My mother was in her 70's when I had to convince her she could drive an automatic transmission. Then she found out about power steering and thought that was a really slick invention. She'd only been driving for
50 years before she ran into power anything.
My wife often became the designated driver. I had a '49 Chrysler Imperial with a straight 8 cast iron engine. It had an automatic transmission, sort of, but no PS. It wasn't bad on the highway but she often said very unladylike words trying to parallel park the beast.
Maybe I don't tend to buy top of the range cars, but every car I've had only has a temperature guage. It's unlikely you notice it's moved to the right before it's too late for the engine.
Since the temperature is usually ok, it would be better and cheaper to fit all cars with just a red warning lamp, and remove the guage?
Neither of those has a warning light. Golf 1998 Mk 4 1.9 TDI, Scenic 2002 Mk 1 1.6 petrol.
Most people don't stare at the guages, maybe those that watch their speed do. I don't do that.
Are you sure it wasn't the stupid designer that made a weird symbol instead of using a word? My Range Rover had a warning light that flummoxed two garages! Eventually I found out it meant "low window washer fluid". The garages checked everything related to the engine coolant.
It's actually the opposite in cars built in the last several decades, at least. Every one I've been involved with had an over temp warning light, most had a temp gauge too, but not all. This is ridiculous. For decades now cars have had computers that monitor everything, including temperature. To not have it warn the driver of an impending catastrophic failure would be really dumb.
Very likely. You normally have to have a hose blow to lose the water or have the thermostat fail to get it to light.
That is complete and utter pig ignorant drivel.
More complete and utter pig ignorant drivel.
It was with that one;. That f****it didn't even know if the light was meant to be on or not. That's what he said first, 'is that light supposed to be on ?'
Trivial to look it up online. Or get real radical and ring the dealer.
Well it didn't warn me when it got hot. Show me this reference.
It should light as soon as it's too hot - i.e. about 3/4s of the temp guage scale.
Wrong. Engines hate heat.
Wrong. Engines hate heat.
That does seem a little daft, red normally means bad. What did the light look like?
The dealer would probably charge £50 for the info. My Honda dealer wanted that much just to tell me which ABS sensor to replace, before they even bought it or fitted it. Dealers are criminal cowboys.
Or, instead of a bunch of old fashioned analog gauges, put in a nice big flat panel display that beeps and displays a human readable problem/solution message when there's a problem.
For example:
"Hey dumbass, you've only got 20 psi in your left front tire. Go to Harbor Freight and buy an air compressor. Inflate tire to 32 psi."
or
"Hey dumbass, you're low on radiator coolant and you're about to cook your engine. Drive to a safe area, shut the fucker off and arrange repair."
or
"Hey dumbass, you're alternator does not appear to be charging your battery. Turn off all unneeded accessories and arrange repair."
They are but there is no way to force the most stupid like you to check the coolant level occasionally and it isnt economic to have a system which checks if just plain water is used or to ensure tha no hose can ever leak etc or that no thermostat will ever fail.
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