Futher to the temperature gauges becoming obsolete thread, how about the tachometer becoming obsolete too?
What the point of them? who cares if they're there or no?
Granny Smith going to the hairdressers in her Skoda Fabia probably doesn't know what it's there for..
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As long as Granny does not mistake the tacho for the speedo!!!
Driving a laden 1.8D Berlingo over Alpine passes I found the tacho invaluable for keeping in the torque band.
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As long as Granny does not mistake the tacho for the speedo!!!
Well it's possible!!
How many cars have the Odometers in units of 20 ie 20, 40, 60, 80 etc and the Tachometer marked up as 10, 20, 30, 40, etc. Both dials the same size?
Easy to confuse i'd say for the layman.
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How many cars have the Odometers in units of 20 ie 20, 40, 60, 80 etc and the Tachometer marked up as 10, 20, 30, 40, etc. Both dials the same size?
This is one of my pet peeves too. Especially when the manufacturers can't agree which sides the speedo and tacho should go on in the usual two-dial setup. Seems pretty obvious from a "human factors" point of view that the two dials should be calibrated in different units - especially when the tacho units are divided by an arbitrary power of 10 anyway...
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Futher to the temperature gauges becoming obsolete thread, how about the tachometer becoming obsolete too? What the point of them? who cares if they're there or no?
Us boy(!) racers care, don't we Adski?
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L\'escargot.
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Us boy(!) racers care, don't we Adski?
Of course! How are you meant to match the revs on a downchange if you don't have a rev counter? ;-)
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"Of course! How are you meant to match the revs on a downchange if you don't have a rev counter? ;-)"
If you are any kind of a driver, its done by feel old boy!
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If you are any kind of a driver, its done by feel old boy!
For the last 100 rpm or so, why of course! But to get it to 5000 instead of 4000 when downchanging to 2nd at 50 ... well I admit to a brief glimpse at the counter ;-)
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Rev counters have always been a styling or fashion whim.
Frankly they are not required on standard family oriented vehicles, its very easy to keep the machine in the torque band you need by feel and sound.
PS I think Adam is sulking, he has been lurking on the forum but not posting. Perhaps he has gone to poland for BBD's birthday party (today)?
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I use mine all the time to keep as near as I can to peak torque when accelerating for economical driving.
V
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Tacho-the only dial i like to watch!,especially in the red.
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I'm with Porsche on this one - the big dial in the middle is the tachometer. Everything else is secondary.... :-)
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I'm with Porsche on this one - the big dial in the middle is the tachometer. Everything else is secondary.... :-)
It works very well. :-)
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Rev counters have always been a styling or fashion whim.
And some of us like to be stylish and fashionable! Surely you don't want to deny us our ability to display our style and fashion?
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L\'escargot.
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With modern motorcars becoming ever quieter, the need for a tachometer on a vehicle equipped with a manually operated transmission is becoming ever more important.
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That was a long flight back I can tell you.
The only time I'm having fun in the car is when the needle's hovering close to the 6 so I say keep 'em.
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Adam
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I love having a tachometer on the dash, its another interesting dial that gives useful information. Once a day to clear my diesel I always rev in 1st and 2nd into the red section, but not allowing the rev limiter to cut in. This is very difficult to do without a tachometer.
It is also very interesting to see how slow the engine is turning over when poodling along at slow speeds in 5th gear, makes you think how little fuel you are using.
Personally I consider it to be a very useful instrument and think they should be fitted on all cars, possibly with exception of base models. With modern digital dashboards this is very easy compared to the old dials.
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Roger
I read frequently, but only post when I have something useful to add to the thread.
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There was a thread about this recently. The best rev counter is a graphical one which has the shape of the torque curve on it. Keep the revs in the mountains (of torque) and you have lots of power and economy!
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Espada III - well if you have a family and need a Lamborghini, what else do you drive?
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I love having a tachometer on the dash, its another interesting dial that gives useful information.
I agree. I don't really care about aircon, electric windows, CD players, satnav, rain-sensitive wipers, alloy wheels, etc - but I do like to have a rev counter. I miss it in my (base model) Ford Ka.
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I use mine for curiosity reasons really, you know, when your driving along and you wonder how fast your engines going.
Its actually quite useful (as others have mentioned) and I also use mine to make sure I don't over-rev the engine when its cold (4 speed 'box with relatively short top ratio).
I would have thought it was more important in the days when engines didn?t have rev-limiters, and damage could be done by simply not knowing how fast you've revved it. Some would say, 'well you would know by sound if you've over-revved it'. Not necessarily. I remember reading in Autocar about performance testing on the old 2 cylinder Visa. 'What sounded like an acceptable rev-limit turned out to be 7500 rpm', not a speed which I would have thought was acceptable. Also, the Austin 1300 would seemingly rev to 7000rpm easily, but looking at some of those with rev counters, this was some 1000rpm over the suggested maximum. Nowadays, ECUs can limit the engines to acceptable speeds where, theoretically, no damage could be done.
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Cor - thats a blast from the past - the old 652cc Citroen Visa. Very roomy if a tad slow!
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Espada III - well if you have a family and need a Lamborghini, what else do you drive?
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Waste of space. I find that once the rev limiter has cut in twice, I know by the sound when the engine is close to over-revving. And at low speeds, anyone who needs a rev counter to tell an engine is overloaded will neither know nor care nor use a revcounter.
Revcounter is another instrument in the "my car has more instruments than yours.." idiocy. (see Jaguar)
madf
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But it does! and I have a volume control thats marked up to 11!
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Ah now theres a stupid thing. A digital volume control on a radio that goes up in even numbers only to 50. Why not go up to 25 in regular odd and even numbers?
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Espada III - well if you have a family and need a Lamborghini, what else do you drive?
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GT - Got a Tachometer.
John
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GTI: Got a Tachometer. Idiot!
madf
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I used to find the tacho invaluable to detect a slipping clutch. You always know the clutch is slipping because the two instruments don't respond in the same way when accelerating. E.g., the tacho goes up but the speedo stays put. If you wait until you can feel the clutch slip then it is often too late.
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Everyone ought to know what's going on under the bonnet - even if they don't know why!
I find the rev counters on my automatic Hondas useful, a - so I notice if it hasn't changed into top because i've left it in third hold; b - so I know when the top gear torque lock-up has worked; c - so I can grin when the vtech cuts in right on schedule...
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The Toyota Echo (Yaris?) I hired for a few days recently did not feature a tachometer. The problem was that it had such a quiet engine and so little power that it was sometimes difficult to tell if the slow progress was due to under-revving, over-revving, or extremely strong skin on the rice pudding. It was just about adequate around town, but on the open road there was almost no effect from pressing the accelerator in either fourth or fifth gear. I would have liked a tacho so I could have had a better idea of what was going on under the bonnet. I was quite relieved to hand it back. I think next time I'll pay the extra and get a slightly bigger rental.
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My 2.0 petrol Focus is so quiet and vibrationless when the car is stationary that the only way I know the engine is running is to look at the rev counter!
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L\'escargot.
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The more dials the better. So long as they all move from time to time, and generally in the right direction, I'm happy!
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The rev counter hasn't worked on our Xantia for some time and I don't miss it at all. The speed of the car and sound of the engine are all that are required to know when to change gear.
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I think that if a car doesn't have a tacho, then gear change marks on the speedo should be instated (as per 70 and 80s VWs). It basically consists of dots or lines at the speeds deemed to be the maximum for each gear. So for example, you would have one dot at say 25 MPH (that would be the maximum speed for first gear) two dots at 40 (max speed for second) so on and so forth. At least then you would know the speed ranges for every gear.
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Any Lexus with a 6 or 8 cylinder engine needs a rev counter. How else could you check that you had started the engine already? I used to own an LS400, and the first few times I drove it, I was trying to start it when it was already on!
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Anyone care to point me to a site where the correct use of a rev counter is described? Am interested in knowing how to use it for most efficient driving technique as has been mentioned in a few of the posts above.
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My Ford Ka doesnt have one, but i can live without one the engine is quite vocal from the inside anyway, im not thinking of installing sound deadning under the bonet thats for sure lol!
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Its not what you drive, its how you drive it! :-)
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