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

BMW doesn't, either.

Again: that "basic" instrumentation is beyond 99.9% of the auto buying and driving public.

You wouldn't make much of a politician, I'll tell you that.

Again, real world: there is no personal responsibility. Just ask the courts and any lawyer you want.

We as a society are way, WAY beyond assuming any sort of personal responsibility, ESPECIALLY for something as fundamentally necessary as personal transportation.

You can't put that smoke back into the bottle.

Only for the purposes of taking the CDL test.

That's why I avoid the German marques like crazy, and stick with Honda or Toyota.

It's simple statistics.

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.

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

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.

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!

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.

Sure they did.

And then they realized that they'd rather sell highly expensive 3 year wonders to rich idiots who are happy to lease and flip. THAT'S what keeps the money pumping into the company.

EVERYONE knows the story of M-B in this country. From tanks to trash. It was a business decision--to build junk.

....you don't want the engineers who have to know the

Often the opposite is true.

"Bean counters" dictate what engineers have to work with and how. Good example might be the Accord tranny problems of a few years back. Another is marketing sales that make promises and in order to meet traget production rates/timelines, engineers are forced to take shortcuts.

During my working career, I saw this to be the case all too often.

JT

There are engineers who understand business (good), and there are beancounters who give zero credibility to the engineers and who have no idea and don't care whether their company sells cars or toilet paper (bad).

But the engineer who knows only engineering and knows only that in his world it's important to know the temperature at the top of the piston, is not the guy you want running the company. At all.