# Metric term for 'mileage' **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 1, 2015, 9:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metric-term-for-mileage/713921 "2015-03-01T09:37:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![rsa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/839c29/32.png) [@rsa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rsa)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metric-term-for-mileage/713921/21 "2015-03-02T01:57:58Z")
In countries that changed from imperial to metric did the odometer change from miles to kilometers? Seems like it could cause confusion with an older car. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metric-term-for-mileage/713921/22 "2015-03-02T02:18:10Z")
Mileage. ---
**Author:** ![Cazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cazzle/32/75_2.png) [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metric-term-for-mileage/713921/23 "2015-03-02T02:42:28Z")
Mileage. I suppose I could keep my phone in the **glove box** in case it **rings** while I’m driving. That would make it hard to **hang up** , but I could just **dial** the last number when I reach my destination. Somehow despite the absence of driving gloves, bells in phones, dials on phones and anything to hang up to terminate a call, the old words still work just fine, as does mileage. Your mileage may vary. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metric-term-for-mileage/713921/24 "2015-03-02T03:16:38Z")
> [@rsa](#): > > In countries that changed from imperial to metric did the odometer change from miles to kilometers? Seems like it could cause confusion with an older car. Yes, both the odometer and speedometer changed on newer cars, but there were plenty of older cars on the road. Anyway, telling what units the odometer displayed was easy: if the speedometer showed miles per hour, the odometer was in miles; if the speedometer showed kilometers per hour, the odometer was in kilometers. If you had an older car, you could buy km/h stickers to put in the appropriate place on the clear plastic over your speedometer. But given that a speedometer might be recessed in a cowl of some sort, and the steering wheel got in the way, they were difficult to place correctly. Most of us just got to know what the equivalents were, so we could drive older cars calibrated in miles when speed limits and distances were posted in metric. Knowing the equivalents is a skill I still use today, when I drive my metric-calibrated car in the US. Oh, and to answer the OP, even though we use kilometers; in English Canada, the term is still “mileage.” ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metric-term-for-mileage/713921/25 "2015-03-02T03:19:47Z")
> [@JoseB](#): > > FWIW, in Spanish we use the word “kilometraje”. For the amount of kilometers a car has moved. But for “miles per gallon”, what we do is refer to the concept by its unit: _litros a los cien_ (liter per 100-kilometers). Except in Costa Rica, and perhaps other countries, where they took the middle road and call it _kilómetros por litro_ (they use the same dimensionality as mpg, but with metric units)… ---
**Author:** ![Jesta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Jesta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jesta)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metric-term-for-mileage/713921/26 "2015-03-02T03:57:29Z")
As an Australian, I find myself using “K’s” in this circumstance. Looking at a car for sale, it’s either got high or low K’s on the clock. Got caught speeding, how many K’s over were you going? Distance Vs fuel consumption I’d refer to as fuel efficiency, and I expect around 12 k’s per litre of fuel. I’m quite familiar with the imperial system, and use inches and feet when estimating length of an object, or height of a person, have owned a VW beetle that had both units on the speedometer, and a reminder that 10miles=16 k’s! The only time I can hear myself using miles would be a loose description of long distance eg, ‘That place is miles away’ How far though? someone asks, oh, about 30 k’s… ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metric-term-for-mileage/713921/27 "2015-03-02T04:01:11Z")
How about “KPL”? This is exactly why I couldn’t figure out what my fuel costs and mileage were in Korea. It involved too any simultaneous conversions. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metric-term-for-mileage/713921/28 "2015-03-02T06:55:07Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > How about “KPL”? > > This is exactly why I couldn’t figure out what my fuel costs and mileage were in Korea. It involved too any simultaneous conversions. “Kilometers per liter” would have made a great deal of sense to us in Canada at the time of changeover. After all, we were used to “miles per gallon”; or, to put it another way, “distance per fuel unit.” But no, with metric, things had to be reversed: “fuel units per distance.” It wasn’t easy to understand, and it made (to Canadian consumers) little-to-no sense. Why couldn’t we have “kilometers per liter,” just as we had “miles per gallon”? ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metric-term-for-mileage/713921/29 "2015-03-02T08:05:32Z")
Kilometrage in French for how many kilometers in total your car has been driven. Consommation (consumption) for the number of liters of gas used to travel 100 km (not the number of kilometers done with one liter of gas, we don’t count this way. For instance, “cette voiture fait du 2.8 litres aux 100”, “this car does 2.8 liters per 100” literally). ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metric-term-for-mileage/713921/30 "2015-03-02T13:40:16Z")
> [@rsa](#): > > In countries that changed from imperial to metric did the odometer change from miles to kilometers? Seems like it could cause confusion with an older car. In the UK, odometers show both miles and kms. Helpful as it’s fairly common to take a car across to the continent for vacations and suchlike. ([UK milometre pic](http://images05.asklubo.com/knoten-vs-km-h.jpg/108.564)). ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metric-term-for-mileage/713921/31 "2015-03-02T14:47:49Z")
> [@rsa](#): > > In countries that changed from imperial to metric did the odometer change from miles to kilometers? Seems like it could cause confusion with an older car. We had an older car when I was growing up - it was all still in miles. My dad made an overlay with the kms/hr 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metric-term-for-mileage/713921/32 "2015-03-02T14:57:42Z")
Heck, we still refer to segments of video as “footage”, even though it’s no longer recorded on any medium which even could be measured in feet. ---
**Author:** ![tapu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@tapu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tapu)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metric-term-for-mileage/713921/33 "2015-03-02T15:04:55Z")
Wow, aren’t you sorry you asked? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![No\_umlaut\_for\_U](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ea5d25/32.png) [@No\_umlaut\_for\_U](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/No_umlaut_for_U)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metric-term-for-mileage/713921/34 "2015-03-02T16:04:17Z")
**Mops** , thanks for the German explanation. Seriously, what is wrong with using fuel (or gas) economy for mileage in the sense of MPG? And for the distance traveled usage, just substitute km. Or distance. YDMV. ---
**Author:** ![Enola\_Straight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dec6dc/32.png) [@Enola\_Straight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Straight)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metric-term-for-mileage/713921/35 "2015-03-02T16:13:21Z")
KLICKAGE! [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=331286&highlight=clickage](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=331286&highlight=clickage) ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metric-term-for-mileage/713921/36 "2015-03-02T16:36:29Z")
> [@Heracles](#): > > 😃 > > However, that should be 1x10[sup]-3[/sup] m[sup]3[/sup] / 1x10[sup]5[/sup] m = 1x10[sup]-8[/sup] m[sup]2[/sup] , I think, so it’s a pHa (picohectare). I was always a little hesitant on the idea of the metric system being superior, but I think I can finally get on board now. ---
**Author:** ![swampspruce](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/swampspruce/32/261_2.png) [@swampspruce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/swampspruce)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metric-term-for-mileage/713921/37 "2015-03-02T16:40:00Z")
More to click on: [xkcd](https://what-if.xkcd.com/11/) has this all figured out. We should be discussing our fuel consumption in square meters… ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metric-term-for-mileage/713921/38 "2015-03-02T17:04:13Z")
Another English Canadian here; we still call it “mileage,” even though it’s always done in kilometres. As to fuel consumption, I didn’t buy a car for myself until 2002 so l/100Km is the only system I’ve ever known. ---
**Author:** ![Kiwi\_Fruit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kiwi_fruit/32/12_2.png) [@Kiwi\_Fruit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kiwi_Fruit)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metric-term-for-mileage/713921/39 "2015-03-02T23:31:14Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > In the UK, odometers show both miles and kms. Helpful as it’s fairly common to take a car across to the continent for vacations and suchlike. ([UK milometre pic](http://images05.asklubo.com/knoten-vs-km-h.jpg/108.564)). The odometer is the part that counts total distance travelled. What your picture shows is the speedometer, for the speed you are travelling. So, the odometer in older cars was in miles and is now in kilometres, like the speedometer was in miles per hour (mph) is now in kilometres per hour (km/h). (Note the pedantic correction in the speed abbreviation) Interestingly, a Chevrolet Impala I rented in the US last year could display either miles and mph on the speedo or km and km/h. That’s because it had a LCD odometer which changed as the unit settings were changed. The speed simply changed the needle position but used the same scale on the dial. Back to the OP, I use mileage for fuel consumption measured in l/100km but like **Jesta** above, “k’s” for total distance that a car has travelled, and for travelling distances, i.e. Hamilton is about 20 k’s from Cambridge. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2015, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metric-term-for-mileage/713921/40 "2015-03-03T00:05:12Z")
Mileage is just a silly, fancy-sounding way of saying miles. So just say kilometers. Or maybe “distance.” While we’re at it, let’s quietly kill and bury “signage” and never speak of it again. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metric-term-for-mileage/713921.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metric-term-for-mileage/713921.md?page=3)