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I think some of the disagreement comes from how we drive our cars and how long we keep them. For example, I noticed that some of the posters that think dropping the temp gauge replace their cars pretty often. Also, some might not work on their cars. Some of us keep our cars a long time, out of warranty and work on cars both personally and in my case I did a stint in the dyno and test department of an IMSA GTP team. My best friend owns an independent Mercedes BMW only shop and I sometimes help him when he gets busy. I see the tidal wave of 8 year old BMWs with burst expansion tanks and radiators, plastic water pump impellers that fail and even the E90/92 electric water pumps. Thermostats, etc. His bread and butter is BMW cooling systems, window regulators and brake jobs. If you look at consumer reports reliability ratings, you will see BMW is below average on engine cooling issues. When the first 335i's came out they were overheating and owners saw that with their easy to read temp gauge. BMW eventually added oil coolers to those that didn't get one. So those of us that drive older BMWs find that the temp gauge is important.
Some of the responses have been go buy a 20 blue tooth app for your iphone after you spend $50K and by the way, pay extra for the bluetooth option on top of it and hope you didn't accidentally switch off bluetooth when your expansion tank goes. Others like the cool 235i logo where the boring gauge used to sit on the 1 series.
Let me ask all of you than think that dropping the temp gauge is progress even if just for a logo or because you can dig through it in some nested digital display. If BMW drops the gas gauge in the next model, would you be concerned? Would you merrily go buy an iphone app to tell you when you are low on gas? Would you call those that think dropping the fuel gauge, grandpas and whiners? Seriously, curious what is your threshold. At what point would you come over to our side? After they drop the fuel gauge, tach, speedo? Maybe the drop the PRNDL on the automatics and you have to count the clicks on the auto stick. Chime in and let us know at what point of dropping instrumentation would you feel compelled to consider that you are not willing go give that up?
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