[TechnoGeek]

My vote : A resounding YES

For all the reasons mentioned in previous posts.

[longhorn]

I vote for the old school temp gauge. Manufacturers are cutting costs by doing away with the temp meter. I, for one, do not subscribe to this school of thought. Temperature gauges should be mandated by law.

I voted for 'Yes'. Cara Mia Fiat Linea has it.

[Reinhard]

Ah an easy poll
YES ALWAYS!

What surprises me is, we'll sooner or later have a full fledged PC capability inside a mobile phone that costs 15k. On the other hand in cars, they are doing away with things & placing stickers on the boot lids instead of proper "ALTO" emblems. I like the FIATs for this. They have good gauges, and comprehensive MID too. That pic on 1st page is I guess the dash of a Ritz. Its not a cheap car by any means. Why save there?! And we don't see the cars becoming cheaper either. They just cost higher every year (due to inflation & other factors - I accept).

I hope someone has the patience to convince the authorities to make the temp gauge mandatory on cars.

[vivekiny2k]

my VW beetle has an indicator that starts blue, and turns off, and turns amber (with beep) if it start heating up. I wish it had a gauge.

in my mits galant I was able to adjust my driving until it was fixed based on how fast it went up and down.

for the same reason I like analog multimeters better than digital ones, you can see the trend.

[narendra.vw]

Since most of the cars come with front wheel drive, cooling fan is mostly electrical . Chances are it may stop working due to worn out electrical parts, loose wire sockets, or blown fuse. If any one thing happens engine bond to heat up, if no temp gauge in the car we will never know until engine blows up. I prefer old mechanical gauge.

[YaeJay]

Guess Im old school! I do like my gauges, the temp, the oil pressure, the amp. etc.
Ofcourse we do have the BATT light etc, I once got stranded with a faulty alternator in a Santro. spent the night all because I dint ' notice the BATT LIGHT'. Some warning lights! Gauges rock, always for me!

[simplyself]

Mechanical gauge is even better where one gets to know the quantum of temperature.

[Nash24]

Well if this is a very cheap equipment, why are the car makers avoiding it, there wont be some reason which we guys are missing i guess.

Are we not able to fit after market temp gauge's? may be a small one in the corner of the dash board in the place of a extra switch socket.

I agree its an important feature, I have a temp gauge in my Alto, till date never faced an issue with overheating. Takes 3 to 4 mins to move from C to middle level, stays there forever, even if drive the baby for 5hours non stop at speeds of 90km/hr plus.

I'm unsure how do the lights function on the ritz, i was told it blinks if the engine is slowly getting overheated and suddenly just stays "On" incase the engine is totally overheated!

[mail4loys]

Its a definite YES.

While sometime back while traveling from Chennai to Bangalore, the alternator & fan belt got cut when we were near Kanchipuram. The nearest Ford service center was 100 Kms away (Vellore). With the advice from Ford service manager we drove the car slowly towards service station completely relying on the temperature gauge. Whenever it came near red part of the "H" we would stop in at a shade for sometime and then moved forward!!!

[vipul_singh]

The temperature gauge saved my life, again!

Past Saturday, I noticed that the temperature was at the mid-mark even with the A/C on. In the Palio, the radiator fans come on at full speed whenever the A/C is on, so my car maintains a very low temperature. Therefore a temp reading at mid mark with the A/C on was very unusual. Stopped the car immediately and opened the bonnet. There was no coolant at all in the pressurised bottle. I topped the bottle off with boiling water (since the engine was hot) and found that one of the hoses was gone!

Due to early detection, looks like the engine has escaped damaged (though I would be getting a compression test done for confirmation). Had it been a car with only the high temp indicator, I would have detected it much later.


On another note, I find it funny that on one hand high-end cars are coming with coolant level gauges, while the cheaper ones have even the temp gauges deleted! If you ask me, every car should come with both coolant temp as well as coolant level warning. If you lose coolant, even the temp gauge is a little late in shooting up because flow to the hottest parts of the engine stops

[ssh1979]

The feeling of comfort and reassurance you get when you glance time and again at the good old temp. gauge and find that everything is normal: I would call this priceless.

And also, no to digital displays please (for the temp. gauge).

[ramzsys]

Apart from the temperature gauge, the ammeter too is a thing that is missed in all modern cars.

In my padmini 137d, with headlights on, the ammeter still showed 10 Amps consumption(the lights are 130/100 W). This made me drive to the electrician and guess what: Alternator cut-out has failed. A Rs.160 part.

Analog it is!

PS: I am seriously put off with the digital console in the new bolero. It impairs the vehicle character.

[kirantp]

Originally Posted by ssh1979

The feeling of comfort and reassurance you get when you glance time and again at the good old temp. gauge and find that everything is normal: I would call this priceless.

And also, no to digital displays please (for the temp. gauge).

I second ssh197. I had this in Premier Padmini in the 90s and it was very handy.

[ram_hyundai]

I have a definite yes for this.The temp guage has come back in the new swift wherin it was missing in the earlier ones-with K series engine.The explanation which i had from different quarters was that the modern engines cut off automatically if the temp goes above a perticular level.But that was not that convincing to me though.
ram