And what party would that be? The design a piece of **** interior party? Or are they supposed to be considered geniuses for putting half *** temp gauges in cars? The new cars you are referring to are probably Mazda's.

240s' interiors hold up better than FCs'. I think even Corollas have our FCs beat in that department.

As far as FD's: Plastic or not, you never see cracked panels in those interiors.

 

depends if you are in there beating the car with a baseball bat.

my TII with 210k miles in the many years i've owned the car there were only 3 plastic failures. number 1 was the stereo trim surround, yep this piece is notorious for failure. 2nd was the rear speaker tower covers because i had switched out the speakers on a 20 year old car with brittle plastics, go figure. 3rd would be the A pillar broke because of all the flexing with the 2 pod gauges i installed on it.

the rest is still 100% original and still 100% undamaged in a car that has been driven twice as many miles as most average FCs.

problem is the ADHD kids these days with their drift specs yanking on them, poking and prodding every corner of the car without kid gloves on, they break things, they don't care to replace them and they call them "pieces of ****".

on a side note i will mention a 4th failure, the bins, because i set numerous 300lb core engines on them, yet they still work, just look a little banged up....yeah.

look at the FD for example, there's nothing to close the driver door with.. so just about anything plastic on the driver's door is loose, flopping, cracked, rattling, you name it. and be careful pulling the gauge hood off, it's large, awkward, looks like a flying saucer, is no longer available! and loves to crack while pulling the gauge cluster out.


one other common failure for the FCs is the gauge hood bottom leg attachments, but you can be creative and make new legs. fortunately they aren't necessary to hold the cluster in place and most of the time i can't even tell they're broken on many cars.


moral of the story, any 20+ year old car is going to break if you get in it and start flailing your arms and legs around. if you're prone to seizures, don't blame the car.

 

lol, my FC interior is actually pretty nice. i need to spend $28 on the triangle vents but that's it.

Mazda was probably among the first to go with a temp gauge that has the dead spot in the middle, but its hardly just them. unless you believe my 2009 jetta always runs at 190F (if it did, it would be the only thing that the car did consistently)

my mom's 2011 volvo XC60 has nothing, there is only a tach, speedo and fuel level.

the new mazda 3's don't have a temp gauge either.

you might think about this the other way. i've learned that when you put a car on the race track, you can have all the gauges in the world, but the driver isn't going to look at them in a race. the car just needs to not overheat.

on a street FC this is easy, actually. the stock cooling system is really good if its maintained.

 

You've learned wrong. The driver MUST and WILL look at oil pressure.

 

how much racing have you done?

most racers install warning indicators to warn them of **** that's failing because to be competetive and not wind up in the dirt you have to focus on the road 99.5% of the time.

back in the old day you had to watch the gauges or you were stuck in the pits with a toasted motor, these days we have electronics that will tell us what's going on without losing that tenth of a second of focus, which is important to be competetive.

 

^
This.
Data from a gauge- no matter digital or analog- must be processed whereas a warning light allows you to ignore a system unless it needs attention.
I've met some of the guys from K-Pax Racing and their cars have very minimal driver display.

I find it rather humorous that it's considered "racey" to slather the dash with gauges that a real race driver wouldn't have the time to look at.

 

ok, well this is if you have an oil pressure gauge... obviously. if you have a fancy new racecar with a digital doohickey then yes, you just need to LOOK for the warning light. You still need to be aware about the car don't you? You can't ignore anything!

And since we have FC's... we are probably stuck with a regular gauge aren't we?

 

Both the S4 and S5 have oil pressure gauges that work just fine.
The S4 water temp is considered to be somewhat "linear", the S5's is just a warning light with a needle (and BTW, my S5 seems to have survived just fine for 200k + miles with just such a gauge).

The S5 cluster could certainly be modded to accept a "real" water temp gauge.

 

Yup, the first time I drove my wife's Mazda 3, I spent 30 seconds staring at the dash waiting for a temp gauge to magically appear.

It did not.

 

You needed to wait longer then.
Materialization takes a bit of time....

 

\

With a proper race dash there is no "looking", the warnings get your attention without any problem. Even in a heated battle the driver knows right away what is going on. Multiple BRIGHT red LEDs light up along with a nice big warning on the readout...i have an IQ3, the new motec club dash, the traqmate, AIM dashes, they all have the same capability. I honestly cant imagine racing with regular gagues. That seems completely useless to me. Way, to much to pay attention to and process.

 

I did exactly the same thing when i drove a 2012 skyactiv mazda3 as a rental. Then i realized the temp warning light could be either blue or red. So basically the temp monitoring system works exactly like it has for 20 years on mazdas. 3 states, except now there is no dillusion of a "gauge".

 

I just rely on one gauge.
If the car isn't smoking ..fine.
If it is,I "Gauge" how far I can drive it before it blows up!

 

I just hate the look of an useless gauge in my gauge cluster.