I don't mean to but in to your discussion, but I had an '05 6.0 that the fuel pump failed on. The cel did not come on, but the check fuel guage light did. I also had the turbo go bad twice but you could hear it for a few weeks before it failed. I also use my truck to make a living. I also had the egr valve replaced twice the egr cooler replaced twice, I lost 4 injectors from the fuel pump going bad, the vaccum pump replaced twice,[that is not covered by the 100,000 mile warranty], the fan clutch replaced, the alternator replaced, an heater hose that cost 500.00 to replace that the warranty did not cover, an anti lock brake sensor replaced , and a bunch of other stuff that I forgot about all in the first 50,000 miles. My point is that the majority of the time the cel was on, and the computer threw a code. The ampmeter did let me know the alternator was going bad, and the temp. gauge told me when the engine was overheating. Did either one prevented the breakdown, no. But they both give you advance warning. Both of them together work pretty well. The friggin cel stayed on the majority of the time I had the truck, sometimes the codes diagnosed the problem, sometime they don,t. Just my 2 cents from plenty of experience.

 

ok so we are agreed we are all getting on star i wanna talk to this chic about my guages and why she knows whats going on and we dont.... especially when computers do nothing lol

 

Only one light has ever come on since I've had the truck and that was water in fuel and that was it. Now it might be something defective with my truck I don't know, but I'm just relaying my experiance and my experiance seems to suggest differently then his.

 

Mine too. I let my truck idle this morning for about 20 minutes and it still took it a few miles to come up from the first pic below, up to the second pic.

With the exception of oil pressure, the gauges really are gauges, they're just VERY de-sensitized, or another way to put it is that their resolution is really bad.

Here's a pic I found on the web somewhere describing the trans temp gauge positions...

 

does no one sell an aftermarket swapout that plugs in and all but actually works....

 

To my knowledge no. Too sophisticated tto do it easily and price it right.

 

I like the way modern transport airplanes do it. Ask an airline pilot what the oil pressure is on his #2 engine and you'll be lucky if he even looks up from his newspaper. That's because the airplane won't even tell him what it is until it's either too low or too high.

I jumped for joy the day they told us we would no longer be tested on all of the engine operating limitations. As long as you can tell green from yellow from red, you don't need to know anything else, except which button to push to get the flight attendant to bring you more coffee.

I would expect that as soon as someone comes up with a monitoring system cheap enough to put in our trucks, the gauges will go away completely.

 

Sorry, but I am one of the people who like REAL gauges, not idiot lights disguised as gauges... Looks like as soon as it warms up I will be adding aftermarket ones. Is there a 4-pod for the A-Pillar available of 2008s?

 

I feel I should contribute...

as for the guages, has anyone ever noticed our low fuel light stayed on the majority of 2008? Now I'm no genious, but I think that our fuel guage is bass ackwards. Personally, its a thing of negativity. It always beeps at you and gives you a depressing yellow light to tell you to feed the truck. IMO i think we should have a green light to tell us we have fuel in the truck and it should turn off when we need fuel.

Or instead of a fuel guage a happy face, that is happy whne full then gradually turns into a frowny face. Yeah inferior ford guages, chew on that one. Also, I would really like a voltage guage. It would make trouble shooting much easier when the truck just dont work no more...

 

Lol love the smiley idea better patent that before gm steals it lol

 

no worries...

with GM it would be a frowny face all the time.. hahhaahaha...

 

Twice I've lost the oil in the truck and never knew it until the engine just shut down.
At least it was that smart ..... but it would have been nice to know I was dumping oil

 

Guys In my '08 SD V10 I have the Dashhawk, which is made by MSD which is now owned by Edge. It is all digital and I have it set up to display trans temp, coolant temp, intake air temp and throttle position sensitivity. There is no provision for oil temp or oil pressure on the gas engines, diesels might be different. The gauge it self is abut $300 and the pod is about $75. The pod mounts right above the A/C vent to the left of the steering wheel and right below the grab handle and plugs right into the diagnostic port. I really like the way it is set up. Hope this helps you.

 

On diesels you can monitor oil temp and pressure thru the computer, atleast I'm able to by using the DashDaq.

 

I had a 97 F150 with the on off oil pressure gauge. Someone said that if you went back to an 86 sending unit, if I remember correctly, The gauge would function as a true pressure gauge. I never did try it though. Food for thought. Hammer