We do NOT need tachometers on most of our cars. Waste of dash space

FoDaddy · August 30, 2019, 3:56pm

Show me a new car that doesn’t have a temp gauge. I can’t think of one that doesn’t.

acensor · August 30, 2019, 10:47pm

Hi FoDaddy.

You wrote …

“Show me a new car that doesn’t have a temp gauge. I can’t think of one that doesn’t.”

My 2015 Forester definitely has no temperature gauge. Only a idiot light that is blue when engine is cold and red if it is dangerously hot.

I am willing to bet the majority of new cars do not have temperature gauges.

That is unless maybe you are talking about gauges that show the outside air temperature?

I… and I believe everyone else here… am talking about the engine block or coolant temperature gauge.

Those are common on pre year 2000 cars. Increasingly rare after that. Even rarer on current new models.

So I’m truly confused where you get the idea that they and voltage gauges are in current cars.

If you’ve found any newer than, say, 2014 cars with voltage, engine temp, and oil pressure gauges they’ve either been put there after-market, or are rare exceptions.

Anyhow, even if your statement that we have temp, voltage, and oil pressure gauges that we don’t need was correct, that wouldn’t really change my point … which was and is we have big hunking tachometers in our dash we don’t need.

Alex

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acensor · August 30, 2019, 11:02pm

Hi Shadowfax.

Yeah, it’s not doing anything really terrible by being there. But it does hurt on my dash. Because there’s limited space in the instrument panel portion of the dash, there are items of display (such as the icon that tells me if the cruise control is on, and the digital gas tank gauge, and the icon that blinks to warn me fuel is getting low, that are squashed down pretty small… are truly a bit had to read. I’d love to have them bigger, and would be glad to give up the huge virtually useless tachometer to make space for them to be bigger.
And, still, I’m puzzled that the automakers haven’t remove them (since they’re always looking for ways to save a dollar or two on production costs). They’ve obviously figured out that most drivers don’t want, need, or understand oil pressure, block temperature, battery discharge/charge, and oil temp gauges… and have mostly removed those from nearly all dashboards? So why hang on to the tach?

acensor · August 30, 2019, 11:27pm

Yeah…
Very true for many. But the answer is leave all the configuration options there for (a) those who really will use and appreciate them and for (b) marketing claims about all the wonderful features… and keep them slightly hidden (so they don’t confuse the configuration challenged) with them factory set to a decent default configuration.

BTW: Regarding the drivers with cell phone on their ears instead of blue-toothed hand-free:
Study after study has confirmed that talking on the phone hands-free is not safer than in-the-hand. It turns out its more a question of where our eyes and even more so where our attention are than where our hands are. (Important exception: Using hands and eyes texting while driving is definitally high risk.)
I was talking to a police officer in my county here in Oregon who is in charge of overall strategy for reducing traffic accidents. Runs all the traffic schools. Surprisingly he whole heartedly agreed with me that the law prohibiting talking on a handheld cell phone was illegal (now must be hands free) was poorly thought out. He knew of the extensive studies showing that talking hands-free adds just as much risk as cell-phone-up-to-ear. And here’s the interesting thing he added Something like this: "When I used to see a driver in front of me or next to me with the cellphone on his ear a knew there was a good chance he wasn’t paying 100% attention to what’s going on on the road… might not even be fully aware I’m there. So I’d give him wide berth… watch carefully for some unaware driving behavior. Could defend myself.
Now with hands free the driver in front of or next to me could be completely missing-in-action…caught in a huge argument with his wife or totally AWOL trying to close a big business deal. And I won’t know I have a driver as dangerous as a drunk right next to me.

acensor · August 30, 2019, 11:42pm

I agree… I like digital gauges for some things. I was surprised to discover that the very big (numbers nearly an inch tall) digital readout speedometer on my Mitsubish is more pleasant and useful than the perfectly good analog speedometer on my Forester.
On the other hand, when I had an analog battery charge/discharge meter watching whether it was moving smoothly or twitching carried more info about what’s going on than changing digits would.
Same with engine block temp. Easier to tell on a analog needle what speed the temperature is creeping or shooting up… and whether it looks like it’s going to level out still in a safe zone or clearly going to blow right by a redline. And I’d any day love a digital fuel gauge that actually told me accurately in digits how many gallons were left in the tank, over an analog needle that seems to show I’m down to “about 1/8th of a tank” but is harder to read the lower it gets.

The best of all world for me would be full gauges plus visual and audible warnings when readings might call for special attention.

Alex

acensor · August 30, 2019, 11:46pm

I really like your ideas. I will put you in charge of auto instrument panel design when they make me Emperor.

Alex

acensor · August 30, 2019, 11:49pm

Exactly my point! And you’re a real car-guy. How much less useful to Joe and Jane anydriver.

FoDaddy · August 31, 2019, 1:38am

Disagree, I’ll bet that the majority do

As am I

My Mustang (2016) has guages for the following; Speedometer, Tach, engine temp, oil pressure, fuel level, and vacuum (which was an odd choice).

My F-150 (2014) has gauges for the following : Speedometer, Tach, engine temp, trans temp, oil pressure, and fuel.

Just for s*its & giggles. I googled gauge clusters for about a dozen common vehicles with non-electronic clusters (no full-lcd instrumentation like you see in some Audi’s and luxury makes) most have a temp gauge, or some form thereof.

Disagree. See the above listings

You might not need extra gauges. I prefer to have as much information about how my vehicles are running as possible. A gauge can warm you to a developing problem, an idiot light won’t tell you anything until the problem is actually happening.

Triedaq · August 31, 2019, 2:38am

Years ago when I was in college, I often rode the bus home and back. The small.bus company had a fleet of Flxible buses. One of the buses didn’t have a speedometer, but had a tachometer with scales that gave the miles per hour. The driver could look at the appropriate scale and get the mph from the tachometer for each forward gear.

VDCdriver · August 31, 2019, 12:13pm

… and conversely, the old VW bugs had no tachometer, but they had hash marks on the speedometer scale, indicating maximum shift points for each gear.

Mustangman · August 31, 2019, 1:50pm

I used to drive a hashed-out Datsun 510. It had no tach so I added one. I used to shift when the valves floated so I really didn’t need it.

When the battery got weak, I’d park it at the top of the sloped school parking lot and let it roll down so I could bump start it. Did that for about 6 weeks until I could afford a battery.

bcohen2010 · August 31, 2019, 2:14pm

The only car which I ever considered, which did not have a temperature gauge was a Toyota Echo, and that was one of the reasons I did not buy the car. I also did not like the ridiculous arrangement of having the instrument cluster mounted on the center of the dash, and having to drive with my head angled to look at it.

The Echo was of course an economy car, and one that was designed for foreign markets and merely offered for sale here. A Subaru Forester is an expensive car, and for the manufacturer to “cheap out” and not provide at a minimum a speedometer, fuel gauge, temperature gauge, and tachometer is unforgivable. If I was considering the car, that bit of cost-cutting would have made me walk.

BTW, I really appreciate the “full instrumentation” dash on my 1995 Caravan, which not only has a tachometer, but even includes oil pressure and battery voltage. This was an extra-cost option, and was offered on most Chrysler products from the 1980s-mid 1990s. Many GM products were also offered with the 6-gauge cluster, either standard or as an extra-cost option. On GM trucks and cargo vans, a 5-gauge cluster with everything except a tachometer was standard.

thegreendrag0n · August 31, 2019, 2:33pm

Some bad news: most of cars in the “last generation” do not have temp-gauge anymore, this is from my recent shopping experience and looking at several makes/models.
Making “must have temp gauge” a requirement disqualifies way too many good cars.
If one is paranoid enough about knowing the exact engine temperature, applications like “Torque” will allow reading it on cell phone from the OBD2 port.

sgtrock21 · August 31, 2019, 2:42pm

I refer to those “gauges” as “analog idiot lights”.

Hugemoth_144444 · August 31, 2019, 3:00pm

I once owned a car that wasn’t even equipped with a fuel gauge, a 1957 Karmen Ghia. It had a nice clock and speedometer but only a lever under the dash with a motorcycle type fuel valve.

My 2017 Versa doesn’t have a temp gauge but I suppose the check engine light would come on if it overheats. I also have the Torque app and an OBD dongle so I can check the temp and a hundred other things when I want.

sgtrock21 · August 31, 2019, 3:27pm

I use my tachometer like that. I would not like a manual transmission vehicle without one.

Triedaq · August 31, 2019, 3:37pm

What I wish vehicles would include is a readout similar to the odometer that would indicate the hours on the engine. This would be useful in buying a used car. Comparing the hours recorded on the engine with the odometer reading would give some idea of how the vehicle was used. Farm tractors have a readout for the hours of use.
Another gauge I would like is a vacuum gauge. This would give me an indication of the health of the engine.

bing · August 31, 2019, 3:59pm

Yep. They didn’t come with them but I put hour meters on both my lawn mower and snow blower. The Briggs one you just wind the wire around the plug wire. Wonder if that would work on a car, or probably easier to just add an hour meter.

doubleclutch · August 31, 2019, 5:34pm

I like having a tachometer. When I’m accelerating quickly to merge onto a highway it is nice to know just how far I’m pushing the engine.

ok4450 · August 31, 2019, 5:49pm

I prefer a tach along with other gauges. I’ve always been in the habit of monitoring them constantly.
A temp gauge running hotter than normal gives me a heads up rather than a too late light.
Same for the tach which can show the beginnings of transmission or clutch slippage.

I also like vacuum gauges which can monitor engine health and show the beginning of a problem before it becomes noticeable to the driver. Few have ever had this other than GM and some Euro cars such as SAABs, Merkurs, and so on.

In the old days I did some street racing and while I had a tach I never paid attention to it. Eyes on the road rather than looking down at a tach. It’s easy to tell when the engine is running out of its power band.