*Originally posted in Expedition threed, but thats a ghost town*
Does anyone know the logic behind the way Ford has designed their instrument gages? For the last fifteen years I have been waiting for Ford to get rid of the ‘Idiot’ gages they have been using. Anything within a gross margin is within the “Normal” range. It doesn’t matter that your battery needle is indicating strong to the left, hey, that’s ‘Normal’. Come on already, I want to see numbers instead of “Normal”. These idiot gages have been around too long.

 

acually, who needs a battery gage anyway? No one hardy looks at them. I say just take it off compleatly, mine never moves off the normal mark, so I'm not even sure if it works right or not.

 

Ford figures it cheaper and easier to use these cause no one pays any attention to them anyway. The only guage on an automobile that the vast majority of the general public pay attention to nowadays is the fuel guage and some of them dont even look at that. Real guages fluctuate with driving and people were bringing their cars to the service departments thinking something was wrong with their cars cause the guages keep moving.

 

Here's another question...Why do they put tachometers in Automatics and not in Manual trucks/cars? I had a ranger once, No Tach, Manual Tran., and I know that the equvilant truck but with Automatic had a tach. I haven't paid much attention to the F150's but I have other makes and models. I had to know at what speed my rev limiter kicked in when to shift. Course that was when I was tearing up the streets.

 

Also, if you watch it...the oil pressure needle never moves regardless of the engine RPMs. Once you turn the truck on it goes to one position and stays there. What happens if you lose oil pressure??? Does the needle just go from normal to zero all of a sudden?? If that's the case, they should just get rid of the guage and put a warning light on the dash instead IMO.

 

The inclusion of a tachometer depends on the trim level of the vehicle, not the type of transmission. Base models have no tach, upgraded trucks have a tach.

Ford gauges have always sucked, but they look good.

 

ding ding ding

He's got it right there.

 

Yeah they suck/pi$$ me off. I think I remember reading the oil press. gauge will read normal unless it goes under 5 pounds. By the time these gauges move out of the normal area, the damage has most likely already been done.

Thats why Ill be installing some REAL gauges soon hopefully.

 

As was mentioned the “real” reason Ford did not install “real time” gauges is because most of the public has no idea what a gauge should read. For example, at first start up and idle the oil pressure will read a much higher pressure then when after the motor has been warmed up and running a while.

Also the oil pressure will fluctuate as the RPM’S go up or down. Temperature gauges are the same but fluctuate much slower. No gauge, not even the fuel gauge, will give you an actual real time reading. The fuel gauge is the closest to an “almost” real time gauge but it will show an average reading. If the fuel gauge was a “real time” gauge then if you only added a few gallons it would register as soon as you started you vehicle. If you read the manual, and I have seen it myself, if you add less then 5 gallons I believe, the fuel gauge will not register right away and could take 15 minutes or longer to read full.

This past spring I installed this triple pillar pod gauge in my Lightning:



The top gauge is an oil pressure gauge which is installed into the block where the stock oil pressure sensor is located. You need to maintain the stock pressure sensor for the vehicles computer because it needs the signal.

The middle gauge is for temperatures. There is a switch so you can read one of the following (water, oil, transmission) temperature.

And the last gauge is an A/F (air/fuel) gauge, which was modified by Gagetseller, so as to get a decent reading at WOT, that is plugged into the front oxygen sensor with a pigtail. You must also maintain the stock plug for the oxygen sensor because the vehicle computer needs that signal as well.

The bottom switch is to turn the gauge lights on or off. I didn’t know if the lights would ever bother me on long drives at night so I wanted the option to turn the lights off.

 

My 97 F150 was manual without the Tach, I never understood the reasoning behind it. Yea, it has to do with the trim package but still…I feel that if you have a manual trans there should be a Tach regardless of the trim package.

 

My Ranger was an XLT just as the Automatic was. I didn't want an automatic at the time. The auto had the tach, my manual didn't.

Although it probably still is a trim package deal.

 

Here's what I don't get....the 95-96 F150 had the digital odomoter, but the 97-98 didn't. And the 97-98 guages sucked soooooo much. I love the 99+ guages. You guys are right though, they NEVER move unless they are going from cold to the "normal" setting.