This is like when cars went from oil pressure and temperature gauges to “idiot” lights. One let’s you see trends in situations and be prepared for maintenance, the other tells why your car broke down.
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😀 yeah it made sense to me because I grew up in the changeover.
But here’s the Wiki entry.
The “idiot light” terminology arises from popular frustration with automakers’ use of lights for crucial functions which could previously be monitored by gauges, so a troublesome condition could be detected and corrected early. Such early detection of problems with, for example, engine temperature or oil pressure or charging system operation is not possible via an idiot light, which lights only when a fault has already occurred – thus providing no advance warnings or details of the malfunction’s extent.
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If you have a newer car, it’s worse.
Your car can say check engine and turn off a lot of features in your car if you’re external thermometer in simply malfunctioning.
Your newer car will also tell you EXACTLY which sensors are showing bad data and whether it’s an electrical fault in the sensor’s circuit or implausible input, etc. Unfortunately you need a scan tool for it, but depending on the make you might find a decent free or cheap app to use a generic ELM327 or better, STNN1110 based OBD2 tool, that lets you scan all the modules rather than just OBD2 standard stuff.
So rather than playing parts darts or verifying every sensor by multimeter using known resistance ranges or putting up with bad fuel economy and low power… You just scan the thing and it’ll tell you.
I’ve owned cars from the '90s, '00s and '10s (2019 being the latest) and while my cars from '10s didn’t have sensor issues, I’ll tell you that I’ll take the complex and super hated '00s German cars over the early '90s one ANY day of the week. Super easy to diagnose.
My 2014 kangoo probably have like 3 sensors. I already changed an expensive turbo sensor and the one detecting if your seatbelt is making it beep for 3 minutes whatever you’d do before stopping every time I drive. I wonder if it’s rational to fix it, costwise.
Oh it has significantly more sensors than that, trust me.
As for the seatbelt sensor, honestly depends on the cost and how long you plan on keeping it. Without knowing your car, I can’t say for sure, but I suspect it’s a simple switch. The issue may very well also be in the wiring, or the switch could’ve broken loose or something (in which case you’d likely need the belt buckle receptacle thingy).
Personally I’m so annoyed by things like that, I’d fix it. It probably annoys you, and if you do end up selling it rather than keeping it, it’ll annoy the buyer.
Yeah I know, it’s just very very not modern, which is good, but it also breaks down all the time which is less cool.
The French know exactly how to make a car last 10 years and start breaking down after that unfortunately.
I honestly don’t know what would be a good replacement if you do need to get rid of it though. That type of van is a market dominated by the French to the point that “Berlingo” is almost a universal term for them IMO.
Yeah, as a swede I’m not used to the shaky quality 😅
The Berlingo is the Citroen version, and also an old french candy used for getting the bad taste of hot spring water out of your mouth (it’s supposedly good to bathe in and drink but often taste of sulfur)
All that information is available in the cluster lmfao.
There’s far more information that needs to be readily apparent to a driver than the oil pressure.
Oil pressure tells you if the engine is dying or if the Oil is breaking down or overheating. I’d take it over an RPM gage.
A lot of vehicles dont have it in their cluster menus these days.
I drive a 10 year old Vauxhall and it definitely does not have it. I wanted to know my oil temp and had to resort to a Bluetooth obd plug paired to my phone.
How does that work…? That’s quite obviously not how you can get that information. The engine needs to be off and the vehicle in accessory for OBD2 ports to work, the oils not moving so there’s no pressure or temp involved.
How do you access your trip milegage information? The oils data is in that same menu.
OBD2 absolutely works while the engine is on, what are you smoking?
OBD2 primarily works when the vehicle is running. It can be used to tune some vehicles while they are on. What car do you have that doesn’t have the OBD port on while its running? It would be illegal in most states in the US.
I rest my case.
How so? Are you one of those people who don’t check their dipstick before driving? And rely on a gauge that can fail? Do you not look under you vehicle for oil once in a while?
Because what does a gauge tell you that a once over doesn’t? How crappy is your car that you need to stare at an oil gauge instead of being able to tell something is up and pull over and find the information in your cluster? Maybe pay attention to the road instead of staring at superfluous gauges dude.
Per wiki.:
The “idiot light” terminology arises from popular frustration with automakers’ use of lights for crucial functions which could previously be monitored by gauges, so a troublesome condition could be detected and corrected early. Such early detection of problems with, for example, engine temperature or oil pressure or charging system operation is not possible via an idiot light, which lights only when a fault has already occurred – thus providing no advance warnings or details of the malfunction’s extent.
Oil pressure is different than oil level. And a temp gauge and battery gauge tell you what happening.
As you drive your car you get used to what the normal mode is, and when it starts to deviate you get clues to what might be going on in your engine.
I.e. I’d start my truck and as it warmed up before the first traffic light, then on the trip to work it had a normal range for summer and winter. When I started to see temp gauge climb higher than usual, and then stay there a long time then suddenly drop super low , it tells you your thermostat for coolant flow is starting to stick closed, and probably needs replacing.
For oil pressure you see a normal range , but if temp is up and oil pressure drops you are overheating the engine and losing lubrication. Or if pressure suddenly went down it could be blocked d oil filter, or if it suddenly is fine it can mean the bypass has opened and you are no longer filtering oil.
Idiot lights don’t tell you any of this, only what has failed when it totally fails
All of that can told by looking at your oil, the gauges are just a lazy half measure lol.
The light is just so you know to check the gauges or your dipstick or whatever since they’re superfluous and always have been.
They put gauges in as the first idiot defence for people who can’t even check their vehicle before starting it. Since if you checked you oil, you would have noticed something was wrong before even starting it or needing the gauge.
And nothing is stopping you from checking the cluster when it’s safe to do so, the information is still there, it’s never needed to be there 24/7.
You also need to ignore the first part of wiki and cherry pick your information to get that take…
From the exact same wiki page, but further up….
A tell-tale, sometimes called an idiot light[1] or warning light, is an indicator of malfunction or operation of a system, indicated by a binary (on/off) illuminated light, symbol or text legend.
It’s telling you check your vehicle since you didn’t check the oil or something else before starting it, you know, like you should be.
People were ignoring the gauges until the light came on anyways, so why have it readily accessible when there other stuff?
Our 96 Sonoma that we just got in April, about a month later ended up having a massive oil leak. It first showed up on the oil pressure gauge.
One day, had to put 3 quarts in it! It wasn’t burning the oil, nor would it leave a puddle under the truck. So where the fuck was it going?
There was only one way to find out. Inspect everything with the engine running. Turned out the oil filter was ancient, clogged with what looked almost like tar, and basically pouring oil out from around the seal.
One ~$8 oil filter fixed that right up 👍
Point is, we would have never known just by checking the engine before cranking it, as the oil doesn’t pump unless the engine spinny spinny. Bonus points for having an actual oil pressure gauge, as we would have probably drove it bone dry until the engine locked up otherwise.
Oil level is not oil pressure, they are different issues.
You missed the whole part about trending changes and maintenance prediction.
Oil pressure shows you live, what is happening inside the engine. Its why Race cars , Drag Cars have giant gauges for oil pressure, etc.Yourportion you clipped from wiki, further proves my point. Its for idiots that didn’t watch their gauges.
Of course as a car guy you check oil level, coolant level, brake fluid level, but you want live data so you know what happening when engine is running. You can prevent failure before any warning light will.
Maybe you are a computer guy: do you want your PC shutting off to thermally protect itself without warning, or do you want to compare fan rpm and CPU temp trends to spot if you have thermal issues rising. Which could indicate thermal paste issue, or you have some other thing loading the system when you thought it was just your game.
People that can glean info from daily data trends know why gauges are important, even on industrialmachineas. Idiots just want a light to tell them something is already failing. It’s the difference between reactive maintenance and proactive maintennace.
Oil level is not oil pressure, they are different issues.
Oil pressure is directly related to the amount of oil in the system, too much oil, high pressure, not enough oil, too low. It’s slightly more complicated. But the gauges are there to tell you to check your oil anyways? So why skip not that unnecessary step and just check it…?
Idiots only need those gauges since they don’t check their oil or give their vehicle a visual once over. It starts with a visual inspection, if you’re too much of an idiot to do that, you need to rely on the gauges.
And again, the gauges aren’t just gone, they’re just moved off to the side since they aren’t needed all the time.
Using your race car analogy, you’re not driving a race car, or something where that’s needed immediately. You can dream and wish your car was that fancy I guess.
That live data is all a still available, you don’t need it 24/7 like a race driver. You’re conflating issues and points now. There’s nothing stoping you from viewing the cluster and getting your trends, is there? And those trends can all be found by doing a visual inspection anyways.
What’s more important than oil temp?
Speed is only relevant when there’s a cop around, otherwise im driving safely with the flow of traffic, the speed in mph is irrelevant. The RPM are important but I can hear it, don’t need the number really. But the oil, i need to know because i would have no idea if it was overheating until something already went wrong and requires an expensive repair.
Is your vehicle in state of constant disrepair where it’s leaking oil? You check the dipstick before you leave for your drive, and if it loses enough pressure during the drive to be an issue it will be noticeable. Either a lights gonna come on, it’s gonna make a smell, leave a drip under it, etc. There’s always physical evidence, the gauge does nothing that a petrip inspection won’t find.
And if you’re curious, spend 3 seconds finding the information in the cluster. It’s not something that’s ever had to be checked 24/7 while driving like you speed and rpms and other actual important information. It also prevents the dash from being clustered with superfluous data and have the constantly needed information Readily apparent. 3 gauges vs a dozen.
It’s not an issue for your owned car, but people lend cars out, rentals etc.
I get that, i just find that speed and rpm is even less relevant. Speed is just look where your driving that tells you what you need to know, and RPM is sound you can hear how hard your car is working.
I don’t mind the one without the number, what i do mind is that SOME FUCKING ASSHOLE decided that no number is bettter and forces his FUCKING DUMBASS decision on everyone else.
SO FUCK OFF WIHT YOUR NUMBERLESS SHIT AND TAKE ALL OF FUCKING MATERIAL DESIGN WITH YOU!
Sorry. i have strong feelings about this topic, don’t know if you noticed.
My personal rage at the moment is this square time format with the two digit hour over the two digit minute. Obviously designed for a smart watch but Android decided it needs to be on the phones as well. I keep turning it off but every few updates it comes back – because the designers know better than me what I actually want.
Try needing Julian day. If you’re coding then strftime() has supported it since 1989. All you need is “%j” and there it is, with leap year handling, etc.
The end goal isn’t a good/flexible/powerful user experience for the person who bought the device; it’s a larger user base that can be marketed to The Machine for more money out the back end.
Oh my god yes. Why the hell do I have to open the notification shade to see the number, especially when it gets low?
It shouldn’t be that hard to say, automatically show the number under a certain percentage. If it’s 10% I have around an hour left of medium usage. If it’s under 5% I have anywhere from 30 minutes to 5.
Just show me the number motherfucker, at least when it’s important!
I could have sworn mine does that - show the number when under 20% but I don’t see a relevant setting
Yeah it’s BS that you have to find detailed instructions online to turn of developer mode just so you could have the number
You should try GNOME!
I will pretend i didn’t read this comment, or i would have to explain to my doctor why my blood pressure exceeded the rating of a nuclear pressurized water reactor.
On. Always numbers on.
Always on.
I must know precisely how anxious to be.
Both, although I probably dont need the icon
I need an icon to show what the percentage refers to, i dont need an icon to visualize what that percentage means.
Number on and icon completely off.
I literally have just the number
I stopped checking how much battery is left like 10 years ago. I charge every night and thats it. If it gets critically low it notifies my another way.
I had no idea you could turn the number off nor that anyone would want to
It depends on what kind of user you are. The ones that charge their phone whenever near a charger don’t need a number. The ones who only charge when the phone threatens to shut down absolutely need the number.
But what’s the cost of the number??
Let’s have a vote. I’ll make two replies, please DOWNVOTE the one you agree with. The option with the most downvotes wins.
(I’m using downvotes instead of upvotes to make it obvious there’s no karma manipulation involved)
Tbf there’s no karma on lemmy so no worries
Downvote this if you have the number hidden
I’m surprised it’s this low. I used to run with percentage enabled. Then disabled. Then enabled it again for a while. But now I’ve had it disabled again for the past year or so and don’t see the benefit of seeing numbers. It’s an unnecessary minmax that’s just giving me anxiety to track it too closely. All I need from the bar is to tell me the approximate charge level.
Downvote this if you have the number shown
Nunber gang. That said it doesn’t change a lot for me. If I had a bar and it looked half full I’d be charging same as if the nunber read 55%
Lithium ion batteries cannot super accurately report their own charge so the percentage isn’t necessarily digit accurate.
I am also usually just making sure it’ll get me to a place I can charge it when I actually need to worry about charge. That doesn’t usually require like the difference between say 33% and 26% for me.
I just need to be able to see if I’ve got like a fifth of battery left or less / more.
Admitedly also with the ADHD if there’s a percentage I fixate on it for no reason so it’s less annoying for me to have it off.
Same with the battery level in my e-bike. 👀 I know it’ll get me to work and back as it always does but not constantly fixating on the remaining battery is impossible.
You can absolutely accurately calculate the percentage of a lithium battery. I do so every day with solar setup I live on. Even after months floating between 20% and 80% the batteries stop charging at 99.5% and would shut off if I hit 0-1%
You just need to use a well calibrated shunt.
Knowing fully charged and completely dead is easy. Knowing when the battery is 52% charged vs 53% charged is just an estimate.
