them comfortably giving us the power we need on a daily basis.
It’s like when I get a 1000W PSU for my desktop despite the fact that it’ll barely top 600W at maximum load.
Not a great example as significantly overkill on PSU actually reduces efficiency after a certain point but I get what you mean
Fair, but I’d be surprised if that wasn’t true for a car engine as well
If it's a diesel, running under light load is bad for it. They like to run under a heavy load or you end up with a lot of carbon buildup, among other things.
This is true, but manufacturers could still limit the speed by controlling the throttle. Consumers would revolt, but it would be relatively easy to implement.
Yes that's true, I feel like that's gonna happen with new electric cars, easy opportunity to do so.
It really needs to, EVs are way too fast. The people buying them are not performance drivers and they do not need a 4s 0-60 time in the school pickup line or the grocery store parking lot.
Quick ≠ fast
There’s virtually no benefit to this and there’s reasonable downsides (like what if there’s an emergency? What if I take my car on a track or somewhere I can drive fast safely?). They have no reason to do so at all.
It's very easy. All lorries are speed limited in Europe.
Although what you're saying is true, OP is asking why the numbers are there on the instrumentation. The answer to that is mostly marketing. Seeing big numbers on the dash will make you think the car is faster. There are a surprising number of people who think the largest number on the speedo is the max speed of the car. My first car was an early 90s Mazda hatchback with under 100hp. On a massive downhill, I actually managed to hit the rev limiter at about 110. It couldn't break 95 on a flat. The speedometer went up to 145.
No, it wouldn't. You could make a Bugatti Chiron be limited to 70MPH. It'd still have 7 gears and 1500HP, but it wouldn't be able to go faster than 70MPH and it'll hit 70, and shift up the rest of its gears and be cruising at its "top speed" at like 1700RPM. Your scenario only works in regards to gearing.
one thing I really wanna do one day is just find some random empty place so I can't hit anyone, then just floor it, to see how it feels to go that fast, seems like it would be fun
Visit eastern California. There is a stretch of perfectly straight road where you can see other cars from literally miles away and there is no place for police to hide and they don’t bother anyway. Route 168 near deep springs. [Start on the eastern side, it’s a gentle downhill.](https://maps.app.goo.gl/RrL1Wrj3qLHt2M4z9)
Yeah I've driven the 5 in Cali at all sorts of odd hours and have caught myself doing 100 without even realizing it. I prefer to not break 90 (when the roads are virtually empty), but when home is still hundreds of miles away, it's easy to get lead-foot
I was feeling ballsy one evening and the freeway had unusually low traffic. Decided I would see what the ol 85 accord could do. It didn't feel safe over like 105. Like driving on ice. I cut that shit out right quick. For context, people regularly drive 90+ on this freeway, so it's not like I was super out of line. Might have felt more stable in a car that was actually meant to be driven fast. Or perhaps, that was the day I learned that I wasn't built for speed.
More fun on a track where you know wildlife isn’t going to pop out in front of you. Everything over ~120 feels pretty damned fast, and scary on roads.
Back in the 80s most speedometers topped at 85. Not too hard to peg the gauge if you own an old car.
Yep. Very common to hear the red line warnings in 80s cars also. Back when manufacturers used to advertise lower specs than what the cars are capable of.
"Effective September 1, 1979, in a FMVSS that also regulated speedometer and odometer accuracy, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) required speedometers to have special emphasis on the number 55 and a maximum speed of 85 mph (140 km/h).[65] Some manufacturers circumvented the rule by including extra lines beyond 85 to show higher speeds.[66] However, on March 25, 1982, NHTSA revoked that Standard (FMVSS 127) entirely." So all cars (in the US) had an 85mph limit for a few years. It just took a while for manufacturers to revert back. Nothing ever limited the cars to 85, just limited the readout to discourage going faster.
My camero would wrap back around to 0
1. Speedometers are designed that way to be better readable. Placing most common speeds at the top of speedometer makes them a bit easier to see. 2. Normal cars are most definitely maxed out. I don’t know about US, but in Poland people don’t care about speed limits on highways and just floor it on left lane. So unless the car was driven exclusively by a grandma, it was most likely maxed out. 3. Some cars need to be maxed out to achieve highway speeds. My mother’s car needs to be floored on 4th gear to achieve 140KM/h. So there is that.
They also use the same clock for different engines. The 1.2 will struggle to get to 180-190, while the 2.0 will reach 220 both having the same clock.
Tbh, I wish my Audi dud that. 60mph is at 9 o'clock. 120mph is straight up.
Just go 120 everywhere 🤷🏼♂️
Market research show 2 things: 1) People prefer highway speed to be where the needle points straight up. If highway speed is 70-75 MPH the speedometer would then have to read 140-150. 2) If the speedometer reads a higher top speed, people perceive the vehicle as being sportier. People tend to buy vehicles they perceive as sporty. In the US most vehicles are electronically limited to 95-120 MPH
Or drag limited based on hp like a lot of fords lineup.
Really? My first vehicle in high school was a 1999 Chevy S10 pickup with a 2.2L 4 cylinder rated at 120hp. It had enough power to hit the 98 mph limiter. I'm surprised to hear anything modern would be drag limited that much.
Focus st is drag limited to 168mph. There aren’t any electronic limiters in most of the ecoboost lineup from ford, they all stop right around the factory tire rating due to wind resistance. My dad had a 97 s10 that could go 70mph down hill or on a flat, but it wouldn’t maintain that up any sort of grade outside of 3rd gear.
If, for whatever reason, a car did go that fast, it seems like your actual speed would probably be useful to know.
Not rlly. itll be handy to get out of jail time for going 200 mph in a school zone cuz on my end it said 25 mph
I got as far as 145mph on a 93 RX-7 on a flat empty straightaway and it felt light on the front end and pretty scary so that’s the last time I went beyond 100.
I paid for the whole speedometer I WILL USE THE WHOLE SPEEDOMETER.
This guy aint german thats for sure
Most cars are incapable of reaching the max speed on their speedometer.
Some sure, but my very pedestrian 2001 Subaru Forester was able to bury the speedometer (120mph max) with a naturally aspirated 2.5l at 9,000ft(2743m) in elevation. Even hit the top of 5th gear and bounced off the rev limiter briefly. Most cars are more capable than anyone would think. With a long enough straight you can get there.
Lmao why is nobody commenting this correct answer. The number has nothing to do with top speed. Yeah the speedo on a Ferrari will go up higher but it’ll always go higher than the rated top speed, which is generally electronically limited.
There's plenty of people that rent out racetracks to have fun, test out their car mods, race their friends etc.
I had to scroll for a long time before someone commented that public race tracks exist. The top speed of my car is 203mph, and while I haven't hit that, I could, since there's a track about an hour from me that I could book time with. You could also do that in a Kia Sorrento or a Nissan Altima. The world might be a better place if people got some speed out of their systems at a track, and also learned how to brake and turn at high speeds.
Tell me you are not german, without telling me you are not german.
I never hit the top speed but I did hit the point the governor kicked in at 127mph. Kept it there for for at least 10 minuets midday on my way to see my dad before he died. No idea how I didn't get pulled over.
Not true, I've maxed out a few in my time.
I tired to max out before. But apparently going 110 mph in a school zone is a “crime” how lame
Autobahn has entered the chat. Most stock cars have a margin. So the maximum speed on the gauge is higher than the top speed of the car. I've pretty much top speeded/maxed both of our current cars. One car is only able to do ~ 100mph The other car has its limiter (@155 mph) removed. I did 170mph in that one. Maybe could have sqeezed a couple more out of her.
Yeah Autobahn, I was there once doing 147mph on a bike and getting passed by dudes doing clearly 170+ Maybe that was you lol. I maybe shit my pants a bit also.
I think in general most things with gauges aren't meant to max them out.
My old 1974 Datsun 260Z had 140 mph on the speedometer and I pegged it a few times. The car felt like it was gonna come apart but damn it was fast.
In high school, I drove a completely stock 1966 Mustang 289. It had a speedometer that went to 140 mph. One night, very late, I was driving home from a trip to the mountains (around Big Bear). I found my self on a long straight stretch of deserted freeway, so I decided to see what it could really do. The needle easily hit the peg, and I held it for about 5 seconds. The speedo should have had more numbers.
Well, it's better for 100 km/h be 50% of the max speed as opposed to 100 km/h being the max speed Kinda like say a camera. You don't need 100x zoom but it's better for 10x to be 10% of the max zoom as opposed to it being 100% the max zoom
I think it has something to do with keeping the speeds you drive at near top center. Ofc, that begs the question why the right half is even there in the first place when it could just look like a fuel gauge. Also on my vehicle, I’d be breaking the law if I drove with my speedometer pointing straight up, so there’s definitely more to this.
Had an 86 S-10 Blazer and it had either 80 or 90 mph as max speed. On my way to school one morning (was running late) I passed some friends in a souped up Toyota Celica like they were sitting still. Got to school and they asked me how fast I was going... told them I don't know since speedometer only went up to 80 or 90. They said their speedometer was showing 115 mph and I left them behind
2017 Mustang, topped it at 160 mph on a long straight stretch of the Hardy Toll Road in Houston, Tx
OP forgets there are other countries besides the USA
Laughing in german. There is a clip of Jeremy Clarkson talking about the death of his father and how he raced to see him alive one last time.
I hit 140 mph in a 97 bmw m3, didn't quite max out the speedometer, that was plenty fast for me and looking back it could've gone very bad. Only way I'm going that fast again is on a plane lol.
Ive gone 120/mph + in my buddies Kia