Yes, well... We all know that the average vehicle operator is a f****it who fails to pay attention to the things they should be paying attention to. Whether those things are inside the dash or outside the windows is merely fine detail...
I've never come across a watercooled engine with a temperature sensor for anything but fluids. You're probably thinking about the separate coolant temp sensor that some engines have for the engine management ECU. Mostly, now, it's a single sensor and the ECU controls the gauge and light.
My 82 Sierra Estate had what I think I remember were called 'Clean hands indicators' on the dash for low coolant, low washer (float switches?) and low oil level (an electric dipstick of some sort).
They all worked very well and did indeed keep your hands clean (till you had to top any of them up etc). ;-)
Quite why all cars don't have this sort of arrangement defeats me. My brother bought a new Range Rover about 3 years back - low washer fluid warning light was a cost option. OTOH I gather modern Porsches don't even have a dipstick.
The ironic thing being that all the electronics are already in place for the fluid level warning light, just require the sender unit which is a few pounds at most . For the cost of a range rover its an insult
Isn't it just. Especially if you have electric side steps and or side illumination etc.
But then maybe they think that anyone who can afford a Range Rover wouldn't be interested in a 'Coolant level Low' Indicator?
But no, (Rob), the Sierras (and other makes / models no doubt) 'Clean hands' indicators were a real boon ... allowing you to at least have go / no-go check on the basics before you even pulled away (as one was supposed to do 'regularly' in any case).
Along the same lines (and potentially even more safety related) would be having tyre pressure indicators fitted as std? How many times have you looked at a tyre and though 'that looks a bit puddeny', only to find it was how it was parked? I know I'm very 'aware' of the sort of feedback you get from tyres (especially when on a motorbike) and have often stopped to check 'because that speed hump didn't feel quite as sharp' as I think it should.
By November 2014, all new passenger vehicles will have to have TPMS installed by the manufacturer; all new types have had to have them designed in since last November.
Oddly enough the Jeep Grand Cherokee has a full complement of these sensors with a "glass cockpit" approach that only calls the sensor to the attention if the driver if something is wrong. Given that the JGC is a bargain bucket car it can't be expensive to add them to the vehicle.
Oh, that's a bit of a surprise. I mean, I know you can get them as an aftermarket solution and imagined that some vehicles might be fitted with them already but I didn't think they would be made mandatory across the board so soon (but hopefully a good thing).
This seems to answer all my follow-up questions. ;-)
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Cheers, T i m
p.s. I wonder if they will eventually be programmed into the system to force the car into 'limp home mode' if the pressure drops below a certain level (assuming they don't already etc)?
Get a just adequate 140 bhp/ton RWD with 20psi one side and 32psi the other. Then go try to use it all (WOT 4000>limiter) in a straight line from 20mph in 1st (21-38mph).
I don't know. I see them as a bad idea in some ways, and certainly wouldn't rely on them myself. It's likely that even fewer average owners will ever bother to do more than glance at their tyres.
I would rather see more roadside checks on vehicle maintenance generally, with appropriate punishment.
Not to mention the proportion that fit the cheapest Chinese ditchfinders to even relatively new and expensive cars. My mother's 20-something k mile 207 estate was fitted with Chinese teflon-concrete-blend rubbish by the franchised dealer, ffs...
I guess as with all things they could (should?) be used as a cross reference / supplement to the traditional regular visual and (decent / known) tyre pressure gauge checks? If you check all your tyres and assuming the remote sensors display the actual pressure (rather than just a low - good - high output) that at least you will be able to calibrate the remote sensor system with some straight empirical data. Now, if you then develop a slow puncture on a trip you would like to think you would pick that up on the sensor before you felt it yourself? If the sensor was stuck at that original pressure (or lost communications and left the display at the original pressure (not a good design), then it would be down to your senses to detect something was wrong, just as it would have been without the sensors? I guess the risk is seeing the sensor read OK and you carrying on regardless (more for your ordinary drivers, rather than those of us you might 'sense' such things a bit sooner)?
Don't. My old Rover (even) came to me with such 'rubber' on and it was lethal. The PO got a real shock when I gave him a lift in the wet a few weeks later and to his relief it actually went *round* the roundabout rather than straight over it as it would with what he had fitted. ;-)
I think that's difficult as sometimes it can just be down to bad luck. You check your tyres in the morning and you get pulled for a spot check and on the way you developed a slow puncture? Now, *you* know you had done all you could but will the officer think the same?
Is that better than letting someone off who has been driving on an under inflated tyre for ages?
If that happened, it's likely that the cause of the puncture would be visible, and if the other pressures were OK surely that would be a reasonable defence?
Yep, good point, it probably would (in a fair world etc) ... although, someone could still have been running a tyre with a slow puncture for some time without getting it seen to? In that case there is a very good chance the tyre would have been regularly run over then under inflated for who knows how long? ;-(
And what of those porous ally rims or leaky tyres (my stepdaughter had ally rims where the ally had corroded under the bead / seal and she was one of those regular pumper-uppers till I took her to the right place who cleaned and sealed the rims for her).
But as you say, hopefully the straight 'must have got a slow puncture since this morning' cases would be seen as what they were (though like a (just) failed lamp could still get you some black marks)?
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