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Rant - why took away the temp gauge

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Phanuel said:
Learned to drive on a manual 89 Stanza wagon without a tach. Blew my mind that they sold manuals without tachs.
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Meh, after a while you get a rythm and shift based on speed/feel. I too learned on a car without a tach. No right side mirror either!
 
when a family member acquired then a brand new car, we were so impressed that the temperature needle on that car as it used to stay rock steady at normal operating temperature. on my older car, it used to creep up and down based upon the load on the engine and outside temperature. It was after a decade or more and after I purchased my first scanner I realized that temperature gauges were damped to always stay right in the center.
 
Phanuel said:
Learned to drive on a manual 89 Stanza wagon without a tach. Blew my mind that they sold manuals without tachs.
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NutBucket said:
And in the old days there were lots of cars without a tach 😉

Our Forester doesn't have a temp gauge. Annoying? Yes. Oddly enough one of the available digital gauges is oil temp! At any rate, if I cared that much I would have bought a different car.
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My first car that I owned for 10yrs was an old Bug, no temp or tach. The engine sound was your tach.
 
Am I the only one that doesn't care? Our Mazda doesn't have one, but has a water light to indicate when it's cold/hot and otherwise is off. My gti has one but after 5 minutes it sits at center constantly,(it does have an oil temp, which is more important) besides there's nothing I could do if it went a bit over center. Theres a pretty wide range of acceptable operating temps. If either are getting too hot im sure numerous warnings will come on, but I've never had a car I've had to worry about overheating. Last car that remotely came close was gfs 99 Saturn, but that was fixed with new parts.
 
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jlee said:
Probably no coolant temp to monitor, anyway. 😛
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You could get aftermarket gauges to measure the head temp. I contemplated it, but never got one.

I like gauges. More data is always better than less. Looking forward to getting my obd2 reader next week. Never used one before, and I'll finally be able to figure out what the bmw with dicked up leds is trying to tell me when it dings.
 
XabanakFanatik said:
Exactly. I have a scangauge II mounted in my cruze to monitor water temp, tranny temp, and boost. I was a little surprised to find out the needle sits at the exact same place that means "hot" from 175-235 F.
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The Cruze has a coolant temperature option in the trip computer, along with a battery voltage and tire pressure monitor. It's one thing I like on that car compared to my Mini, which just has an idiot light for things like that.
 
sontakke said:
None of the temperature gauges are linear.
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Then I wonder why I can identify the moment the thermostat opens on my vehicle....you can see the temp gauge drop its indicated temp as the unheated coolant in the radiator gets into the block's already heated circulating coolant.
 
Most of them have few discrete positions; so you are able to see the temperature coming up but once it reaches the operating temperature; it remains steady for very wide range of temperature. It has been years since you could see the gauge dropping as the coolant fan runs.
 
Meghan54 said:
Then I wonder why I can identify the moment the thermostat opens on my vehicle....you can see the temp gauge drop its indicated temp as the unheated coolant in the radiator gets into the block's already heated circulating coolant.
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Probably because the delta is enough to move it. Par for the course.

Same with cars that monitor coolant temp outside of the block and shoot up with the influx of heated coolant during the same scenario.
 
Ferzerp said:
Do you also realize that the other warnings come on *before it's overheated* as well? The arbitrary temp that will create a warning code isn't a danger temp, it is the point in which they feel you should stop operating the vehicle. That would be asinine. The only one that is like that is oil pressure, but as we know, that's a different beast entirely because of how rapidly it drops when there is an issue.
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I have no idea what to expect in a car with no temperature gauge, but I know that I don't trust idiot lights, and I'm pretty confident that my assessment of a gauge is vastly more useful than "If temperature > [hot] then turn light on".
 
nakedfrog said:
I have no idea what to expect in a car with no temperature gauge, but I know that I don't trust idiot lights, and I'm pretty confident that my assessment of a gauge is vastly more useful than "If temperature > [hot] then turn light on".
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Ime, the idiot light comes on about 5 minutes before steam comes out of the hood. Might as well just use the steam. Five minutes isn't especially valuable.
 
lxskllr said:
Ime, the idiot light comes on about 5 minutes before steam comes out of the hood. Might as well just use the steam. Five minutes isn't especially valuable.
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I remember one time my e36's coolant connector blow up(common issue) I depend on the temp gauge to get the car to the shop a couple miles away. Drive a few hundred ft the temp will shot to 3/4, rest 5min and drive again. So it is very useful.
 
I drove 99 Camry with cracked radiator to the shop by monitoring the temperature gauge. But I knew that temperature gauge is real and also stopped every 10 miles to check to make sure water was still there.
 
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