I prefer analogue displays as well.
Me too. They're much easier to read with just a glance. I'd never have a digital watch.
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OK, I'll bite - and vote for the digital display.
Especially on the bike - I can switch between metric and imperial and it's still easy to read when wet (either instruments or visor).
One huge bonus is when I put the bike into diagnostic mode - the digital display is then used in a way that would not work with analogue instruments.
I would have voted for analogue if I hadn't used a vehicle with digital.
I still have analogue instruments in the car, but would certainly consider digital - especially if it had the same diagnostics mode as the bike.
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There's nothing to say that a digital display can't be there as well, but to have no analogue for the main instruments is just making life unnecessarily difficult.
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Digitals for accuracy;analogues for a quick glance;do I need to know it's 11:58:59 when all I really need to know is that it's almost noon.
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No, I think you mean digital for precision. I'm pretty sure that digital speedos will be just as inaccurate as analogue ones, but more precisely.
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I'd get rid of the whole lot and just have a couple of LCD displays.
All displays would be computer generated and hopefully user-customised.
I don't want lots of dials and bulbs and wiring in the dashboard.
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If digital has to be offered at all, why not at least give us the choice? A pseudo analogue-digital display (i.e. looks like a needle going round but is really a load of LEDs) - is cheap as chips and with a choice of digital or analogue for different drivers, everyone is happy.
But displays are just the start of it.
Instead of foisting electronics on us hapless motorists (don't get me started on electronic parking brakes, "automatic" wipers, lights,...) as an important consumer group we motorists should simply insist on what we want in a car. Not unreasonable, given how much motoring taxation is contributing to the nation's total!
If sufficient motorists had simply said "NO!" to hideous design (Seat Toledo, first generation Multipla and last model Scorpio), these models would have been dead in the water and manufacturers would have learnt their lesson. Likewise with "uncomventional" dashboards (Seat Ibiza and Fiat Uno Mk 1), steering wheels (All Aggro), clattery engines (Simca, Talbot,...) where does the list end ? Blind spots, uncomfortable seats, cruddy equipment levels...
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I agree, digital is best for static readouts, such as temperature of a room, but for changing readings, such as speed of a vehicle, you should use analogue, because it also shows the rate and direction of change, that's why even the most expensive military aircraft still use analogue instruments where appropriate.
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With digital there's a very expensive dashboard replacement at some point to cough up for.
I've seen dozens of climate control and other digital readouts barely legible where the lights are on the blink.
If the speedo is digital, its going to be a legal requirement to have a dodgy dashboard replaced.
Can't remember in all my years of owning cars ever replacing a good old analogue speedo, had to feed some oil down the cable a few times to smooth out a jiggly one.
They were a sight easier if a friend for example were to hire a car/van with mileage restriction too..-;)
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I prefer analogue because it's much easier to judge the amount your speed is changing (either up or down) by the sweep of an analogue hand compared to digits ticking down/up on a digital display.
I think an analogue speedo that also had a digital speed readout would combine the best of both worlds.
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With digital there's a very expensive dashboard replacement at some point to cough up for.
I chose my car partly on the basis that my model doesn't have the radio integrated with the airconditioning like the next model up - so if the radio/CD/satnav unit breaks I can replace it with a non-manufacturer one. On the next model up I'd have been left with no way of changing the temperature if I put a non-standard radio in.
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On the next model up I'dhave been left with no way of changing the temperature if I put a non-standard radio in.
Glad i'm not the only one Marlot, overjoyed to find the standard 3 knobs twist/cable controls for the heating system, and a push switch to turn the aircon on/off.
Not interested at all in 'climate control'.
Suppose as with many things, your projected ownership duration has influence over how complicated you want your car to be.
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The problem I have with digital displays is that although they are excellent for giving you a clear, instant snapshot of speed or revs or whatever, they are pretty useless at giving you a feel for the rate of change of a value - something that an analogue display does so well. (oops - just spotted that Hamsafar has made the same astute observation)
Edited by AlanGowdy on 14/07/2008 at 13:52
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I can switch between metric and imperial ...
I hired a car in upstate New York which had an apparently analogue speedo, but which could be switched between MPH and KmPH - so it was just a button press to switch when we went over the border into Canada. The numbers stayed where they were, the needle just jumped from 50 to 80 when you flicked the switch and the display lit "kmph" instead of "mph".
I've often wondered why we can't have the same thing here - it would make travelling on the continent easier.
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Best one I've seen so far is in the current S-Class Mercedes. It's an LCD display but you can change it from analogue to digital, you can add gauges until it's just the way you like it.
Pity I won't be getting one.
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The clearest speedo I've ever seen in nearly 30 years driving is on a Citroen C4. Large digits brilliantly backlit from the windscreen during the day or well lit at night. It is so clear that next time you drive alongside a C4 on the mototrway, you'll be able to see how fast they are going! This is not HJs favourite without good reason.
By comparison, I see that the latest Audi A4 has a small analogue speedo that reads to 180mph (!) and so little more than a third of it is of any use. What on earth is the point of that?? Even in Germany a good chunk of it is irrelevant.
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By comparison I see that the latest Audi A4 has a small analogue speedo that reads to 180mph (!) and so little more than a third of it is of any use. What on earth is the point of that?? Even in Germany a good chunk of it is irrelevant.
Dunno bb... at one time American cars had speedometers that only went up to 70 or 80 even when the cars could go faster than that. I think the idea was to put drivers off from going off the clock. But it was obviously hated by punters, and later dropped.
I agree about the C4, an excellent-seeming machine in a lot of ways despite its small-Citroen flimsy look. But I would worry about the LCD dash just going pop if I had one.
What I really like are those twitching Jaeger rev counters on sporting pre-war cars.
Edited by Lud on 14/07/2008 at 15:05
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IIRC the rev counter in the Opel Monza was a digital bargraph, shaped to match the torque curve, which made it marginally more useful than other digital displays.
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The old Astra GTE had one of these (circa 1985).
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Yaris has easily read digital display : switch to kmh/mph by push of a button.
Not a problem as far as I know with 9 year old displays losing pixels.
Of course if you buy French or German cars with cheap (sorry expensive) and nasty displays... but I would vote Japanese any time.
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Ford 100E Escort was at one time fitted with an orange segment on the speedo instead of a needle.
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>...the rev counter in the Opel Monza was a digital bargraph...
That may be an electronic display, but it's still analogue.
The 2001-2005 (pre-Dame Edna) Saab 9-5 had a two-stage speedometer, in which the range from (I think) 90 to 150 was compressed, and 0-90 had most of the needle travel. Trouble is, this presents the opposite problem to the Audi one, in that it's quite hard to judge instinctively how far you are from, say, 30 towards 40 when the increments are so wide. (Just as reading a large-print book is actually harder work because your eyes have to travel further.) Saab dropped the idea for the 2002 9-3 and the 2005 9-5, maybe to save money but I suspect because customers hadn't taken to the idea.
I had a 1998 9-3 with the single-stage version of the same dial, calibrated from 0-150 but using almost the full 360 degrees. It was the clearest speedometer I've had, with the markings in 10s, not 20s. I liked the orange needle too; the current Saabs have boring Vauxhall-esque white ones.
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Some new Fords have speedos marked in 20mph increments - surely useless as there's no 30mph which must be the most common limit.
Speaking of old speedos, what about the long horizontal orange strips on, er, was it the Rover 2000?
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what about the long horizontal orange strips on er was it the Rover 2000?
Lot of cars had those in the sixties. My Plymouth did in America, and some Austin/Morris 1100s did too, along with a host of others. I have seen speedometers of all sorts, and those are the worst by far, a damn silly gimmick, vague at best and hard to read especially when calibrated in small, stylized figures. Nothing to be said for them at all.
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My C-Max has a very large easy to read speedo, with units in tens. Just as important, the rev counter is large, easy to read with units in 1's, with a x1000 mark. No chance of accidentally confusing the speedo and the rev counter that way.
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