... there seems to be room for it!

IMHO the RX-8 is only missing a battery gage, it has everything else that should be there… (Of course an analog speedometer would be nice also!) As it’s been noted in quite a few earlier threads, we here on the RX-8 Forum are well aware of the pro and con feelings about an analog speedometer (and adding that as in an option package would be sweet!) :D

As I’ve been going around looking at possible new cars to replace my 1990 Probe (it came with the water temperature, voltage and oil pressure gage) in case it breaks down before I can look at the RX-8. I’ve noticed that these gages went away. I only am aware of the Nissan 350Z offers a Gauge Cluster and Subaru offers the Performance Gauge Pack as an option on their vehicles.

In an earlier post in the Lounge http://www.rx8forum.com/showthread.p...highlight=gage I asked if anyone could answer what happened to all the gage displays like the engine manifold vacuum and or engine temperature, voltage and oil temperature/pressure? Sadly, most cars out today have simple dashboard warning lights. I personally prefer the analog gage displays - but please, I need some kind of digital styled meter or bar readout over only a warning light! (wakeech suggested that I make this a “request” but I didn’t at the time because I was hopeful that Mazda would do the right thing for the production model - and now we know what the dash will look like … so today I am! :D )

… I really liked having them! Personally they helped me deal and respond to a bad water pump, radiator-hose leak and bad battery at many different times (with different cars), letting me replace them before I became stranded nowhere near a payphone (of course this was in the days before there were cell-phones) and would have to call AAA for a tow … today, that would never happen … as long as you’re not in a bad cell with your mobile phone…

By having these gages, you are informed of potential problems before things just fall apart and brake down … stranding you (and anyone else along for the ride) somewhere very very inconvenient.

Just last month we had to replace the battery on my wife’s 2000 Passat(it has a battery idiot light). First morning that the temperature dropped below 16 degrees (it was 35 degrees inside our garage) the car would NOT start. It was all due to a couple of battery cells that were weak and not charging. Having a battery gage on the dash would have saved us the lost time and hassle that morning provided (it was the Saturday morning after Thanksgiving plus we had out of town guests staying over). At the least, we could have been aware of what the possible cause of our problem was and at the best we could have already been shopping for a battery… :p

... imo they should be mandatory on all vehicles (especially performance cars like the RX-8). By having these gages, they can be easily monitored, giving time to replace or fix a problem. I need and like to have that information available, even if it was combined into one digital display where I had to push a button to "page" amongst the values.

So yes, I’d really like to see (an optional if it can’t be standard) gage display pack that shows engine temperature, voltage/battery and oil pressure with an analog speedometer! What does everyone else think?

 

having a big race-car style dash with lots of meters?? sounds like cool beans to me

 

I think car companies are trying to hard to make the dash look sleek. They have eliminated gauges in the name of beauty. It is a sad occurance, but it is spreading. It seems like the car with the most guages in the dash is jeep, mostly because beauty is not their foremost concern.

 

guages AREN"T beautiful?????

now there's something i could never agree with... i know you're only observing the trends of contemporary automotive design, but if i was ever graced with the chance of penning the dash of a sports car, the gauges are one thing i would NEVER budge on. if the 8 is indeed a sports car more than cruising sedan, more guages would only work to enhance that quality in the mind of the buyer, i'm sure.
for me, when you start the car and can see more than a half dozen needles jump to life, moving, surging with the sound of the engine, i really feel its life.

 

I've never found a battery gauge necessary. Even when I had one in an 89 Audi 100, the gauge would give little warning as to when the battery would die.

Just learn to repalace it every 4 years. If you need to do it sooner, you either live in a very cold climate, or something is wrong with the car or battery.

 

I would love to have them....the more information, the better.


I think they are going missing for several reasons.

Aesthetics.......most people aren't motor heads

Intelligence.....most people aren't as smart as motor heads and wouldn't know what they were seeing much less interpret the information

Cost................Extra stuff costs extra


How about this......let's find someone who makes an aftermarket gague cluster that fits into the stock hole and contains an analog speedometer, voltage meter, oil pressure gague, etc......hopefully with factory plugs for easy installation!

 

When we lived in souther California ... my wife use to always worry about earthquakes - because there was literally no warring. She grew up in Florida where at least there you'd get some kind of warning before a big natural disaster would strike ...

I live in the Dallas Texas area so it doesn't get really that cold and the car is only 3 years old - so if there is something wrong with our Volkswagen Passat ... not having a battery gage is IMO a very bad idea!

Looking at Consumer Reports Reliability History of the VW Passat (and of course the same holds true for their Audi counterparts ) it appears that over time they have electical and power equipment problems

Edit: If only the RX-8 or Mazda 6 was out 3 years ago...

 

I think what the RX-8 really needs is fast and accurate temperature and oil pressure gauges. Many cars today have what I'd call a "dummy gauge" for the water temperature. It stays at a certain spot on the gauge within a certain range of water temperatures, and only starts to go up, beyond halfway, when things are really getting out of hand. Some oil pressure gauges (even on performance cars) are the same way. My MR2 showed good oil pressure on the gauge when it was 2 quarts low on oil and blew the bottom end from oil starvation.

So I think these two gauges should have quick reaction times and accurate readings - not fudged readings!

 

My 1990 Probe has them for all three (oil, water & battery) and the RX-* should be able to have the same!

 

exactly: like having your finger, lightly pressing on the pulse point of the engine...

 

Wakeech i am not saying a lot of guages aren't beutiful, that is just what car companies think.

 

:D i know cue... i suppose it doesn't stick out in my big block'o'text, but i'm sensitive to your statement... no worries, bud.

 

because of the physical nature of the lead-acid car battery, they can get ruined rather easily, and get rather beat up in cold weather (reactions, obviously, would be much slower)... the gauge would function just as a head's up on what it's doing, so you might never have to get a jump.

the thing about the lead-acid reaction is that when the PbSO4 is formed (as current is taken from the battery), it forms on the lead plates themselves. in this stuff, the SO4 ion is the important bit, and unfortunately (sp!!) the PbSO4 doesn't stick super well to the lead plates... so, if your battery is kinda low, and you slam the door, (or start a big engine in cold weather and then bump something rather hard) the PbSO4 will flake off, floating gently to the bottom of the battery, never to be recovered. this will rather quickly render the battery useless, and you wouldn't be able to tell from just looking at it.

 

Yeah, sure ... exactly what he said! :D

As a side note from my own personal experience with our Passat, the VW Service Repair guy said that we were one of the lucky ones, that most Passat batteries only last a couple of years - ours went a whole 3 years (his attempt to reassure me did exactly the opposite makes me very woried that we have a VW Passat - Now I know why Consumer Reports downgraded the Passat's reliability to average from above average ...)

 

I have never seen a "battery gauge". If we are talking about a volt meter or amp meter then neither will tell you jack about your battery when the engine is running. They simply tell you if your alternator is doing the job. After you have fired up the car the battery could be removed and the car will still run fine and the gauges will never let you know.

The above is a perfect example of why a "battery gauge" or most any gauge is worthless. The layman cannot interpret the data. Ever notice that modern race cars use "idiot lights" instead of analog gauges? This is because the a driver does not care what temp the engine is running at as long as it is within the limits.

 

To be more accurate, that's because:

A) There's normally little room for that gauge.
B) He/she has other things to focus on (while street drivers can spend more time looking at gauges).
C) In most major series, there are people in the pits looking at the actual values, so that the driver doesn't worry about it.

In racing series where they don't have all that fancy telemetry (I.E. Nascar), they still have voltmeters, temp gauges, etc. etc.

---jps

 

I'm all in favor of guages, as well. And I agree with most of you about having them read accurate, rather than tell you when it's too late. However, the idiot lights are a good idea, as well. When I'm on a leisurely drive I frequently don't always pay attention to guages---you learn to tune them out simply because you don't ever see them move 99.9 percnt of the time. If the guages were combined with idiot lights---ala BMW---to me, that is the perfect combination.

 

O.K. you got me on semantics. When I wrote "battery" gage - I really was referring to a voltage gage. Sorry. My mistake. I'll excuse myself with the explanation that all of the "voltage" gages and their warning light counterparts, that I've seen on cars use a "battery" icon to represent itself.



But actually, in my first post, I did (correctly) write - voltage:
and in my last paragraph:
... And when I wrote engine temperature (gage) I also was thinking engine manifold vacuum (gage) ... which is also posted some where hidden in my first topic post (just in cast someone else calls me on it)



It's true that when the car is driving, the alternator is doing all of the electrical supply work to the car's engine, but it's also recharging the battery - and if there are some weak or bad cells (or something is wrong with the car's alternator) a good "voltage" gage will register the fact that something is wrong! Plus, as long as the key is in and turned on with NO motor running a good gage will also show the current state of your battery too - alerting you to the fact that there is trouble.

Maybe it's cause I'm older than most of the RX-8 Forum members, but I remember having and using good accurate display gages on all of my cars!

And yes, it's true that I may not have looked at them most of the time, but when you drive the same car a lot - you can get a feeling when something isn't quite right ... so having those gages on my car will quickly help to pinpoint the possible trouble. It certainly did in the past!

Now I'm only a guy who grew up in Detroit (with a college degree in art and advertising- nothing real smart ) but I learned that when I did notice that the gages where showing out side the normal limits - I better do something to correct my problem quickly (like get off the road before my car just dies while I'm driving it). Having just a warning light come on is usually always to late for simple repairs.

So again, the point that I really want to make is that having a voltage/battery gage (with all of the other gages) that work accurately, is a very good thing to have!



Hey Mazda lets have all the gages and lights that will fit tastefully in the dash ...

:D

 

the only car ive seen with a voltage meter is our 1989 mazda 929.

 

Ooh, those were the good old days ...

 

My 1976 Datsun 280Z had one. :p

 

So does my 1990 Probe! :D ... It's going to be tough giving it up ...


Hey, does anyone know if the Probe's twin the Mazda rx-6 had the same gages too? If my memory serves me - I think that my dash slightly resembled the RX-7 of the same time ... ?

 

Gauges are cool and all, but relying on a gauge to tell you when to add oil is not very smart. Checking the oil level regularly is the best prevention, and most manufacturers recommend checking the oil level at every refueling. I say this, because I am guilty of it too. When the oil pressure light flashed once over some bumps in my 1993 240SX, I checked the oil, and the dipstick was practically bone dry! Point is, no idiot light, gauge, telemetry, or repair droid is a substitute for proper care, feeding, and maintenance on a car you not only drive, but love dearly. Check the oil, inspect the battery, and don't overload your charging system with kilowatt amps, blast caps, electric fans, offroad lights, driving lights, neon tubes, laser lights, and underdrive pulleys. If you want that junk, upgrade your charging system commensurately.

I haven't found "realtime" gauges (with the exception of speedo and tach!) to be terribly useful, since they must be monitored over time to distinguish between "normal" movement, anomalies, and brewing disaster. I'd rather monitor the road, and glance at my instruments, though what I hear and what I feel often tell me just as much as those pointy things :D