Yaris, Scion xD, Honda Fit - no water temp gauge

Hell... My ol' '83 Civic FE has a shift light that is controlled by tach speeds. I find it to be generally annoying..

JT

Oh, you mean a REAL shift light that is clearly visible without looking down, looks like an old flashlight, has a cover for when you're not racing... not the dumb little up-arrow on the dashboard that comes on whenever Toyota thinks you should be using less fuel.

OR just didn't understand the kind of light you meant.

Really? The media keep telling us just how unnecessary it is. Live in a high-rise. Take the bus. Ride a bike. Its the new urbanism.

Cars were already appliance-like in 1940, but they still had real instrumentation. And appliances can be either versatile equipment with a good operator interface, or cheap crap from Target too.

But it damn sure helps if you have a clue. It lets you do more, do it better, and be more productive than the appliance-user. And knowledge prevents you from being dependent on a sysadmin somewhere.

Fortunately there are still plenty of cars for people who ENJOY cars out there.

Its more important to buy a good fridge, not a piece of crap from made in China. All it takes is a little awareness on the buyer's part. And the ability to read the data plate... but maybe literacy IS too much to ask these days.

That's simply not true. The HISTORY of the situation is that engineers installed gauges for years. Then came idiot lights because designers and stylists liked the "modern, all-electric" look of the dashboards they could create. Then gauges made a comeback. THEN, the automakers started getting complaints from people who'd grown up on idiot lights, and didn't understand normal behavior, most particularly of the oil pressure.

THAT is when the "dummy" gauges that read mid-scale or nothing at all appeared.

Engineers NEVER leave instrumentation out of ANYTHING if left to their own devices. Left to their own devices they'd install an oil pressure gauge before the filter, one after, and one at the last feed off the oil galley. You'd have a water temp gauge before and after the radiator, a transmission oil temperature gauge before and after the cooler, and 8 individual exhaust gas temperature probes.

He says, as if he'd know a fact if it jumped up and bit his ass....

"Steve" wrote

This would fail to solve the first engineering problem, which is have a good car of xyz dimensions. You can't get everything in without trading off something else that is important to the engineering. It's also false that engineers do not make economic decisions. In this instance, more gages = more manufacturing costs = less than optimal sales and profit.

Toyota did not equip any cars with shift lights.

LOL. Yeah, my truck has the "hey dummy, upshift light you're going to get an extra .25 mpg" and my TA is getting the "hey dummy, upshift because the rev limiter's gonna kick in and you're gonna blow the motor" light. (It's after I replace the shredded factory clutch.)

I forget that shift lights mean different things - when I say shift light I assume the latter one.

Ray

if for their own testing, no. but engineers make stuff to be used by people that don't know what they're doing. like you.

so you think an "engineer" is going to put a 747 flight deck instrumentation cluster into my grandmothers lincoln and expect her to learn to use it???? engineers aren't stupid.

says the guy that thinks a dummy water temp meter is giving him useful information!!!

As a working engineer, I realize that. I might have exaggerated a bit, but in general powertrain engineers would argue that electric seat warmers be omitted to meet weight and cost before they would leave out instrumentation. Certainly very few powertrain engineers would want to leave something so basic as a temperature gauge and oil pressure gauge out of their own car.

Stop drinking your name-sake while posting and you might understand more.

A major component of my WHOLE ARGUMENT in this thread has been that DUMMY gauges are just idiot lights with pointers and are therefore as useless as an idiot light. How could you POSSIBLY have missed that, other than deliberately doing so just to pick an argument?

Me being a retired engineer specialized in power plants, it depends on the instrumentation. (Call that a nitpick; I am betting you know this.) A prime example is the tachometer. Many automatic transmission cars have one. It could be argued to be superfluous for auto trannies and manual trannies. I suppose it is in auto tranny cars because it helps sell the car, though.

I do not think anyone here disputes that some sort of gage or idiot light--one or the other, at least--for coolant temperature and oil pressure is a very good idea. We're talking about automotive design and how systems integrate (e.g. when it comes to using space; offering safety to the passengers; etc.). A contingent of engineers will be focused on passenger comfort, and with the marketing department, they will run the numbers and find that the seat warmers sell X amount of cars at Y price, so they need to make it work for Z dollars a car.

Related aside: Laypeople of course can discuss this topic intelligently, because this is about tradeoffs. Many of these tradeoffs are understandable simply with the application of common sense.

Not only that, but it is helpful, because one is able to determine what gear a car is in by comparing the vehicle speed with the engine speed. Plus, if one has a manual transmission, if the engine speeds seem to creep up when going uphill, but the road speed stays constant, this suggests that there is a problem with the clutch (and soon, your bank account is going to take a hit).

Actually, good engineering means reducing the number of gauges. Imagine if every operation on your computer required a gauge. You'd have one for your disk drives, ethernet card, wireless card, one for each of your USB drives, for the temperature, a bunch for different keyboard settings, for your floppy diskdrive (older machine only), your fire wire, for the state of the batteries, your video port, the audio I/O, etc.

Your computer would have more gauges than a nuclear power plant (and Bush wouldn't be able to say it, either).

What about priests and other clergy members? Should they be able to understand it?

There is some good info about how engines work on the internet (How stuff works has a lot). Plus, there is this neat building(s) in most towns called "a library" where they have books on the subject.

And if you're in school, you can ask your science teacher, too.

jeff

In my experience most drivers glance at the temp gauge rarely, if at all. It is for that reason that most cars equipped with a temperature gauge also come with a linked idiot light and sometimes a text-based screen to alert the driver. I don't see where the loss of a temperature gauge is any big deal for most drivers.

If you want a temp gauge, just add an aftermarket one on one of those baseline cars you mentioned.

so why were /you/ making such a big noise about wanting a gauge?

quote: "Gauges warn before the problem gets critical."

"The whole point is that the gauge will tell you when some things are wrong"

but now you're admitting that a warning light is as much use.

quote: "gauges are just idiot lights with pointers"

so you're contradicting yourself and arguing for nothing!

bottom line: if you want full instrumentation, install it yourself. the stuff you get with the car is good enough for the job it has to do. any /real/ engineer should know that.

"Jeff" wrote

The meaning of "good engineering" depends on the goals of what is being engineered. E.g. for a vehicle where engineers and technicians are trying to improve XYZ, additional gages ABC may be warranted, at least temporarily.

but in this day and age, you'd just record the computer's data output. it's a host of feeds available, engine temp being just one of them. in real time.

My memory must be getting bad... I don't remember shift lights in any 80's Corollas, or any Toyotas, at least while I worked for Toyota.