Hooniverse Asks: Which vehicle has the most comprehensive factory on-board data display?

Kamil Kaluski

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Modern vehicles have hundreds of sensors. Data from these sensors is digitized and processed accordingly. While basic operation of many sensors remains similar to the senors from years ago, based on voltage or resistance, their processing is significantly different. With digital processing there is actual real-time data being produced by the vehicle. What happens to that data is a separate topic.

It seems that many automakers restrict some of that data from vehicle users. Many cars don’t even have an engine temperature gauge anymore. But there are a few makes that allow real-time access to this data via the gauge cluster. Ford and some Dodge/Chrysler vehicles come to mind, especially the trucks and performance models. Pictures is the gauge cluster of the current Ford F150.

Today we ask, which automaker offer the most comprehensive factory on-board data display?

About

Kamil Kaluski

Kamil Kaluski

East Coast Editor. Races crappy cars and has an unhealthy obsession with Eastern Bloc cars. Current fleet: 4Runner, Integra, Regal, Lada

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32 responses to “Hooniverse Asks: Which vehicle has the most comprehensive factory on-board data display?”

  1. Batshitbox Avatar
    Batshitbox

    Jaguar.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/90e2ffd3fcd5b864fecf704e8625b77bbf6219f43838ceb3f37d00fe0aaba611.jpg

    Reply
  2. 0A5599 Avatar
    0A5599

    Saab.

    https://www.avionsjp.com/cpjas39.jpg

    Reply
    1. Wayne Moyer Avatar
      Wayne Moyer

      https://media2.giphy.com/media/v12FFFTON0WgE/giphy.gif

      Reply
  3. Wayne Moyer Avatar
    Wayne Moyer

    I’m going with the Corvair Spyder dash because it is such an upgrade over the base Corvair dash. Which does say a lot. For an air cooled motor you get to know the temperature of your turbo which is pretty nice. Don’t assume that you would get to know these things since this is GM and they were the penny pinchers who screwed the pooch on the ’60-’63 suspension.
    I’ve thought about putting part of this dash in my own Monza.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a0bbd38da2bc724ca56ffcc653688f69da064b53025a2471d5e244d335cf62bc.jpg

    Reply
    1. 0A5599 Avatar
      0A5599

      Different picture to show factory instrumentation instead of Auto Meter. And red interior pr()n.

      https://www.pictures.musclecarjungle.com/chevrolet/corvair/1962-corvair-monza-spyder-dash.jpg

      Reply
      1. Wayne Moyer Avatar
        Wayne Moyer

        You can never have enough red interiors. I say this because my Corvair has one.

        Reply
  4. nanoop Avatar
    nanoop

    I am so happy that no answer actually addressed the question yet.
    The ten LEDs of the Golf 2 are iconic, to me.
    http://i.auto-bild.de/ir_img/6/8/7/8/2/2/VW-Golf-1-Cabriolet-729×486-da928ca354fce244.jpg

    Reply
    1. Batshitbox Avatar
      Batshitbox

      Even as far back as 2013 Wired Magazine knew that knobs, buttons and switches Haptic Interfaces were the wave of the future.

      https://www.wired.com/2013/02/haptics/

      Touchscreens and DROs belong on your father’s Oldsmobile

      Oldsmobile’s Strange Yet Valiant Last Stand in the 1990s

      Reply
    2. Vairship Avatar
      Vairship

      “I am so happy that no answer actually addressed the question yet.”
      That’s because the real answer of course is Tesla. Which other manufacturer lets you set the Biohazard Defense Mode? 😉

      https://www.pocket-lint.com/cars/news/tesla/146332-tesla-tech-review-infotainment-screens-software-9-s-x-3

      Reply
      1. nanoop Avatar
        nanoop

        Since the question is about “which vehicle” I think I may mention these here, and their Nuclear/Bio/Chemical defence system… I haven’t seen the interface though, but I hear you need several people to get around..
        https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/24/Leopard_2_A5_der_Bundeswehr.jpg/800px-Leopard_2_A5_der_Bundeswehr.jpg

        Reply
      2. nanoop Avatar
        nanoop

        Since the question is about “which vehicle” I think I may mention these here, and their Nuclear/Bio/Chemical defence system… I haven’t seen the interface though, but I hear you need several people to get around..
        https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/24/Leopard_2_A5_der_Bundeswehr.jpg/800px-Leopard_2_A5_der_Bundeswehr.jpg

        Reply
        1. Vairship Avatar
          Vairship

          Ah yes, here’s a British Nuke/Bio/Chem resistant vehicle with LOTS of on-board data displays: https://news.files.bbci.co.uk/include/shorthand/39488/media/bridge-700-lr_9qz8kys.jpg https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/UK_aircraft_carriers

          Reply
      3. 0A5599 Avatar
        0A5599

        Cadillac has a more effective version (certain models only).
        https://i.ytimg.com/vi/pYaUNGCMfmg/hqdefault.jpg

        Reply
  5. neight428 Avatar
    neight428

    I read somewhere that the temperature gauge on most modern cars isn’t really a gauge at all, but rather an idiot light that stays still in the happy zone unless something goes terribly wrong.

    Reply
    1. Sjalabais Avatar
      Sjalabais

      That sounds like general life advice.

      Reply
    2. outback_ute Avatar
      outback_ute

      Definitely true, it is an output of the ECU.

      Back in the 70s when emission controls made their engines run hotter, to stop dealerships being inundated with customers asking why the needle was reading higher GM just recalibrated the gauge.

      Reply
    3. Zentropy Avatar
      Zentropy

      Wouldn’t surprise me if they’re just heavily dampened, meaning they’re accurate, but not precise. If you let them bounce around in response to a few degrees of temperature swing, some people might over-react.

      Reply
      1. Troggy Avatar
        Troggy

        I ride a type of motorbike that has a digital temp readout. Normal running temperature is anywhere between 77C (on a very cold day on the highway) up to 104C when the thermo fan kicks in.

        The forum has a lot of new riders wondering if this is ‘normal’ or is something wrong. This is probably why the temp gauge has become more of a happy zone idiot light.

        Reply
      2. nanoop Avatar
        nanoop

        In the wake of Dieselgate they reverse-engineered VWs code a bit… They used like 60KB of code for determining the tach needle position. That is a lot for the task. I am very inclined to believe that the temperature gauge is on the receiving end of elaborate considerations, too.
        My guess is that running signal lines to the instruments is probably too expensive under production, just have a bus line from DME to stepper motors.

        Reply
      3. nanoop Avatar
        nanoop

        In the wake of Dieselgate they reverse-engineered VWs code a bit… They used like 60KB of code for determining the tach needle position. That is a lot for the task. I am very inclined to believe that the temperature gauge is on the receiving end of elaborate considerations, too.
        My guess is that running signal lines to the instruments is probably too expensive under production, just have a bus line from DME to stepper motors.

        Reply
        1. Scoutdude Avatar
          Scoutdude

          Yeah pretty much everything is “on the bus” nowadays. So yeah the instrument cluster is its own module and pretty much everything it displays is based on what other modules shared on the bus. You can blame it on CAFE. Fans that will move enough air to cool an engine require a lot of power. So they were changed to electric for many applications to save fuel. As regulations got tighter they delayed turning on the fan as long as they possibly could. Many GM cars won’t turn on the fan until ~220. If you let the gauge work like it is supposed to people will think something it wrong and then the dealer has to tell people that it is supposed to work that way. So you get a gauge that reads exactly the same between 190~220.

          You might say but it is an electric fan. Yes it is and the alternator is supplying the electricity and doing so puts a drag on the engine and it needs more fuel to “idle”. Back in the day the spec for setting the idle speed on the earliest Honda cars was to be done with the engine fan running and the headlights on.

          Ford went to idiot gauges for the oil because people brought their trucks in because the oil pressure was at the low end of the scale when at a hot idle. So they have a gauge that reads the same if the oil pressure is higher than ~8psi. On the earliest versions they used a real gauge, a pressure switch and a inline resistor to make the gauge read where they think you think it should read. So replacing the switch with a sender from an older application and a jumper around that resistor on the flexible circuit board will give you a real gauge.

          Reply
    4. Fuhrman16 Avatar
      Fuhrman16

      My Mazda doesn’t even have a temp gauge. There’s just a light that illuminates blue when the car isn’t up to temp, or red when it’s overheating.

      Reply
      1. Troggy Avatar
        Troggy

        My Subaru Outback is the same. I can’t stand it. I would really like to know what’s going on when towing or off road.

        Instead it has this economy meter thing where the gauge should be. I really wish someone could hack the dash panel inputs to convert it back to a temp gauge.

        Reply
    5. Scoutdude Avatar
      Scoutdude

      Yes many cars now have idiot gauges for the temp gauge where they tell you what they think you want to know. So for the temp gauge you can have a 20-30-40 degree normal band where the gauge gives the same reading and once you go out of that range on the high side it isn’t but another 10-20 degrees until you are in the red. Volt meters are frequently the same way. Many oil gauges read the same middle of the range if you have more than 5-10 psi.

      With the right scan tool you can get to the truth at least for the temp and voltage.

      Reply
    6. Tiller188 Avatar
      Tiller188

      I’ve heard the same, and believe it. For contrast, I once rented and drove a big Penske box truck, and it kinda weirded me out at first that I could see the temp gauge “breathing” as we climbed a long grade and the radiator fans periodically cycled on and off. It also struck me that the temp gauge in that truck actually had, y’know, numbers on it, so it gave a real indicated temperature and not just “warmish”. I quite appreciated it, really, but I can see where having the gauge dancing around all the time, or reading a little higher or lower than “normal” on a particularly hot or cold day, could lead to a lot of unnecessary service calls from nervous owners.

      Reply
  6. Tiberiuswise Avatar
    Tiberiuswise

    FoxStang for the win. Not only could it tell you if a headlight or taillight was out, it could tell you WHERE the headlights and taillights were. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0c08599fac05755b81cc40a8ac321fdcf98a7f06360b8475ea15ba6727578b1a.jpg

    Reply
    1. Vairship Avatar
      Vairship

      With the Citroen GSA, it tells you where the various malfunctioning items are AND the speedometer tells you you’re driving in an aquarium.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1f324b40151502fbe69fcf491d3970a304877b8f270bd6fde2c5a24062b24177.jpg

      Reply
    2. 0A5599 Avatar
      0A5599

      Ford and GM had fiber optic light monitors in higher-end cars a full decade before the Fox body was unleashed.

      https://assets.hemmings.com/blog/wp-content/uploads//2018/08/318781.jpg

      Reply
    3. Fuhrman16 Avatar
      Fuhrman16

      This light gauge was also available on Ford Escort GTs.

      Reply
      1. Tiberiuswise Avatar
        Tiberiuswise

        Yeah, but was the graphic clearly a Pinto?

        Reply
  7. crank_case Avatar
    crank_case

    I’m sure all the other performance makes are at it now, but the Nissan R34 GT-R used to be quite the novelty by having a display that could show oil/boost/g-force/nearby pokemon and the R35 took it further.

    I feel it’s kind of a moot question, surely every upmarket performance car has an overabundance of stuff you can call up on a screen?

    If you want to DIY it, you can just plug a dongle in your ECU, mount a cheap tablet on your dashboard and have all the dials you have sensors for too.

    Reply
    1. Tiller188 Avatar
      Tiller188

      You’d think, but the flip side also exists and is frustrating. I realize it’s not in the “upmarket performance car” segment that you reference, but I’m still trying to figure out why my manual transmission G70 doesn’t get the “Sport” submenu in the instrument cluster display that would let me display boost pressure and oil temp. The “Sport” models get it, and I’m very doubtful that the sensors feeding those displays are only fitted to those cars. (Though to be fair, I actually don’t know whether that menu option exists on the Sport 2.0s or just the 3.3 cars, so maybe there is a good reason.)

      Reply