View Poll Results: boost and wideband cheap insurance and necessary or a waste of money?
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Are gauges essential or ridiculous?
Jan 24, 2013, 08:12 PM
#16
I agree with previous posts. They are not there to stop failures, but to monitor things so you dont have a failure. If my oil pressure gauge for some reason starts to read low numbers, I am gonna take precautions before something bad happens.
My car is tuned to run about 30psi, but thats not to say it wont spike a bit on a cold night with dense air. Although my cel light flashes at me when I get into trouble haha.
Somebody sayin gauges are just there for looks is just a moron. They serve their purpose.
Now, a car with like 8 gauges in it, thats a little "ricey" I would say, but some people or race teams like to monitor EVERYTHING!
My car is tuned to run about 30psi, but thats not to say it wont spike a bit on a cold night with dense air. Although my cel light flashes at me when I get into trouble haha.
Somebody sayin gauges are just there for looks is just a moron. They serve their purpose.
Now, a car with like 8 gauges in it, thats a little "ricey" I would say, but some people or race teams like to monitor EVERYTHING!
Jan 25, 2013, 05:30 AM
#24
On newer cars, like bmws that I have seen, they don't have a engine oil dipstick, they don't have a coolant temp gauge either. Sometimes its too much info for some folks who tend to freak out and come in wasting time with false warranty complaints. I think that's probably one reason some oem eliminate as much info as they can,haha.
I do think gauges are important. I will say, if I had a wideband 02 hooked up I probably could have averted my engine failure that is now costing me thousands of dollars. The problem is when you start having too many gauges its just impossible to keep scanning them when your going 120+ down the track. My nephew is a bright IT guy and is a wiz with computers so Ive been working on setting up some type of farily low cost telemetry where my car data could be read live from the pits. That's a win win, someone else keeps an eye on my info the whole time.
I do think gauges are important. I will say, if I had a wideband 02 hooked up I probably could have averted my engine failure that is now costing me thousands of dollars. The problem is when you start having too many gauges its just impossible to keep scanning them when your going 120+ down the track. My nephew is a bright IT guy and is a wiz with computers so Ive been working on setting up some type of farily low cost telemetry where my car data could be read live from the pits. That's a win win, someone else keeps an eye on my info the whole time.
Jan 25, 2013, 05:55 AM
#26
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Pretty much what everyone else already said. It won't stop your car from breaking or having something go wrong with it, but it will let you know when something IS going wrong, or about to.
Jan 25, 2013, 07:06 AM
#28
I third this 2nd'd opinion 
In general I'm not super old here, but I've been driving modified cars for 12 yrs and gauges are indeed helpful in my experience, certain gauges are more helpful on certain cars, also some are redundant.
For instance, if you have completely modified a car and took out all the OEM gauges are warning lights/beepers... then you should replace those most likely. ie. oil pressure gauge
Over the years there are gauges I felt were least important and grown to understand they are more important and vise versa, comes with experience and problems encountered.
In general I'm not super old here, but I've been driving modified cars for 12 yrs and gauges are indeed helpful in my experience, certain gauges are more helpful on certain cars, also some are redundant.
For instance, if you have completely modified a car and took out all the OEM gauges are warning lights/beepers... then you should replace those most likely. ie. oil pressure gauge
Over the years there are gauges I felt were least important and grown to understand they are more important and vise versa, comes with experience and problems encountered.
Jan 25, 2013, 08:59 AM
#30
Evolved Member
Anybody arguing that gauges are unnecessary is an idiot. Like someone said above... race cars use gauges for a reason. The more heavily modified OR heavily used the more important gauges are. If you have a bone stock motor but you are running WRC stages you will want to have a better indicator of the health of the car than factory oil temp/water temp.