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

There are a couple of different types. An old-style purely mechanical gauge has a pressure bulb that gets screwed into a coolant passage in the engine block (you can often "tee" a fitting in so that it shares the same coolant port as the car's own idiot light sensor. A capillary tube runs to the gauge mounted on or under the dash. These are usually very accurate, even for the cheap models under $25. The drawback is that you have to be very careful in routing the capillary tube because if it becomes kinked or broken, the gauge is useless. You also have to have a large enough hole in the firewall to feed the pressure bulb and capillary through.

Electric gauges have an electric sensor that goes in the coolant, just like the capillary bulb. But you can install it, and then route the power and sense wires however you need to. They're more expensive, and the lower end ones are not always very accurate.

Reply to
Steve
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In your narrow world.

In the real world, plainly, things are way different.

Reply to
Elmo P. Shagnasty

You are assuming one HELL of a lot here. You assume that people know how the machinery works in the first place. That's a strong presumption.

Without the operator knowing how the machine works in the first place, a gauge is absolutely useless.

See, your mind is in a very, very narrow place. YOU wanted to know how the thing works, so YOU found out. Others don't know, don't want to know, and in many cases can't understand it even if they try. A gauge is useless to those people.

The world where all you need to know is that "gauges warn you before things get critical" is Springfield, and Homer Simpson runs the nuclear power plant equipment.

Reply to
Elmo P. Shagnasty

what's the point when the engine computer can output the data for you????

Reply to
jim beam

No, not really. I remember in driver's ed, a few decades ago, the instructor explaining to us that every few minutes you should move your eyes over the instrument panel and look at the gauges and see that they are all more or less nominal. If anything is in the red, pull over and call for help. If you notice it moving toward the red, get ready to pull over and call for help.

No, they still have eyes. Now, it's true that there are people who do not do the periodic glance over the instrument panel and notice where everything is, every few minutes. That is bad, but it's an easy skill to learn.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

The point is to have a nice clean interface that you can look at every few minutes when you scan the panel.

The engine computer can give you all kinds of useful information, but if you have to page through a dozen menus to get it, you will never see it in time. And information you never see is not useful.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

I remember them teaching us to always use turn signals...

You can lead a horse to water, (you can even shove it's head down in the water,) but you can't make it drink.

Reply to
Nick Cassimatis

If all you're looking for is "in the red, pull over" then a dash light does a MUCH better job of alerting you. That's simple psychology.

Unless you know the principles of operation of the whole machine, the gauge will indicate nothing to you. It may be behaving perfectly normal within its own context, but if you don't know the context then you don't understand its behavior. If the needle wiggles around up and down, the guy who has no idea what the gauge is for will worry. Hence the "idiot light driven gauges".

And if all you end up with are "idiot light driven gauges," then just put in idiot lights. You save money, and you get a better alert.

Reply to
Elmo P. Shagnasty

A minority, but fairly large, percentage of car buyers are enthusiasts that understand how things work.

My wife doesn't have a clue how things work. She still told me, "the temperature gauge on my car is going about a half-division higher than it used to when I'm at a light, do you think something might be wrong?" That's when I found the dead fan motor. That would have never... NEVER... happened with a light or an "idiot" gauge that snaps to its normal range or to 'overheat'. The gauge in her car is entirely modern- its digitally driven by the body control module based on a feed from the powertrain control module, which gets the information from the analog sensor... HOWEVER, it moves linearly and accurately with temperature inside the normal operating range and a bit to either side, so you can very clearly see small changes. Its the best of both worlds.

Not as narrow as yours, apparently. You're the one that wants to force every driver to the lowest common denominator of instrumentation.

Its also harmless to them. Better yet, after watching a gauge a while, they'll learn what it means just like my wife did.

Reply to
Steve

And they are not the audience the carmakers want.

Reply to
Elmo P. Shagnasty

Not harmless at all--it costs the money.

And 99.99% of the people won't learn and will never care.

You need to get out more.

Reply to
Elmo P. Shagnasty

nah - there's a HUGE difference between those that /think/ they know and those that /actually/ do. i know that from having been on both sides of the vehicle fence - pure engineering and technician. even if you gave an "enthusiast" a "real" temp gauge, what are you going to do with the information? i know a thing or two about vehicle design, but unless i had a specific usage/conditions map for my vehicle, i wouldn't be able to "use" the readout. and even if i did, it /still/ wouldn't mean anything substantive to operation unless it was over spec!

Reply to
jim beam

Why not?

Why do the auto makers care how enthusiastic people are about cars?

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff

It's not harmless at all--as described earlier in this thread, with fluctuating gauges simply reflecting normal operation. But, the ignorant people seeing the fluctuation immediately assumed "something's wrong," and took the car in for service.

Reply to
Elmo P. Shagnasty

That's right. In another few years, they'll eliminate ALL the instrumentation. No more speedometers, since automated governors linked by radio to the electronic highway system will make it impossible to speed. No more temperature gauges, voltmeters, or oil pressure gauges.

In the new era, there will just be one light on the dashboard, that says "REPLACE CAR" and when it comes on, the GPS system will print directions to the nearest GM dealer that you can give to the taxi cab driver that Onstar will dispatch.

Oh, actually, I take that back. They'll still be selling automatics with a tachometer, because everybody knows tachometers are cool.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

you've never worked in customer support then...

Reply to
jim beam

Permit me to summarize this thread.

Mr. Nagel points out that having realtime information from gauges permits one to predict possible impending failures.

Mr. Beam points out that most drivers are drooling mouthbreathers who should never be allowed behind the wheel of a car.

Both of these statements are true. However, the second statement does not invalidate the first one.

Most drivers don't watch the gauges, it's true. But most drivers don't stop at stop signs or signal turns either. Does that mean we should take all the signs down and stop requiring cars to have turn signals? I do not believe so.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

but what he doesn't say is that these gauges do absolutely /nothing/ to prevent them!!! a gauge may tell you your tire is flat, but it does nothing to stop that nail puncturing it.

that's not true. i merely point out that because the geeks that design these things /know/ what they're doing, they /know/ that the vehicle remains in spec, given correct maintenance, for its lifetime. the instrumentation that does their initial homework is /not/ necessary for the consumer to operate it. just like elmo's refrigerator analogy.

heck, /i'm/ mr anal retentive when it comes to my car, and /i/ don't need gauges to run the thing. test it, sure, but not run it.

Reply to
jim beam

What you get in the dash is a function of industrial design and marketing. The engineers who developed the product have practically nothing to do with those decisions.

As far as what those 'geeks' do, well, the ones I know tend to add the gauges they want even if they are hacked in and laying on the floor ;)

Reply to
Brent P

HAhahahahahahaha! you've never owned a GM car then have you.

Their engineers may know what they're doing, but they don't get to do the *right* thing. Their cars are crap.

nate

Reply to
Nate Nagel

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