So, I am driving in Wiscosin on my 2002 Golf fully loaded with 4 people and enough luggage for a full week of vacation. I get stopped and the officer claims I am going 100 miles/hour (my speedometer indicated 73). My question is: do you think a 8-year old Golf fully loaded with heavy weights run that fast? Thank you!
Up hill, down hill, or flat?
If you were able to go 100 mph in your fully loaded VW Golf, I hope the officer gave you a trophy and not a ticket.
Yes, I think a fully-loaded 2002 VW Golf is capable of going 100 MPH.
I’d want to see the calibration history of the radar, and the cop’s speedometer, and the officer’s notes regarding the stop. It may be possible for that car to do 100mph even with those conditions, but I strongly doubt the possibility that YOU were doing 100 without noticing you were going 30mph faster than you thought.
Yep, it’d take a while to get there, but I bet it could do 100.
Thanks everybody. For the record, I was going on a very flat stretch of highway. I will try to obtain the record shadowfax suggested. Any idea hot to request those?
Wisconsin will resist giving them to you. You’ll have to send them a letter requesting them. Make sure you specify exactly what you want. They like to send you copies of everything related to the traffic stop, which they loosely define as crap like the radar gun’s operating manual, the squad car owner’s manual, etc, and then bill you for them.
You have 3 witnesses. What do they say regarding how fast you were going?
What size tires are on the car now ?
What size tires was the car made with ?
A tire size mismatch can give a true difference in actual vs indicated just like that.
If you have tires larger that O.E., the cop could be right and you’d be liable for the citation THEN be required to re-calibrate your car’s speedometer.
I had not thought about that possibility, but my tires are the regular size for the car, so I guess that’snot the reason. Thanks anyway.
"regular size for the car"
does not answer the question.
1 > look at the door/pillar information sticker. it will tell you the size tires the car was made with.
2 > Look at the tires to see what size they are.
I see Golfs with optional “regular” tire sizes listed ;
195/65-r15
205/55-r16
225/45-r17
All of which turn about the same number of revolutions per mile 829 & 831.
If anyone chose a bigger size , which would fit the car just fine, that would change.
Example;
A 205/65-r15 turns only 818 revolutions per mile
fooling your speedometer.
You’ve covered MORE than a mile when your speedo says you covered ONLY a mile.
And so on up through the sizes that will fit under that car ok.
( revs per mile info available in tires sales sites like tirerack.com and generaltire.com )
Been there, done that. I was allegedly doing 70mph on Rt2 through Irving Mass in an '89 Toyota pickup 4-banger. Danica Patrick could not do 70 mph through Irving in that truck without crashing.
I tried to fight it. Their Kangaroo Court lowered the fine and gave me a verbal “dressing down” for challamging their radar. I paid the fine and wrote it off as a lesson…go especially slowly through western Mass with out of state plates.
I’ve only had two tickets in my life, both in Western Mass on Rt 2. The other was, admittedly, legit.