What's made you grumpy today?

[StevenRB45]

Agreed, but in most circumstances the numbers aren't so pie in the sky so the scale doesn't need to change halfway up to make it possible.

Your Speedo would be sufficient for all factory spec cars and the digital read out would cover any outliers. Also don't they know going off the clock is far cooler than knowing how fast you're actually going?

I suspect most more modern cars the analog Speedo is mainly for decoration. Ours is similar to jocks and has no 30, 50 or 70..but being to a mere 140 the scale remains the same the whole way up with a slightly wider spacing and clearer markings. It has a nice art Deco style font and numbers that are arranged in the sweep of the dial rather than up/down to undo that clarity.

Doesn't matter anyway as your eye is drawn to the far bigger font screen between the dials with the exact speed on it..

 

[portland_bill]

Also don't they know going off the clock is far cooler than knowing how fast you're actually going?

In the late seventies, a garage I worked at had an Austin J4 pickup. the speedo was like a basic Mini, just a speedo with the fuel gauge in the bottom. Speedo ended around 65mph.
This originally came with a 1500cc B-series engine, low compression, probably around 40bhp, and low gearing. being a workshop vehicle, it got thrashed everywhere, and eventually blew the engine. At the same time, a Riley 16/60 got written off. 1622cc, 60bhp. Engine got transplanted into the J4. Gearbox and axle remained.
Acceleration was brisk. Stopping was lethargic, with drum brakes at the front, which when hot, tended to grab, one way then the other, so quite exciting. Top speed was all the way around, speedo needle reading 'Empty' on the fuel gauge, estimated around 80mph. All the time, the front bouncing like a 60s American barge, due to shot lever arm dampers. Much silliness.

 

[StevenRB45]

Ah yes, but if you're off the clock then you can break out a phrase like. "It was at least 120mph...I was off the clock" in the pub later. Once off the clock anything is possible/it cannot be proven wrong except by inconvenient measuring..

For full disclosure I should probably mention at one point I had a mk1 Punto where anything above 85mph just said "Believe!"...on the basis did it matter? it was all illegal and given top speed was 93 new don't think plod particularly cared if it was 90 or 93 and it wasn't fast enough to score a court appearance.

 

[vexorg]

The reason they go beyond wha tthe car can do is that one speedo will fit many cars, that way they dont need to make a speedo for 90mph max, 100 mph max, 110, mph max, and so on. Just a simple mass production thing.

Vauxhall used to compress the scale above 70mph too, their reasonong was it gave more accuracy on the lower part of the scale. Whereas if you are doing 135mph or 140mph then it's not so relevant.

 

[StevenRB45]

It makes perfect sense, if you're fitting the same Speedo to all models.

But when you're stepping the Speedo up so it always has at least 30-40mph of unnecessary calibration it seems rather odd.

 

[AndyRKett]

Like anything these days there are little boxes you can buy you plug it into the ODB port and then turn the ignition barrel, the car starts you drive it away.

Abarths are becoming uninsurable because of how easy they are to steal right now I suspect that 500's are also highly targeted by thieves because of this issue.

 

[StevenRB45]

At least in that video that's not the whole story...you still need a key or to bypass the key.

A friend has a keyless fiesta..you don't even need to touch the car to defeat the security.

Of course the Stellantis era will bring improvements as soon the OBD will be hidden at the back of the glovebox and bloody awkward to get at...

Abarths are reasonably desirable but Fiat security is another area that hasn't seen any developments for a long time so they are just easy to break into generally, doors and locks aren't particularly secure either.

 

[vexorg]

Like anything these days there are little boxes you can buy you plug it into the ODB port and then turn the ignition barrel, the car starts you drive it away.

Fiat ought to look at nissan, those new cars cant easily be programmed by most key guys and nissan want £250 + vat for doing it, not including the key.
It took a local guys months to get a second key working for our micra, tried quite a few expensive diagnostic kits, none would let him in. In the end he cheated and copied the keychip rather than re-program it.

 

[The Panda Nut]

Ie hate these new fangled things.. It was much more fun having th speedo needle wound round to the stop or beyond. I had an old Austin where the needle went past the stop and got stuck on 80mph. Im sure having km/h stops people trying to break the ton, which is probably a good thing.

 

[The Panda Nut]

Fiat ought to look at nissan, those new cars cant easily be programmed by most key guys and nissan want £250 + vat for doing it, not including the key.
It took a local guys months to get a second key working for our micra, tried quite a few expensive diagnostic kits, none would let him in. In the end he cheated and copied the keychip rather than re-program it.

What age Micra? We had a key done locally (not remote) no trouble on a 2004 Micra. Useful to know these thigs as thats a Pelican sized cost.

 

[AndyRKett]

At least in that video that's not the whole story...you still need a key or to bypass the key.

A friend has a keyless fiesta..you don't even need to touch the car to defeat the security.

Yes and know having broken the steering lock on a car that was stuck, any thief can do that in under 5 seconds stood beside the car and the ignition barrel is broken with a bit of pipe in a similarly quick time. So any would be thief can be doing that while they wait for the little green light to come on.

Years ago we had all but irradiated car theft thanks to immobilizer systems, now it seems the criminals have caught up while the manufacturers have been sitting on their hands doing nothing about security for the last decade or more.

 

[vexorg]

What age Micra? We had a key done locally (not remote) no trouble on a 2004 Micra. Useful to know these thigs as thats a Pelican sized cost.

2009. There was a change to the system in 2007/2008 when they went for the newer NATS. The earlier version was easy to get a copy.

 

[StevenRB45]

Yes and know having broken the steering lock on a car that was stuck, any thief can do that in under 5 seconds stood beside the car and the ignition barrel is broken with a bit of pipe in a similarly quick time. So any would be thief can be doing that while they wait for the little green light to come on.

Years ago we had all but irradiated car theft thanks to immobilizer systems, now it seems the criminals have caught up while the manufacturers have been sitting on their hands doing nothing about security for the last decade or more.

Of course but it's more of the more annoying it is the less likely it is to be targeted.

If you did the same thing in a Stellantis car...first you need to get in, if you pick the lock, alarm goes off..if you smash a window..the alarm goes off if you lift the car...guess what? You hook an interior door handle as there's no buttons.. deadlocked.

Anyway you decide sod it, let the alarm go I'll Smash my way in the immobilizer defeat device. Ok you're in the driver's door dukes of hazard style. You look for the OBD port...oh FFS lazy french it's not there so you go into the passenger seat to start removing bits of dash to see it. The alarm continues, so you decide to silence it under the bonnet, oh the bonnet catch is in the door jamb of the passenger door..you start removing further panels to pull the cable instead..before deciding to give up on that one as removing panels has exposed the OBD finally get your device plugged in..ok... the immobiliser is off you've got it unlocked..now you just need to smash the key barrel apart while not injuring the ignition switch start the car and you're away.

This however overlooks the ultimate theft deterrent...you've nicked a green Citroen when there was a Fiesta ST sitting up the way you could have had far more easily.

Park next to a Range Rover, Audi, BMW or Ford and the car is invisible to thieves anyway.


Although there is the other side of that which is why go any effort defeating security when you can kick someones front door in and take the key at knife point...

 

[AndyRKett]

Fiat famously don’t fit alarms as standard which probably doesn’t help.

And yes the more you put in, the less likely that someone is going to steal it.

These days however you don’t even need to kick the door in.
You use a device that picks up the wireless chip in keyless entry cars, relay this to a module right beside the car, unlock the car, overriding the central locking immobiliser and alarm, you get in press the start button and drive away….

So even stellantis tech might not be the way to fix it, I think it is more that the 500 and the abarth are both sold widely around the world so there is a big market for parts as well as being easy to take and small so you can fit quite a few in a shipping container

 

[StevenRB45]

If anything it just needs to be more secure than average for the type of car..seem to remember you can hook 500 interior door handles because it's still the 80s and dead locks are the future...

They will always find a way to steal a car if they want one personally I'd not want an entirely secure car as that leaves me as the weakest link and I don't fancy getting stabbed for the keys.

 

[AndyRKett]

If anything it just needs to be more secure than average for the type of car..seem to remember you can hook 500 interior door handles because it's still the 80s and dead locks are the future...

They will always find a way to steal a car if they want one personally I'd not want an entirely secure car as that leaves me as the weakest link and I don't fancy getting stabbed for the keys.

True, but historically the 500 has always been targeted by thieves, think back 10 years or more and they were stealing the whole front ends of cars to sell, wings bumper, bonnet, lights leaving people with the front of the car stripped. Now they can steel the whole car in seconds and have even more parts to sell. I think it is Albania ? which has become the country to have the second highest number of right hand drive cars in the whole of europe, thanks to the high number of cars that are stolen in the UK and exported there, They don't even take the UK plates off.

Edit This video of an "Albanian Mafia Boss" wedding day would appear to highlight a number of UK registered cars in Albania

 

[bugsymike]

Fifty odd years ago we had some thieves try to steal a van off the forecourt, they tried to bump start it as starter wouldn't turn on the key, finally gave up and abandoned it on the 70Mph ring road beside the garage when they realised it had no propshaft.

 

[StevenRB45]

A friend of mine is stuck with a fiesta in the midlands.

He bought a second OBD so if you attach your defeat device to the factory position obd port....you'll still be wondering why the car hasn't started at dawn as it's attached to fresh air.

 

[bugsymike]

A friend of mine is stuck with a fiesta in the midlands.

He bought a second OBD so if you attach your defeat device to the factory position obd port....you'll still be wondering why the car hasn't started at dawn as it's attached to fresh air.

Better still wire with some odd lives and earths , so it shorts out their device.

 

[portland_bill]

Back in 1987, I was in the process of changing cars. Both Morris Marinas, nominally easy to steal. Needed to move the radio from one to the other. The original curved dash had limited room behind the radio, and newer radios were deeper. The trick was to slacken all 13 fixing screws, most hiding deep up under the dash, and ease the dash towards you, manoeuvre the radio in, and squeeze the dash back, so the radio was hard against the heater box, and the dash was effectively bulging a little, but not noticeable.
I'd done a lot of this work on the Friday evening. Both cars were parked on the road. Saturday morning, walked across, found the first one with the door on the safety catch. Nothing inside missing. Someone had got in without any damage, probably fished for the lock button, then found the dash hanging out, and no steering wheel. That was in the boot.
They'd then moved on to the second one, again no damage, and again, dash hanging out, no wheel. Imagine the disappointment.
Apparently another car further along the street disappeared that night, adn was found a few miles across town. Some late night revellers needing transport home.

So there you are, take the steering wheel with you when you leave.