...water temp and oil temp is sorely missed....more data is always better than less for a serious driver

 

Whether the drivers want it or not the engineers thought we don't need one. I am just thankful to have the dipstick at this point. The newer models won't and you all will have to take the car in for an oil change.

 

next thing they will make tires without a stem to add air. shssssssssssh

 

How would this work? Some engines consume oil, some don't (can be the same model engine, etc). I assume if the car had no dipstick or other method of checking the oil (my 911 has an oil level gauge & dipstick for example), the car would just have a light to tell you oil is too low and take a trip to the dealer. I would assume if they eliminated the dipstick, they would probably also not let you add oil by yourself so any warning you would get about it being too low would just be a "stop driving; have it towed to dealer" type of warning light.

On cars without dipsticks (I think some one on here mentioned a BMW without them now), how does the tech at the dealer know when the oil is at the right level? Some kind of hidden dipstick some where?

 

I dont think that this will ever happen, think about it. how would the manufacturer warranty something that you cant even do preventive maintenance on, or even check to avoid them having to foot the bill for a new motor.
Ide bet money of it never happening.
did you actually see this written somewhere? ide love to see it.

 

Temp and oil pressure guages would be great (with needles and dials making them easy to read at a glance). Come to think of it, so would a compass. I am very surprised these were omitted.

To be honest, I'd gladly trade the huge speedo for a guage package.

 

The compass is a $2100 option. It replaces the speedo with a NAV.

It would be nice if you could set the NAV screen to display things like coolant temp, oil temp, oil pressure, boost...

 

This was a bit surprising to me as well. Then I noticed that the 3-series I was getting as loaners did not have the temp gauge either so it looks like a general BMW thing. I haven't really driven around in BMWs for long enough to know when they started deleting this 'feature'.

 

I am putting a Dash Hawk in my R55...

I have a scanguage 2 in my Pontiac..

the do different things...

 

I find the lack of a temperature guage very annoying. I don't like to drive a car hard until it's warmed up and it doesn't seem to like it either. :/ I also like to know when I can actually get heat from the heater instead of having it blow cold air on my feet.

 

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Unless you added your own after market gauge it did not . As others have noted ,and BMW fully admits to , the " gauge " is actually a 3 position idiot system . The component started out life as a real gauge but before the 02 run was done they had so many issues with people over reacting that they modified them to turn it into nothing more than cold , running temp, and you just fried the motor positions. How perfect that you actually believed it . Still trolling the boards without even having a Mini ?

 

My 911 has no dipstick. Yes, I agree it's idiotic. It does have an electronic oil level readout but there is absolutely no way to verify it short of draining the oil and measuring it. This absurdity is something I'd expect from BMW but not Porsche.

As just pointed out, the R53's gauge was fake -- more like an idiot gauge. We can blame customers who can't be bothered to learn anything about how car engines behave for that. (I suspect it's the same reason they got rid of the 911's dipstick -- reading a dipstick was deemed "too mentally challenging" for the Starbucks crowd)

fwiw, I would also miss the fuel gauge if I were to buy an R56 (which I refuse to do on multiple grounds... )

 

the temp guage on my '04MC, R50, will gradually and smoothly at start-up rise slowly to operating temp over about 5 minutes on a cold morning. It stays at the midway position thereafter....are you saying that if it were to overheat, the needle wouldn't gradually go up but would suddenly jump to the top and that lil light will come on, so there would be no warning of approaching an overheating situation?

 

My sportbike has no fuel gauge. I use one of it's trip meters to keep track of mileage between fill ups. It's really not a big deal. It has a light that comes on with a certain amount of fuel left. It has a digital readout for the temperature though. I'd prefer temp over fuel level.

 

Your wrong... the R53 temperature gauge is fully functional...

I'm not sure what you read... but my experience mirrors these 2 posters experience:

 

well said umberto

mine gradually rose to about 3/4 when i was having trouble. the only reason it didn't keep going im assuming is because i shut down the car. so is there a capicator installed to get the needle reading to move at that pace instead of frantically rising and dropping? just wondering. i realize it is an electronic guage with an analog readout but thats not the same thing as an idiot light. do you understand that?

 

It's controlled by a computer. It's been programmed to rise gradually to the midpoint under normal usage. It'll then stay exactly at center unless it starts to overheat abnormally and then the needle will be commanded to go to a higher-than-center (3/4) position. If it gets even hotter, it'll be told to go to the highest reading and the light will also be told to come on.

All this automation just to avoid having the gauge track the small coolant temperature changes which normally occur as engine load changes.

If you don't believe it's not a direct-measurement gauge, watch the gauge as the engine load changes -- eg, coasting down a long hill vs climbing up a long hill. In a car with a real gauge, you would see the water temp gauge move slightly during the descent and ascent but in the R56 the gauge will remain perfectly (and artificially) centered. It's an idiot gauge!

Edit: btw, I'm guessing about the 3/4 position -- it might just move to the upper extreme if it overheats. I've owned two MCSes and have never seen the needle move away from the exact center position once it gets there -- snowy mountain areas, scorching desert areas, the coolant temp has always remained PERFECT!

 

thanks 911FAN...yeah, mine also is always in the perfect middle position once it has reached operating temp.....well, at least I can expectantly watch the needle as it rises to that midpoint to let me know when I can turn the heat on to warm up the car...so I guess half a gauge is better than none

 

Mine registered slightly less that center in winter... and slightly above center in summer... exactly as expected...

And Greengobln's gauge also functioned correctly... to the point of indicating cooling problems twice.

Obviously it's not a "3 position" idiot light as others have suggested... and it certainly is far superior to the binary idiot light that comes with the R56.

 

I have the chrono pack too. I was disappointed that it was not offered on the 2nd gens. I would have to have some type of aftermarket gauges.

I have had cars with idiot lights in the past. It sucked. I need to know I am overheating, not that I just overheated.

 

When MINI service tells you to either drive farther or let your car warm up all the way when it is cold outside (to combat frozen throttle valves) - suddenly that lack of a temp gauge becomes VERY obvious...

 

What kind of info did they add? I wonder if this could be retrofitted to the '07 with a software update...

 

What year is/was yours?

 

2006

 

Mine were the two previous model years. Someone posted that the gauge originally worked as expected before it was dumbed down. I wonder if Mini was shamed into making it functional again in the 2006 MY.

Maybe some other 2006 owners will chime in with their gauge observations...