After nearly four years of cursing our Verso for having illuminated instrument displays that are too bright at night and yet too dim to read through sunglasses in the daytime, and of wondering aloud why a car priced at nearly £20,000 didn't have a panel dimmer...
...In the week we're due to offload it I noticed the word 'Dim' next to the button I'm obliged to use to switch from odometer to trip and back. (You can't display both at once.) Still couldn't make it do anything, so when I got to work - I'm driving it this week to empty the tank - I dug out the book of words, and another mystery was explained. After Trip A and Trip B, but before returning to Odo, the display shows a peculiar pattern of dashes that I've never bothered to understand. It turns out that if I jiggle the button correctly, i can alter the number of dashes and, with them, the panel brightness.
Has anyone else had a similar moment with a well-hidden feature?
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No, its just you WDB. Sorry and all that.
:-)
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The wing-tip floats on a Catalina flying boat - long story.
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Blimey, he can't even work a simple cooking featurelless Toyota, and now he's gone and bought a complicated feature laden Merc.
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Joking aside, you're supposed to be able to talk to mine to get it to do stuff. Totally ignores me. I've even tried shouting at it in a German accent but still it turns a deaf ear.
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Adjusting the illumination is er.... complicated in the BMW - press the BC button on the end of the indicator stalk, scroll through 3 menus to get to it....potty...
On the bike, the display has an "ambient" setting self adjusts to the ambient light, which is rather clever...
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>> Adjusting the illumination is er.... complicated in the BMW - press the BC button on
>> the end of the indicator stalk, scroll through 3 menus to get to it....potty...
>>
>>
1. Switch headlights on
2. Scrolling once up or down on indicator stalk takes you to brightness option.
3. Press BC button.
4. Adjust as desired (which is either too bright, too dim, and too orange).
Remember when we used to have a little wheel?
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>> After Trip A and Trip B, but before returning to Odo, the display shows a peculiar pattern of >>dashes that
>> I've never bothered to understand. It turns out that if I jiggle the button correctly,
>> i can alter the number of dashes and, with them, the panel brightness.
>>
Crikey, wouldn't like to try that on the move; give me an analogue knob to twiddle anyday.
One that's foxed many folk over the years is Vauxhalls from MK1 Astra/Mk2 Cavalier onwards using a pull out of the headlamp switch to turn on the interior lights.
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>> One that's foxed many folk over the years is Vauxhalls from MK1 Astra/Mk2 Cavalier onwards
>> using a pull out of the headlamp switch to turn on the interior lights.
>>
It wasn't a new feature for GMC either. My 1963 pick-up interior light works off the main light switch, although you turn the knob to the left for interior lights and there's a 2-stage (parking and headlamp) pull for the main lights. Turning the knob to the right dims the panel lights.
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>> One that's foxed many folk over the years is Vauxhalls from MK1 Astra/Mk2 Cavalier onwards
>> using a pull out of the headlamp switch to turn on the interior lights.
>>
I had a Mk1 Cavalier for eighteen months before I discovered that feature by accident. Up to the I thought it was a cost cutting measure by Vauxhall.
My Astra now is the same, anybody know if I've missed a way to turn the light off while you have the door open?
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That's the cost cutting. They used Cavaliers as surveillance cars in Northern Ireland, they had to remove the bulbs from the interior light for that reason.
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In the past,many cars had "parking lights" but few people realized-usually switched by the indicator switch with ignition and lights off.Right lndicator turned on off-side side and rear lamp-left indicator,the other side.
Last edited by: jc2 on Mon 23 Apr 12 at 20:43
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>> In the past,many cars had "parking lights" but few people realized-usually switched by the indicator
>> switch with ignition and lights off.Right lndicator turned on off-side side and rear lamp-left indicator,the
>> other side.
>>
Now I had a Capri for quite a while before I discovered that one. I came back to the car one day and wondered what the hell was wrong with it, the nearside lights on and the switch in the off position.
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I think my current BMW has them (last one did) but in an excellent stroke of design, they wouldn't activate unless you brought the stalk "home" and re-engaged it after the engine was turned off..
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Yep - Having read the manual (!) - you have to stop the engine, lift or lower the indicator stalk - leave it place for three seconds the light comes on accompanied with a chime.
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Not the only one, i unfortunately have to drive new MAN's now and again, of course they arn't fitted with dipstick, and i can't for the life of me figure out to check it electronically, typical VW form over function, hope they don't do the same to Scania.
I also can't alter the stupid panel dimmer either, seeing as the glow is dim brothel red you can't see any of the switches or dials at night....torch and glasses perched on end of nose needed....junk.
Surprising Toyota made it that difficult, everything i can operate on them easily except the sat nav..thats IT nerd territory.
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The GS has an electronic dipstick (backed up with a very primitive sight-glass) - conditions have to be met to use it.....
1. Engine has to be at operating temo
2. Side stand has to be retracted
3. Engine has to be ticking over for at least 10 seconds.....
By which time if there is no oil, your big-ends are toast...
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Trust someone to mention food just as I was retiring. (For the night)
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Returning to the topic of how to adjust the instrument lighting....
The Audi has a rotary knob on the dashboard, next to the larger one which controls the headlights. You simply rotate the knob to control the intensity of the instrument backlighting.
When not using this knob, you simply push it into the dashboard, so that you don't inadvertently change the settings. It then sits flush with the dashboard. When you want to use it again, you give it a push and it springs back out.
I love simple, but neat, solutions like this.
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Crikey, wouldn't like to try that on the move; give me an analogue knob to twiddle anyday.
Precisely, Spammers. For just the same reason I prefer a camera with a shutter-speed dial to having to work through menus.
Needless to say, like Londoner in his Audi, I don't have this problem in my old Volvo. That has a little roller next to the headlight leveller. I never need to touch it, though, because its dimmest setting is comfortable at night and perfectly visible in daylight. Thanks to an ambient light sensor in the climate control panel, it can also tell the difference between night driving and daytime with the headlights on, so even occasional need to combine headlights with sunglasses causes no problems. That's the way to do it.
Don't honestly know how the E will do this but I'm not too concerned. It seems pretty good in other ergonomic areas - I'm even prepared to be convinced by the all-in-one stalk, although it does seem to be tradition for its own sake. In fact, our car has three stalks - cruise control, steering column adjuster and everything else - on the left and none on the right, but so far it seems to work well enough. Don't worry, Z, I think I'll cope.
Last edited by: WillDeBeest on Tue 24 Apr 12 at 06:53
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My Rover 16 - just post WW2- had a rotary switch to adjust panel brightness.
One turn..
Obviously some designers have not enough work to fill their time - and little common sense.
If the manual is >100 pages long - the bit telling you how to run the car - it's too complex.
Did I mention I was thinking of buying a Prius :-(
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Jonathan Margolis, who writes the excellent Technopolis page in the weekend FT, has a maxim that I broadly agree with: that if he has to read the manual for anything but the product's most advanced features, something is wrong with the design.
I have a similar view of remote controls, especially on products small enough to be portable. Beestling Minor has a Pure Contour 100Di that docks his iPod and also does FM radio and - yes - DAB. It is excellent in most respects, especially the sound quality from a small unit, but without the remote you can't even tune the radio, which seems like a major shortcoming to me.
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>> Jonathan Margolis, who writes the excellent Technopolis page in the weekend FT, >>has a maxim
>> that I broadly agree with: that if he has to read the manual for anything
>> but the product's most advanced features, something is wrong with the design.
>>
That's a maxim I agree with, the only product that regularly defeats me is our 'doomsday machine' - a clunking great DVD/VCR/HDD combo that sits on top of our (analogue CRT..) telly and defeats my attempts to do anything more complicated than feeding it SWMBO's Dr. Who tapes. I've been doing the rounds of the neighbourhood 3 times in the last month re-tuning TVs and PVRs for local technophobes, thankfully none of those needed the last resort of RTFM.
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>> have to drive new MAN's now and again ... can't ... figure out how to check [oil level]
>> can't alter the stupid panel dimmer either
I drive a 60 plate MAN every few days, interspersed with a 59 Iveco truck, 61 Iveco van and 61 Toyota Hilux. I know all those functions are there on the MAN, I'll next drive it possibly on Thursday and definitely on Saturday so will report back with the exact method needed to make it do what you want it to.
Re: oil level; if it's low it will definitely tell you. No news is good news :)
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Depends on the car. I believe this is a mandatory feature in Germany, so its presence usually indicates that the car is either from a German company or was built there.
The other giveaway for DE origin is a car having two rear fog lamps also having one of them with its bulb holder blanked off. I once got a fleet Ford Galaxy in the UK that had been misbuilt to the DE fog lamp spec. On that, the blanking plate was a push out job, so no big deal.
My fleet Toyota (made in Japan for the NL market) lacks the parking lamp feature. My Opel Zafira (made and orginally sold in DE) has it. The latter car has gained a second rear fog lamp, courtesy of my removing the blanked off light unit and cutting a hole in the appropriate place.
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The X1 was built at Leipzig according to its various codes.
Last edited by: R.P. on Tue 24 Apr 12 at 10:45
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So was Wagner I seem to remember for no appropriate reason.
As you were, carry on...
:-)
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And J.S. Bach was organist there. He had to compose for manuals and pedals (in case anyone should accuse me of thread drift....).
Last edited by: Avant on Tue 24 Apr 12 at 23:31
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...and he went all that way to hear Buxtehude - presumably in a Ford Transit. But he was born 327 years ago, so he probably has a Kia these days.
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Always read the manual - Runfer D'Hills
