I can't help but notice that the speedo on my TrailHawk goes to 160mph. Do we really think it will do that? I found a short video of a 2015 Renegade with the 1.4 on the Autobahn. It gets up to 211kph, (about 130mph). So has anyone opened it up here in the States?
EU Jeep technical specs list the fastest any of their models will go is 196 km/h (120 mph). Considering the boxy shape, gearing and overall power output, I would be surprised if they could go any faster than what you see in the video.
Most cars have speedometers that display a speed significantly higher than the vehicle could ever achieve. I once had an RSX Type S with a speedo that stopped at 160; a much sportier car than the Renegade, but still never going to see 160mph without a rocket up it's ass. It's all about perspective; most drivers will never have their vehicle above 80mph, but if speedos only went to 80, when you are driving on the highway at 70ish, people would feel like they are constantly maxing their vehicle. Putting a speed like 160 means that when we are driving 60-70mph that we are right in the middle of our gauge.
But by that same logic, people are driving 70-80 feeling like it's an average speed rather than the higher end of the power band and pushing their vehicles harder than perhaps they should as a result.
There was an article written about the high end speedometer at one time, something about having a higher top end on the speedometer was appealing to you mentally. It doesn't matter that it could never reach that speed or ever should...
Do they use the same actual gauge on the km/h model as they do on the MPH model? Looking at photos on the Internet it looks like some speedos have only MPH markings without any km/h sub-markings, so they could simply make a different insert to replace the MPH with KM/H, and calibrate for Kilometers, and not have to make a whole new gauge.
