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

and for a normal private license???

That's not the question. The point is your total cost is '$300' only if you don't value your labor.

Most, if not all the cars on the US market today perform at levels beyond a similiar percentage of the auto buying and driving public, yet automakers aren't limiting themselves to basic transportion like a base model '60 ford falcon.

Seems that automakers don't have a problem creating cars that are beyond the vast majority of customers.

Given modern technology and what the engine management computer already monitors, we are talking a system that would only cost a couple of dollars per car and could absorb other functions making it's net cost zero or even a cost savings.

no, you cancel out both sides of the equation. the labor to remove and refit an engine is the same on both sides, whether it's rebuilt or replaced. the equation then becomes /my/ cost to replace at $300 vs. /his/ cost to rebuild, with parts, plus a ton /more/ labor.

Again that is *NOT* the question. Nate said with proper instrumentation he could spot an impending failure before it became a siezed engine and be repaired without yanking it out. You said a replacement engine is only $300, so who cares, just run it until it becomes a paperweight. I responded that it's only $300 if you value your labor at zero.

Try to follow along.

oh, i get it, you can't argue the point /you/ raised, so now you want to change it back onto another topic, and ignore anything that doesn't suit. sorry, my mistake.

And that line of thinking IS your first f*ck-up.

I'm not aware of any readily available statistics on really, really long term use, but if you're talking about cars from the 80's the Krauts had it down back then.

Consumer Reports, et. al. IMHO take a short term view, although somewhat by necessity since I don't know how many people actually keep cars as long as I do.

Even so, any car "of a certain age" will have issues, no matter *how* well built.

nate

Hmmm... in the past 10 years catching "statistically insignificant" indications from simple gauges has saved me at least two engines (and breakdowns that might have occurred God-knows-where.) That's sure as hell not insignificant to my bank account, or my family's safety.

it's

As I said before: God you're dumb.

No one is advocating "extensive" instrumentation. The instrumentation needs of a passenger car are SO simplistic that there's no need to condense/combine/dumb-down the instrumentation.

And you forgot that even if the failure isn't serviceable in the car, at least if you have advance warning, you get to repair it at your leisure rather than trying to call a tow truck in BFE, Ohio.

nate

No DUBMASS. Nate is saying that dumb-assedness begets dumbassedness. Designing for dumbasses makes more users into dumbasses. Up to a point "ease of use" is beneficial. Carried to far, it dumbs down.

Note from the real world: lots of cars DO still have adequate instrumentation. Just because a couple of little shitboxes from a couple of shitbox-specialist manufacturers don't doesn't mean the rest of the world will follow.

Which may be why the NEWEST car I own has seen 250,000 miles without need for a towtruck (EVER). The highest mileage has 447,000 miles. The middle one will hit 300k sometime this summer. Not bad for "inferior American cars."

That's ridiculous, anyone that can tell time can read an oil pressure gauge. That skill wasn't beyond my grandmother who drove cars from 1920 until 1995 and never had more than a high-school education, so it damn sure better NOT be beyond more than 1% of the driving populace today or we really are headed down the sewer as a society.

Wow. So you CAN compliment someone!

Good God! Do I have to explain it AGAIN?????

The temperature was STILL WITHIN THE NORMAL RANGE. It would NOT have turned on an idiot light. The key was that it was creeping higher than USUAL in certain situations. No idiot light would EVER have indicated that, but a gauge does. Can you not understand that? Do you REALLY not comprehend something so BLINDINGLY SIMPLE?!?!? A simple analogy would be the same as saying, "you don't need a gas gauge, just depend on the low fuel warning light. It would have served the same purpose."

How do you debate with stupidity that thick? If you really can't understand that ALL manufactured items, regardless of the manufacturer, are subject to the vagaries of manufacturing processes, then you're beyond hope.

Nice projection. Do try to follow the conversation. I explained it to you. But, go ahead and keep siezing up engines since you don't consider your labor to be worth anything.

Sure. Uh-huh.

You don't get out much, do you.

So? At the same time, they're taking away instrumentation.

Selling cars is about marketing. You find what hits the buyer's hot button. Massive instrumentation doesn't do that.