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

Many gas gauges do that;when you get down too far,the warning light comes
on.

With today's modern LCD dashes,such a thing ought to be easy to
implement.Have a bright LED behind the hi segments that would light when
those segments are activated.

 

in the civic, the temp gauge pointer is calibrated to be flat line from
85C to 100C. that's a pretty broad range with zero needle movement,
especially when you consider the thermostat starts opening at 78C and is
fully open at 90C, and it makes any needle movement other than "hot"
pretty much meaningless - "idiot light" territory.

while i "like" to have a gauge myself, engineering reality is that it
doesn't mean much in this situation and an idiot light would probably be
a better single choice if, like me, you just happen to be distracted and
don't check the gauges and end up cooking the motor one day. a light is
much more noticeable.

 

Now that I think about it I think my Porsche works like that, but I've
never seen the warning lights even bulb check. My fluke says
everything is working fine, so I don't know what gives.

nate

 

Even with a proper temperature gauge, you need to consider whether the gauge
is in a visible place on the dashboard. First prize for "Most Stupid
Position for Temperature Gauge" has to go to the Renault 14 (probably early
1980s vintage) which placed the gauge low-down on the central console,
behind the gear lever. Not a place that you will frequently check it as you
look at the everyday gauges like speedometer and fuel, and warning lights
such as ignition, oil pressure and handbrake.

Many years ago my sister was driving my mother's Renault 14 shortly after
she learned to drive and wrote off the engine because a radiator hose burst
and the only warning that the engine was overheating was this insignificant
gauge on an obscure part of the dashboard.

 

Under the hood, drill the dasboard, over the dashboard, place it on
the left pillar. That's too time consuming.

Just get the "Scan Gauge" and plug it into the obdII diagnostics port.
Besides it being a trip computer, one of the gauges is a water
temperature digital readout.
D.

 

FYI on your civic if you buy a used cluster (I got mine from Ebay) with a
tach, it is a direct swap and the tach works without any further modification.


Kinda neat, frustrating at the same time.

And if you want to keep your original mileage on the odometer, just swap out
the center gauge cluster. I bought a US cluster for my canadian car, so I
didn't want to have to worry about converting from miles to kms.

It took me 10 minutes to do the swap.

t

 

Just another sign of the "drivers are stupid, they don't need to know
anything" mentality of modern cars. Well, not JUST modern cars- General
Motors used nothing but idiot lights on most of its cars through the 60s
and 70s, but GM was the exception. Then in the 80s, Ford started using
"gauges" that were controlled by pressure switches for oil pressure- so
that they either read "normal" or "zero". Yeah, real helpful, but it
stopped people complaining about "the oil pressure changes when I speed up!"

From a driver information standpoint, the BEST setup is a gauge AND a
"check gauges" light that turns on (and sometimes rings a chime) when a
gauge is out of range. Its easy to overlook a gauge that's slowly
creeping out of range.

 

Don't be so sure that the temeprature gauge is any better than the idiot
light. Many US and Japanese manufacturers now install temperature gauges
that are controlled by the engine computer (PCM) instead of directly by a
temperature transducer. They move upwards sort of like a "real" temperature
gauge as the car warms up, but it is an act controlled by the PCM. The
guage moves only in response to the commands from the PCM. Unless the car
overheats, the gauge is commanded to the "normal" position. Some have an
intermediate position between "normal" and "hot," some don't. Either way, it
is only a little better than the "idiot" light you don't like. I don't know
if the cars you mentioned have this sort of guage. I know my Ford Fusion and
Nissan Frontier do. I think my SO's RAV4 does as well, but I have not had a
chance to review the wiring diagrams to be sure. I suspect if you want
"real" gauges you will need to install them yourself, or buy a German car.

Ed

 

Do you know the refrigerant pressure in your refrigerator? No? Why not?

Do you know the temperature inside your fridge? Oh, I see--you added a
thermometer so you'd know. The little "1-6" dial isn't enough for you,
so you added something the manufacturer didn't include. And yet you
bought the fridge anyhow.

 

good analogy!

 

i've done that a couple of times on my hondas.

you can swap the speedo instrument within the cluster too. that way you
keep your original mileage. within model classes, they're interchangeable.

 

On Apr 4, 1:56 pm, wrote:
snip

I'm gonna challenge your assumption that the Corolla, although
somewhat more expensive to purchase, delivering 26/35 mpg and with
historically outstanding reliability, will cost more to operate and
insure than the smaller cars on your list over the course of 250,000
miles.

You might want to test drive these cars on the same roads and at the
same speeds as your daily commute.

 

Then get a Ford Focus, or some other similiar car with a gauge
instead. Then call up all the makers of the cars that you didn't buy
and mention that a lack of temperature gauge was why you didn't buy
their car.

I wouldn't buy a car without a temperature gauge, or tachometer
either. That and I always add a voltmeter.

 

Shamefully, even BMW has embraced the fake gauges. I cannot imagine what
they were thinking.
--scott

 

they were thinking through the engineering functions rationally and
logically!

 

that makes no logical sense because the temperature gauge is extremely
non-linear. it doesn't really tell you anything other than whether the
motor is in the normal range or if it's too hot. and only one of those
two pieces of information is actually important. a light can do that
job, probably better because you might actually pay attention!

elmo's analogy is excellent because there's a lot of info about many
things that any machine operator doesn't actually need to know - they
only need to know if something is wrong. and this is one of those
situations.

 

Also, the next bigger models that do have the water temp gauge would

People still do that? Hoses outlast engines these days. I have had
it happen twice already.

 

two engines??? doubtless their demise was assisted by your close
attention to the highly accurate and meaningful temperature gauge.

 

Many present vehicles have software which "smooths" the response of the
water temperature gauge so much that is practically is an idiot light.

Not having one wouldn't be a deal breaker for me.

 

They were thinking "DAMN I wish all these nitwits that are complaining
because the oil pressure gauge moves when the engine changes speed would
go away and let us build cars!!"

People that don't have a clue about how an engine works and were
complaining to Ford about 'fluctuating oil pressure' (which was in fact
perfectly normal) are EXACTLY why Ford went to an idiot gauge (pressure
switch) way back when.

The "my car is a toaster" crowd that made the Camry the best stilling
POS in the world is ruining the driving experience for the rest of us
more and more every day.