[mb_jg]

Originally Posted by star_aqua

nowadays most of the cars uses digital display and since all the display cannot accomodate all the info at the same time, the driver can customise the display setting with the info he needs and can scroll the pages with a toggle switch.
Attachment 148979

The Fabia does not have the temp gauge. I have tried looking up the info on the MID but there is no option. Unless I've missed out how to view it.

[Skyline GT-R]

During my Amby driving days, the Ammeter was the instant "driver alert system" for a broken fan belt. (Nowadays fanbelts do not break that often i guess)

[ragzv]

Originally Posted by mb_jg

The Fabia does not have the temp gauge. I have tried looking up the info on the MID but there is no option. Unless I've missed out how to view it.

Fabia does not have any option in the MID, but has two colour warning lights- blue when engine/coolant temperature is cold and red when overheated. When you switch on the ignition, by default red temp light comes on and goes off as soon as the engine is started

[ssh1979]

Originally Posted by ram_hyundai

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

Not convincing at all. By "cut-off" I'm assuming they meant that the engine stalls. How on earth are we supposed to know what caused it? Will there be an ECU malfunction code generated and will the engine check light come on?

Good old temperature gauge can atleast let us do some DIY analysis and quick fix (coolant mixture top up, examine for leaks et al).

[rajcs]

Originally Posted by mb_jg

The Fabia does not have the temp gauge. I have tried looking up the info on the MID but there is no option. Unless I've missed out how to view it.

Originally Posted by ragzv

Fabia does not have any option in the MID, but has two colour warning lights- blue when engine/coolant temperature is cold and red when overheated.

New Fabia (Oct '10 onwards) does not have the blue light for low temp; just the high temp warning light. So you get to know engine is overheating when it is too late. Temp gauge is sorely missed. Of course service guys can extract temp info from the VAG COM and we can extract it to a cell phone by some deft adaption using a blue tooth device plugged into the dash. Procedure is available in the forum... too much work.

[k_nitin_r]

Originally Posted by 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.

I vote for digital, but only because my car is a loaner whenever I have to fly out of the country (nope, Interpol isn't hot on my trail... YET!) and I don't expect everyone driving my car to understand how the analog dials work and what the normal range is. A flashing exclamation sign or engine check light would alert them to a problem. A cheap solution would be a large red circle lining the speedometer as an engine-check or warning light along with some audible indication as well.

What I miss in my Maruti Esteem is an audible beep like the over-120kph-beep or a service reminder or even a warning that the engine check light is on because those are things that can get overlooked on normal running. I happened to see the engine check light glowing before I even looked at the temperature gauge one day and stopped at the nearest fuel station for coolant/water. The Lexus ES350 has a screen that displays a warning message on startup and the large screen makes it an easy read.

[Games Goblin]

Definitely a yes!

Glad to see that (some) manufacturers are not doing away with it entirely - the Nissan Sunny has a digital one:

[sandeepmohan]

I wonder what happens when the Hot Engine alert lights up. Do you see steam or does it give you enough time to pull over?

A temperature gauge is something I can't live without. Learnt it the hard way when the idiots ar Ford forgot the reconnect the electric fan when they were re fitting the entire air intake assemly right from the air box. I started off my drive and very soon noticed the air conditioning not cooling well. Then it just stopped cooling. I had to roll my windows down. Traffic was dense and it was early evening so the sun was till up. The temperature gauge slowly started to move north. I kept killing the engine at every traffic light. I had also noticed the electric fan has not spinned up inspite of the rising temperature. The electric fan spins in high speed mode if engine temperature is above normal and its nearly as loud as the legendary Fiat fans. As I reached the shivajinagar bus stand the gauge was touching the start of the red band on the gauge. I decided to pull over and popped the hood. No visible coolant leak but there was a tremendous amount of heat coming off the engine. I waited just for a minute, re started the car and took the car up to the shivajinagar bus stand parking. A covered and safe place for the car to cool down. As I went up the ramp, the gauge was slowly crawling more into the red band. Just when I was about to stop I noticed steam fogging up the lower drivers side of the windscreen. Thats where the coolant tank is located. Killed the engine immediately. I did loose some coolant due to pressure build up but not much. The parking attendant was helpful to push the car to a parking slot. As I had some work on Commercial Street, I went ahead with it. I left the car at the bus stand parking. I returned in about 40 minutes and re started the car. The temperature had dropped to safe limits. I checked the functioning of the electric radiator fan by turning on the air conditioning. No life. Managed to drive the car to St. Marks Road service station and they identified the problem to be a open ground connection for the electric fan. The ground was disconnected when re fitting the air intake system as the resonator box comes in the way.

The presence of a temperature gauge was very useful as it gave me a good heads up to what was happening.

[Ricky_63]

The temperature gauge in a vehicle is an absolute "must have". In case of an overheating engine it gives you ample time to react & rectify the problem, before it is too late.

Old school gauge or digital either is fine, but it should be there !

[honeybee]

Hmmm... It's definitely a must and it should be an analogue unit instead of a digital one, where the safe temp range and the dangerous zone are marked separate.

My Santro temp has two dots on each side of the centre line, and the danger zone starts after the centre line. The needle usually climbs from cold to the first dot just before the centre line, within the safe zone. After using the car for all these years, I have realized that it never moves ahead of this position. The moment it does, you know something is wrong.

Now to the Ikon. The needle moves over the centre line and crosses almost a quarter of the rest of the line and stays there (about 75% position on the temperature line). It stays there most of the times, so I am guessing that's where the safe zone is. It would be good if all the cars had a similar/uniform temp indicator.

[DieselDon]

I have an Indica V2 for the past 9 yrs & my Vote is Yes.

The indicator saved me three times atleast. Simple one. Needs to be on every car.

Was eyeing the Vento for the past 10 months (Yes - Guess I love my Indica too much, despite the recent high maintenance costs). Am searching to find how German Engineering takes care of this.

[i74js]

I have all my cars with the temperature gauage and I consider this to be a must have. A big yes and will be a consideration for me for every new purchase that I do. I am not sure why the same is not discussed in the official reviews of new cars by GTO / Sr. BHPians.

- I have been saved twice in my Indica because of the guage. It stays planted at the mid point and any change on either side is a good enough indication for me to pull up and see what has gone wrong. The temp. Guage in Indica picks up data from the upper outlet of the radiator (before it is pulled by the pump housed with the timing belt assembly) and is also capable of providing indication even after a coolent leak because the temp guage can measure the air temparature too (in one of the coolent leaks, there was no water in the radiator and the guage gave me a temp rise indication) - I am thus sure it reports air temparature too, which is very good.

- In my Ford Escort, there is just one fan doing double duty (it changes speed / rpm though) for radiator and AC condensor. Thus in monsoons and winters when I use the AC to clear mist from windscreen, the temperature needle drops slightly from the normal levels and goes back to the standard position when the AC is switched off.

Guages are good and give you a fair idea of what the car is busy doing. I would prefer a scenario when the digital is dovetailed with analog and we start getting audible / light symbol warning together with guage. Not sure if this will happen when margins and cost cuttings are evident with all car makers.

Cheers !

[naikameya]

It comes in very handy when you know there is an heating problem and need pull your car to the nearest garage wanting to keep an eye on the temperature.

But I believe it is not really necessary in the modern cars. Other than the obvious reasons like the on-board computer keeping a track and providing a warning lamp I would like to suggest few aspects that come to my mind from ergonomics and cognitive science perspective:

1. The number of parameters that a driver can manage while driving is limited (called as cognitive load). Modern cars have lot many things that the driver needs to keep track of. Hence it is very important to reduce the load and drag his/her attention only when required.
2. Research has shown that the best (quickest) way to attract human attention is by showing an object/ indication that did not already exist in his/her field of vision. Tracking the change in position of needle is not the best option. (This research was done with air traffic controllers). While driving lot many things are rapidly changing in the drivers environment making it difficult to track finer motions.
   That is also one of the reason why modern cars have low fuel warning lamp even though there is a fuel gauge.
3. A gauge is best used where you need the user to track motion w.r.t. rate of change, which in this case is not helpful as temperature may shoot up suddenly or too gradually.

P.S.:
I have done a project; design of car dashboard to reduce the cognitive load while driving and this is my profession(sadly not involving automobiles) as well.

My first post.

[saket77]

Nice first post and welcome to Teambhp! I understand your point, but I belong to the old school of gauges. The gauge is also good to have at the time of cold start which can let you know that the car has reached optimal performance temperature. Just a thought, why not provide both to satisfy and adress all?

[msaudf]

Some cars comes with both a temp gauge and an overheat warning light.
Our old 1997 Toyota Tercel had this feature. it was being used by my uncle for about 2 years and he did absolutely no maintenance on the car, never even a coolant topup (i think) because when we took back the car and were on our way back home after a small ghat section my dad noticed the amber warning light, the gauge was not in the red zone but above the normal range close to the red zone. we never knew this warning light even existed in our car in our 4 years of ownership, thanks to my lazy uncle we discovered it. We pulled over after driving on for about another kilometer to find a proper place to stop and checked for any leaks, we did'nt find any so we started up the engine and then filled the empty reservoir/expansion tank and let the engine idle a bit, we had to keep on topping up water as the radiator was taking in all the water in the tank. 2 liters and 20 minutes later the gauge came back to normal and we drove off.
So i think the over heat warning light comes on ahead of the temp reaching the danger or critical temperature mark or zone. As it is a warning light it is in amber. If at all the driver continues i think the engine check light would come on in RED signalling the engine will fail if driven any more.
So, I'd prefer a gauge with this warning feature, just like a fuel gauge with the low fuel warning light.
Just like naikameya mentioned it takes a new object or light in your instrument cluster for you to take proper notice.