Date: 12 Jun 2006 14:04:18 GMT From: Dave Hinz <DaveHinznospamcop.net> Subject: Re: 2.0 Turbo Engine Overfilled with Oil
On Sun, 11 Jun 2006 08:46:57 +0000 (UTC), Craig's Saab C900 Site <c900nospam.apana.org.au> wrote: > Pooh Bear <rabbitsfriendsandrelationsnospamail.com> writes: > >>I find it perplexing >>how the USA uses such old-fashioned funny units. You lot came up with them, Graham. > We use litres here - as they do >>in Sweden. Not *liters* btw. Yeah, we use those too, and feel free to spel it however you'd like. > It's 'litres' here in Australia too. The US seems to like using olde-worlde > types of measurement. But I know why fuel is still measured in gallons there > - it makes the amount of fuel being used by a vehicle seem less when quoted > in MPG than if you quote it in litres per 100 km. 8-) C'mon, that's like saying "stuff sounds more expensive in .au because your dollars are smaller". Meaningless. It's all in what the current unit of (measure) for (thing) is. > Maybe it would be a rude shock (no offence to all of you in the US) to the > US population and industry in general if they were forced to start using > metric units of measurement for automotive specifications. Why force anything? Important stuff (medical, other scientific, much food) is done with metric measurements. The social inertia, and the tooling costs to change, aren't trivial, and the "cost" of it being the way it is, is trivial. > Can you imagine if the industry was made to produce wheels and tyres in > metric sizes? The US government would hate that since it would give the > French a chance to assert superiority by virtue of the TRX and other metric > wheel/tyre standards. 8-) Where do you people come up with this stuff? What does the US government have to do with the fact that TRX was a lousy standard in the first place? Oh, and what exactly is 185/65 if not metric? Oh, wait, the 15. BFD. At least we've got something descriptive, rather than "H-78-15" which was an old standard. Again, who cares if it's in inches, centimeters, furlongs per kumquat, or something else? More to the point, why care what a different country does? Our culture isn't such that the governemnt can "force" us to change our measurement system, it just doesn't work that way. Important stuff is done in metric, but cookbooks will be in cups, tablespoons, and teaspoons for a long long time.
