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

Perhaps not. I don't mind *maintenance* but I do mind replacing broken
parts.

I especially loathe my company-provided Impala.[/QUOTE]

Does it have a door without any real check stops in the middle, a door
that just swings either wide open or all the way shut--usually doing
whatever it is you DON'T want it to do?

That seems to be a GM trademark.

I had the choice of an Impala. I also had the choice of a Malibu. But
for my company car, I chose Prius. I'd never sat in any of them, but I
had faith that Toyota knew how to build a car that would satisfy me
blindly, and that GM couldn't satisfy me even if I owned and managed the
engineering department.

 

Does it have a door without any real check stops in the middle, a door
that just swings either wide open or all the way shut--usually doing
whatever it is you DON'T want it to do?

That seems to be a GM trademark.[/QUOTE]

Yes, usually when I'm carrying a cup of coffee and a roll of prints.
There's now a permanent boot print in the map pocket where I
automatically kick the door when I swing it open. It swings shut even
*when* all the way open in a stiff breeze or parked on a 0.01% upgrade
(after it rocks back on the park pawl, that is.)

My employer is all-GM, and this was the first car I got from them so I
didn't even get to pick the color, I took what was available Free
car is still desirable, even though it sucks.

nate

 

Hell, I put a thousand hours on in less than a year.
--scott

 

Free?

IRS doesn't like free. Unless, of course, you use it for zero personal
use. Otherwise, IRS wants that personal use accounted for and taxed as
income.

They're pretty plain about the whole concept.

I pay a bit per month, flat. At the end of they year we figure out
total yearly cost of the car and percentage of that which is personal
use. That gives a personal use dollar figure. If that dollar figure is
more than what I paid over the course of 12 months, the company doesn't
ask me for more; it simply gives me that extra that I used, and reports
it as taxable income.

Simple, straightforward--and no way around it without the IRS getting
upset.

 

No, I didn't say that. What I said was, that given a choice between
only an idiot light and either a gauge or a gauge combined with an idiot
light, the latter two are infinitely preferable. Even people utterly
ignorant of the inner workings of a vehicle are able to tell when
something doesn't act the way it used to, even if they don't completely
understand what it means.[/QUOTE]

These are the same people who can't halfway decently maintain their cars?

Remember, to them the car goes downhill gradually--and many abnormal
things don't become cause for concern, because they didn't come about
abnormally and/or quickly.

So there's the normal aging of the car, then there's the "something
broke all of a sudden" part of the car.

 

Funny, having read Nate's posts for years I would say you're dead wrong.

 

I would prefer gauges and lights. Better yet, I would like to be able to
set when the light activated.

 

do you guys ever bother to read?

"they can operate for over 1000 hours, at the highest temperature the
engine can produce, with 99.9999% probability that they will remain
within spec."

that's not 1000 hours of plodding around town, that's 1000 hours of
fully loaded w.o.t.

and 1000 hours is 2:45 hours per day, every day, no vacations, no days
off. or at 50mph, that's 50,000 miles. a surprisingly large amount of
driving for a single year, whichever way you slice it.

 

the "solution" would be driver ed. and that's a HUGE waste of time for
most people.

you don't need to know what the pressure is, only whether it's outside spec.

 

Probably, but so is much of the rest of the car.

I strongly recommend reading Cyril Kornbluth's story _The Marching Morons_.
--scott

 

Probably, but so is much of the rest of the car.[/QUOTE]

The original claim was that most people can't maintain their cars
halfway decently.

And yet, the sales of cars seems to be through the roof--even high end
cars.

Are you saying that, for example, Lexus cars are a complete waste of
money? 'Cuz, those same people who aren't maintaining their cars are
buying Lexus cars hand over fist.

 

No absolutely not.




The whole basis of your arguments is flawed. Your premise is that the
maintenance people at dealerships don't know how to interpret the readings
on a gauge and they are tearing engines apart that don't need it because
of their inability to properly interpret a gauge.

The fact is that when the idiot light comes on for low oil pressure, It
is almost always the case that this was preceded by a period of time when
the oil pressure was lower than normal. Might even be a long time. The guy
who has an oil related failure at 70K miles has a good case for a warranty
claim if he has registered complaints that his gauge has been reading low
since 30K miles. The guy who has an idiot light is just SOL. So yes it is
about avoiding warranty claims, but its not about avoiding false claims
its about avoiding legitimate warranty claims. The same is true of temp
gauge. A gauge (that works correctly) will give you warning long long
before there is a real problem.

Warranty claims and facing them head on is what strengthens a car
manufacturer product reliability. Devising ways to avoid warranty claims
is a failed strategy. It may produce short term gains but the feed back
from a strong warranty system is what makes cars more reliable in the long
run. A car company that thinks the engineering solution to having
fluctuating oil pressure is to get rid of the gauge or engineer the gauge
to not give a true reading is a car company that has a long term
survivability problem.

-jim

 

The original claim was that most people can't maintain their cars
halfway decently.

And yet, the sales of cars seems to be through the roof--even high end
cars.

Are you saying that, for example, Lexus cars are a complete waste of
money? 'Cuz, those same people who aren't maintaining their cars are
buying Lexus cars hand over fist.
[/QUOTE]

Yes, if you're not going to maintain it properly. A properly maintained
car that isn't a complete POS to begin with can easily be used daily for
20 years or more.

nate

 

That depends on how the idiot light is programmed.

Done well, the "check engine" light is just that--"check engine". Not
"replace engine, it's way too late".

 

Yes, if you're not going to maintain it properly. A properly maintained
car that isn't a complete POS to begin with can easily be used daily for
20 years or more.[/QUOTE]

OK, so it's not the car in and of itself that's a waste of money. It's
not maintaining a car, any car, that wastes money.

That comes down to the individual, not the car.

 

OK, so it's not the car in and of itself that's a waste of money. It's
not maintaining a car, any car, that wastes money.

That comes down to the individual, not the car.
[/QUOTE]

Yes, but it is more difficult to "properly maintain" a car without
gauges, as gauges give the aware driver earlier warning of impending
issues that need attention. Two examples already given are cooling fan
problems and main/rod bearing wear; easy enough to fix when caught early
but letting it go can result in a full engine rebuild, at which point it
may no longer be economical to maintain the car any longer.

nate

 

yes, absolutely. clearly, you don't understand.

you don't understand - the gauges in a car are doctored so they
deliberately don't tell you much. the temp gauge on a honda for
instance goes like this:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/38636024@N00/2445120839/

that's scanned straight out of the workshop manual.

same for fuel gauges. have you ever driven a car whose fuel gauge rises
and falls as the gas slops around as you go every single bump? it's a
HUGE pita and makes it almost impossible to know anything other than
whether the tank's full or empty.

so what? if it's "low", what are you going to do? there's no magic
bullet for low oil pressure. unless its something dumb like a blocked
oil filter, but that's neglect and the owner deserves what they get in
that case. if it's just age, keep running it until it fails.

but an idiot taking their car in to the dealer all the time because they
don't understand what a "real" gauge is telling them is an even more
failed strategy. auto makers have been there, done that, and it's
utterly stupid how some customers behave about that stuff.

it's not a warranty claim, it's a waste of time!

dude, oil pressure /will/ fluctuate over time. all the engine needs is
sufficient pressure to ensure hydrodynamic separation of the journal
bearings. and that's not a high pressure. it's well over the minimum
necessary when the motor is new, and it approaches minimum towards the
end. that's not foul play, that's just a fact of life. again, so what
if the pressure is low? what are you going to do about it? pay for a
strip-down earlier than you need to? because that's what you're asking
for. it makes no economic [or engineering] sense.

 

rubbish!!! the gauges actually in cars don't give you detailed info.
and the gauges you /could/ fit to a car need to be interpreted. without
baseline research data, they're useless.

but fans are unnecessary when the vehicle is moving. and you can hear
whether they're working if it's not. that's not too hard is it?

which is curable only by stripdown!!! again, there's damn-all use doing
that prematurely because the customer doesn't know that just because
pressure is lower than it used to be, the oil and bearings are still
performing just fine.

so how exactly do /you/ propose to fix lower oil pressure??? i want
details of what you think it involves.

but you "maintain" a 944 - if ever a vehicle were uneconomic, that is
it. otoh, i can get a whole new engine for my honda for ~$300. less if
i buy locally. for that money, i can throw in a whole new motor every
year if i want to. "no longer be economical" my ass.

 

this may be true. However, that doesn't negate the usefulness of
proper, calibrated gauges.

False. If a user is at least scanning the gauges regularly, even if he
has no clue what the hell they mean, he can tell if, say, the hot idle
oil pressure used to be 20 PSI and now it's 12 PSI, or it has recently
started dropping by 10 PSI every time he sticks his foot in it, etc.
All better than not being aware of a problem until the car starts making
odd noises.

Yes, and cars are ALWAYS moving when they're operating.

But how do you know if they're *supposed* to be running without a temp.
gauge? Otherwise you'll have to wait for the smell of hot glycol or the
idiot light to come on.

If you don't mind quick and dirty repairs, it's quite possible to change
simply the rod and main bearing shells on many cars without significant
disassembly other than removal of the oil pan and pump. If the crank
journals are in good shape this can let you get many more miles out of
an engine.

See above.

Balls. You may be able to get a *different* engine for your Honda for
$300, but it ain't new.

nate

 

rubbish!!! the gauges actually in cars don't give you detailed info.
and the gauges you /could/ fit to a car need to be interpreted. without
baseline research data, they're useless.[/QUOTE]

Exactly. The gauges that the engineer types want are useless to the 16
year old girl (for example) in her new Rabbit convertible. She has no
clue, doesn't want a clue, and will never have a clue what those gauges
mean. And she's the typical car owner nowadays.

I know it hurts, engineer types, but you are NOT typical in any way,
shape, or form.

It's far more accurate to program in sets of parameters that trigger the
"check engine" light. That way, the 16yo girl drops it off at the shope
where the hardcore type who knows what he's doing (that's my mechanic)
or the guy who knows how to look in the factory manual (most of the rest
of them) will know what the problem is.

If the programming is any good, it catches things before they become
catastrophes.

And let's face it: the computer can do a MUCH better job of watching
ALL the parameters ("virtual gauges") simultaneously and integrating
their values into a program that has been carefully crafted to see
things that a human with three or four gauges on the dashboard won't see.