I was in my local Citroen dealer recently and took the opportunity to sit in the new C8. Our Synergie has given us excellent service, I like the folks at the dealership and a discounted C8 would be a logical replacement for the Synergie.
However, I was disappointed to see that the C8 instrument cluster is in the centre of the cabin. Now in 30-odd years I've never owned a car where the instruments aren't in line with the steering wheel and I associate the central positioning of instruments with old-fashioned or utility vehicles e.g. Morris Minor, BL Mini, Land Rover. If I'm going to shell out thousands of pounds, I want the car designer to make the driver's job as easy as possible. That includes arranging the switches, stalks and instruments around the driver, not sharing them with passengers or scattering them around the cabin.
What do others think? Irrational prejudice or valid point?
H.
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Stranger in a strange land
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definatly valid point i think,
My cousin got a mini cooper s and got the sat nav so that the speedo has to go in the usual place rather than in the middle,
i love the mini interior but that is one draw back for sure.
When the usual place for the speedo has been good for so many people for so long why do these manufacturers have to change it I wonder???
I also dont like the yaris's speedo in the box all electronic and stuff i just like regualar normal nice dials! good and old fashioned!
God how old am I!
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I liked the new Primera instruments. In the centre and angled toward the driver. They are surprisingly easy to read - eyes don't need to re-focus when checking the dials.
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An interesting question. I spent a while considering thenew Primera with this question in mind. Actually, its worth giving your car a test drive because I found that the testdrive on the Nissan showed how quickly I could get used to this sort of thing. (subsequently didn't buy but not for this reason).
On another tack, in pre-seatbelt days in my youth I always used to sit on the back seat leaning forward (if you can picture it)so I could watch dad drive on long journeys and keep an eye on the road and the speedo. Nowadays journeys must be so dull for people in the back given that they have to remain strapped to their seats. Centrally mounted speedos must help them...!
Splodgeface
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I've got a Picasso - speedo also in the middle. It was strange for a day or two, but then seemed perfectly normal. In practice it doesn't make the job of driving more difficult in any way.
Having no experience of old-fashioned or utility vehicles (sorry!) I don't share the same thought association as you, and it's really not an issue.
(The only problem (based on 6 months use) with the dash design in my opinion is the Hazard lights being too far to reach quickly.
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I rented a Nissan primera a month ago...instantly disliked the central instrument cluster and huge centrally mounted control panel shelf....I did get used to it but didnt like it.
It is worthwhile noting that I doubt that anything other than cost it the resoning behind this move....easier to make lhd and rhd versions. The Primera 'cockpit' it almost completely symmetrical between left and right except for the tilt of the instruments and the driving controls, all of the trim etc would be the same.
Ian L.
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Having driven a few new cars with speedos in the middle, I prefer them as long as they are properly sited. They are in the Nissan Primera and X-Trail, for example and are easier to read than one you look at through the steering wheel. The other advantage is that with the speedo in the centre, the steering wheel reach and angle can be much more adjustable which is very important in helping a standard size tin box suit all shapes and sizes of drivers.
HJ
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In the Corsa I'm currently avoiding driving (god it's foul!), the speedo and rev counter are the opposite way round to my Polo, which has caused a few blonde moments!
Speedo in the middle is a bad idea for me - I like to be the only one who can see it, especially when driving with my dad who still thinks I am 12 and shouldn't be in charge of a car! What is it with parents - does it freak you out that much when your offspring get behind a wheel??
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Speedo in the middle is a bad idea for me - I like to be the only one who can see it, especially when driving with my dad who still thinks I am 12 and shouldn't be in charge of a car!
This only seemed to be a problem for me when I first passed my test and my father very occasionally allowed me to use his car. No problems anymore now though I do see him gritting his teeth occasionally :)
An long forgotten ex-girlfriend of mine's mother persisted in commenting every ten yards when she was a passenger in any car. "Oh look, there's some traffic lights ahead", "watch this roundabout dear", "it's only a 40 limit on this road", "careful - he's going to pull out of that junction". Made me wonder just how I'd coped without her. Anyway, I survived several of these car journeys when one day it got the better of me. I anchored on the brakes (no-one behind me of course) 40-0 in about 1 second, and politely asked if she'd perhaps prefer to walk. I certainly never had any further comments after this incident! Mind you there were other repurcussions and I'm not sure I'd recommend this method for family...
What isit with parents - does it freak you out that much when your offspring get behind a wheel??
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Hate them. Had a primera for three days and hated the piddly little speedo stuck miles away. Hateful hateful car. Speedo should be in front of the driver. Ideally a HUD on the windscreen.
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pologirl, are you sure your not my sister, we appear to have the same dad!!!! i didnt think anyone out there had the same trouble as i do with mine!!!
This is all very odd because when my polo was away being repaired i also had a corsa!!! AND it was salmon pink and was awful!!!
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This is all very odd because when my polo was away being repaired i also had a corsa!!! AND it was salmon pink and was awful!!!
No, the Corsa from hell is gun metal grey... blends in with the tarmac perfectly - all very reassuring for someone whose accident occurred because someone else didn't see her!
If it was pink I don't think I would have accepted it from the hire place!
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On the question of confusing speedo with tacho, why do some makers calibrate the tacho 'x100' (so that it reads 10-20-30) instead of 'x1000' when it would show 1-2-3 etc - much less confusing? After all, we talk about 3 thousand revs, not 30 hundred?
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On the question of confusing speedo with tacho, why do some makers calibrate the tacho 'x100' (so that it reads 10-20-30) instead of 'x1000' when it would show 1-2-3 etc - much less confusing? After all, we talk about 3 thousand revs, not 30 hundred?
I've often wondered this too. It must be an engineering tradition, and goes back long before tachometers were fashion things in cars. I remember noticing this "x100" notation on agricultural machines and ship's engine rooms.
It isn't even correct logically. If the speed is 4,000rpm, then displaying it as "40" is actually rpm divided by 100, not x100.
I always thought the point was to place vital instruments so that they could be seen with minimal eye movement off the road ahead. So speedo, and on sportier cars the tacho, would be in line, but lesser instruments could be smaller and placed to one side, underneath, or in a central console.
Maybe backseat drivers should have repeater instruments in the back.
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I don't like the centre sppedo, mainly because it allows the passengers to see more clearly what speed I'm driving at....
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Agree with LongDriver, but I have driven a Yaris where the digital speedo is centrally mounted and in a "tunnel" that is supposed to make it appear further away, and therefore quicker to re-focus your eyes from the road to the display and back again. It definitely seemed to work, but if it's just a normal speedo sitting there in the centre I wouldn't be keen.
Referring to the earlier point about tacho markings, the "x100" or "x1000" does make logical sense, as that indcates you multiply the figure on the dial by 100 or 1000 to get the correct figure. What I don't understand is why my car (Seat Leon) has 8 segments between each 1000rpm, instead of 10, so each segment is 125rpm!! Who came up with that one?
On a related subject, I know speedometers usually over-read by up to 10%, but can anyone suggest the best method to get mine checked to find out how inaccurate it is at various speeds? I vaguely remember a method involving marker posts on motorways, but would it be quicker and simpler to get it on a rolling road?
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What I don't understand is why my car (Seat Leon) has 8 segments between each 1000rpm, instead of 10, so each segment is 125rpm!! Who came up with that one?
It's a VAG thing - my Bora was the same, and so is the Octavia
I have to grow old - but I don't have to grow up
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I assume it's to make life easier for the manufacturer, as it must simplify the switch from LH to RH drive (big plastic mouldings are expensive things to tool for). Never mind that the driver no longer has the instruments in front of him/her!
WRT tachos, I also wonder at the choice of multiplier. I surmise that it's to make it 'match' the speedometer, but that's a two-edged sword, as I discovered when driving a friend's big Moto-Guzzi that had its instruments the other way round to what I was used to. The Guzzi had an effective fairing, and I was driving along at what I thought was a sedate 40-50 mph, only to discover at the next corner that I was looking at the wrong dial...
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I would prefer a Head Up Display myself; controlled by voice. (You would have thought that SAAB with their much vaunted aerospace background would have knocked something up by now for their cars.) However in the very limited "choice" provided by the manufacturers in the current market it would be central and digital.
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"Head Up Display"
Standard on Chevrolet Corvette since last year, I believe. Agree that Saab should have been onto this, especially now they're part of GM!
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Something else to consider [noticed this especially in the MINI] is that the most commonly done speeds are to the left pf the dial [ie. 30, 40, 50, 70] so are even further away.
Surely it must be harder and taking more time to work out if it's pointing at 30 or 40?
Also with central mounted stuff, the area infront of the driver looks bare and bland, [Yaris, Primera] and like something is missing.
Kev
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Only real comment is try them for a week or so if possible and you'll get used to them. I much prefer the system the Yaris uses - the readout is clear, well positioned and doesn't get hidden behind the steering wheel. I find it really easy to glance over to see the speedo - better IMO than glacing down, often past the wheel to see.
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Is this really a new idea or a cunning plan to reduce the cost of producing left and right hand drive cars. The hand brake in both the Saab and Passat are situated for the left hand driver, one passenger i regularily have in my car puts on the hand brake for me!, he also turns the central key on the Saab when he thinks i've finished parking!
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One car that really needs a head-up display more than any other is the Smart Roadster. The reasons are that it has a very narrow power band and fantastic grip if you're in the right gear but because the gearchange is so slow and so reluctant it's difficult to tell in a corner exactly what gear you are in until the thing bogs down on you.
HJ
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I imagine that it would be uneconmical to convert a modern car from LHD to RHD but the old mini's with the centrally mounted instrument panel were a piece of cake. New steering rack, shift the pedal box over, re-route a few pipes - job done.
More recently I came across a new VW LT35 van with no heater air flow. It turned out that a LHD bonnet had been factory fitted and the air intake to the heater blower was blanked off when the bonnet was closed. Looked OK from the outside though.
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Not me. I get enough grief from SWMBO as it is with her restricted view of the speedo (she can only see the top quarter of the scale). Heaven help us if she could see it all right in front of her!!
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