The reality here is that the temperature gauge is meaningless to most drivers and it is almost meaningless to those of us who are more aware of our car’s operation. The only thing you really need to know is when the engine is cold so you can drive more gently (and know when you can start getting heat or warm air to the defroster) and when the car is overheating. My 2014 Mazda6 has a cold engine light (steady blue), an “almost overheating” light (steady red), and an “overheating” light (flashing red). Pulling over with a steady red light, in this case, is no different then pulling over when your temperature gauge is heading up to the “red zone” but hasn’t quite made it there yet. For the average ding dong driving around these days the light is a much better solution than the gauge. For the rest of us “geniuses” the lack of a temperature gauge will not make our driving lives any less fulfilling.
I have a gauge but I know when the engine is warming up when I get warm air out of the vents.
I agree that most drivers don’t look the gauges, so dummy lights are just as good, maybe better. But for those few drivers who do look at the gauges, there is a benefit.
With a gauge, you can make a note what it reads when the car’s cooling system is working correctly. Say every day during your drive to work on the freeway it reads exactly at the 1/2 mark. This goes on for years. Then one day you notice it starts to drift from that position on the same drive to work, and is now reading at the 1/3 mark. You know you are in the beginning stages of some cooling system issue. And that forewarning can be a very valuable bit of information.
Agree. I’m trying to remember but I know I had to order the gauge option when I special ordered my 74 Cutlass. I believe I also did when I ordered my 81 Olds. I decided not to on the 86 Park Ave because it was $1000 and included in the electronic dash. Instead I bought the $20 after-market gauges. Every other car I’ve had after that seems to have them stock now.
The cold light will bring in a few cars to a shop with thermostats stuck open.
Many people won’t notice a gauge staying lower than normal, but they’ll notice a light.
Now just make the light look like an Angry Bird shivering…
@circuitsmith: The check engine light will illuminate with a stuck thermostat and an “engine cold too long” code. But of course a lot of people ignore those for years too…
This is the very first time I’ve ever heard of this. I kindof like the idea IF it were combined with a normal temp gauge… Like an LED light within the normal temp gauge would be cool…I dont like the idea by itself. Not at all. Hmmm a cold engine light…yes, I like this. But it needs to be on the face of a normal temp gauge to really do it for me. Ha, I’ll be…a cold engine light.
Blackbird
With a lot of cars now having a “glass cockpit” and not actual mechanical gauges, or at least having an area of the dash that is some kind of information display, I don’t see why the gauge couldn’t be illuminated blue until the car warms up, then change to its normal color, or a small message showing up like “engine is warming up”. But my car has a blue range, a normal range, and a red range on the temp gauge anyway, which is pretty self-explanatory, so why reinvent the wheel?
More information is often better, but if you dumb things down completely, you’re not encouraging people to think and perceive at all.
I remember the days when VW in my first car thought only one bulb was necessary for the turn signal instead of two arrows.
That’s because they assumed a person knew which direction he was going. Nowadays they assume you don’t know anything.