Living with a McLaren 650s Spider as an (almost) daily
Discussion
davek_964 said:
My low fuel warning came on last week - by a genius bit of design, once that happens the "miles remaining" disappears from the display and is replaced by a petrol pump icon! Not helpful.
To be fair, my bog standard Honda does this as does my R8 so not limited to McLaren!jtremlett said:
hat's still a fault. It may be design fault and can't be fixed but it is still a fault. It is all very well having the technology but it needs to be applied with some common sense. If they have lots of customers ringing them up about it then they'd save everyone a lot of hassle if it didn't go off needlessly in the first place. Plus, if you learn to ignore a warning like that it defeats the object of having it all because you may well ignore it when you need to pay attention to it. I do think car manufacturers in general often seem to lack someone in their design process to come in and say, hold on a minute, you need to take into account that it is people who will own and drive these at the end of the day.
That's an absurd statement. Its not a fault - not even by design. Tyre pressure drops with ambient temperature and when it drops below a limit - it gives you a warning. Its not going off needlessly.I'd rather have a car that gives me precise info rather than pandering to the ignorant.
PompeyReece said:
To be fair, my bog standard Honda does this as does my R8 so not limited to McLaren!
This is different from the direct air pressure measurement. Would depend strongly on how you drove on the rest of the tank, and even on how fast you are cornering as the low remaining fuel sloshes around, so that the remaining miles would like fluctuate wildly.
12pack said:
That's an absurd statement. Its not a fault - not even by design. Tyre pressure drops with ambient temperature and when it drops below a limit - it gives you a warning. Its not going off needlessly.
I'd rather have a car that gives me precise info rather than pandering to the ignorant.
Hear hear !I'd rather have a car that gives me precise info rather than pandering to the ignorant.
I'd also seen this
"Given that it knows the pressure AND temperature of the tyres, it really should be capable of not throwing spurious error messages just because the temperature has dropped."
Not really fair on Mclaren - I'd suspect the exact opposite to be true in that the TPMS will probably be smart enough to have a ambient temp offset in its calibration.
Personally, I'm glad the car tells me when the tyre pressures are not very close to exactly right. Given how much difference tyre pressures make on 30 or 35 profiles I can also understand why the engineers who designed the car tightened the TPMS alarm parameters.
For me, the fuel level sensors in the 'old days' were the best because the warning light would come and go as the fuel sloshed around in the tank. When there was not enough fuel so that the light remained permanently on, then you really knew it was time to fill up. Sadly, the modern cars have lost the ability to communicate this useful bit of information.
12pack said:
That's an absurd statement. Its not a fault - not even by design. Tyre pressure drops with ambient temperature and when it drops below a limit - it gives you a warning. Its not going off needlessly.
I'd rather have a car that gives me precise info rather than pandering to the ignorant.
If it results in lots of people calling the dealer and the dealer saying to ignore it then there is clearly a problem somewhere down the line. Either it can be ignored in which case it needs a design change so it doesn't go off when it doesn't need to, or it shouldn't be ignored in which case the dealer should be telling people to pay heed to it and alter their tyre pressures. I'd rather have a car that gives me precise info rather than pandering to the ignorant.
12pack said:
PompeyReece said:
To be fair, my bog standard Honda does this as does my R8 so not limited to McLaren!
This is different from the direct air pressure measurement. Would depend strongly on how you drove on the rest of the tank, and even on how fast you are cornering as the low remaining fuel sloshes around, so that the remaining miles would like fluctuate wildly.
The OP said "My low fuel warning came on last week - by a genius bit of design, once that happens the "miles remaining" disappears from the display and is replaced by a petrol pump icon! Not helpful"
So thought the comment related to the remaining miles reading disappearing from view, not how many miles were left or whether the remaining miles reading was inaccurate?
PompeyReece said:
Not sure that was the point being made.
The OP said "My low fuel warning came on last week - by a genius bit of design, once that happens the "miles remaining" disappears from the display and is replaced by a petrol pump icon! Not helpful"
So thought the comment related to the remaining miles reading disappearing from view, not how many miles were left or whether the remaining miles reading was inaccurate?
Yes. That was exactly my point.The OP said "My low fuel warning came on last week - by a genius bit of design, once that happens the "miles remaining" disappears from the display and is replaced by a petrol pump icon! Not helpful"
So thought the comment related to the remaining miles reading disappearing from view, not how many miles were left or whether the remaining miles reading was inaccurate?
jtremlett said:
12pack said:
That's an absurd statement. Its not a fault - not even by design. Tyre pressure drops with ambient temperature and when it drops below a limit - it gives you a warning. Its not going off needlessly.
I'd rather have a car that gives me precise info rather than pandering to the ignorant.
If it results in lots of people calling the dealer and the dealer saying to ignore it then there is clearly a problem somewhere down the line. Either it can be ignored in which case it needs a design change so it doesn't go off when it doesn't need to, or it shouldn't be ignored in which case the dealer should be telling people to pay heed to it and alter their tyre pressures. I'd rather have a car that gives me precise info rather than pandering to the ignorant.
JerryDXB said:
I’d be questioning the intelligence of any dealer who advises ignoring a TPMS alarm. I’d also be questioning the intelligence of any owner who calls the dealer complaining about said alarm unless it was still alarming after external checks with a decent gauge and appropriate adjustment.
Quite possibly. But in the real world you don't force your customers to take a test on tyre pressures before they buy the car. I don't claim to be a vehicle systems designer but I would have thought a graduated warning system from something like 'your tyre pressures are a little bit low for the outside temperature' through to 'you've got no air in your tyres and you'll crash at the first corner' might help. Anyway, my point is, there is clearly an issue when real dealers and real customers are involved so therefore you really want a sensible design solution rather than just saying your dealers and customers are morons (which they might be!).davek_964 said:
PompeyReece said:
Not sure that was the point being made.
The OP said "My low fuel warning came on last week - by a genius bit of design, once that happens the "miles remaining" disappears from the display and is replaced by a petrol pump icon! Not helpful"
So thought the comment related to the remaining miles reading disappearing from view, not how many miles were left or whether the remaining miles reading was inaccurate?
Yes. That was exactly my point.The OP said "My low fuel warning came on last week - by a genius bit of design, once that happens the "miles remaining" disappears from the display and is replaced by a petrol pump icon! Not helpful"
So thought the comment related to the remaining miles reading disappearing from view, not how many miles were left or whether the remaining miles reading was inaccurate?
I said:
"This is different from the direct air pressure measurement. Would depend strongly on how you drove on the rest of the tank, and even on how fast you are cornering as the low remaining fuel sloshes around, so that the remaining miles would like fluctuate wildly.",
because that's likely why the designers switched to the icon rather than displaying wildly fluctuating remaining miles.
12pack said:
Yes mine too - I guess I clicked "quote" as opposed to "quote all"
I said:
"This is different from the direct air pressure measurement. Would depend strongly on how you drove on the rest of the tank, and even on how fast you are cornering as the low remaining fuel sloshes around, so that the remaining miles would like fluctuate wildly.",
because that's likely why the designers switched to the icon rather than displaying wildly fluctuating remaining miles.
This is the kind of response I don't really get.I said:
"This is different from the direct air pressure measurement. Would depend strongly on how you drove on the rest of the tank, and even on how fast you are cornering as the low remaining fuel sloshes around, so that the remaining miles would like fluctuate wildly.",
because that's likely why the designers switched to the icon rather than displaying wildly fluctuating remaining miles.
Pretty much any other car manages to display remaining miles. My Aston managed it - and that went round corners and burned more fuel depending on how I drove it too.
(Plus if you've reached the point where you've got a low fuel warning, I'm guessing most people are not stamping on the accelerator at every opportunity).
jtremlett said:
uite possibly. But in the real world you don't force your customers to take a test on tyre pressures before they buy the car. I don't claim to be a vehicle systems designer but I would have thought a graduated warning system from something like 'your tyre pressures are a little bit low for the outside temperature' through to 'you've got no air in your tyres and you'll crash at the first corner' might help. Anyway, my point is, there is clearly an issue when real dealers and real customers are involved so therefore you really want a sensible design solution rather than just saying your dealers and customers are morons (which they might be!).
..based on some of our comments in PH forums, I would have to say that the very last part of your statement is true 
jtremlett said:
f it results in lots of people calling the dealer and the dealer saying to ignore it then there is clearly a problem
Sounds like hearsay to me. I've not seen this commented on often at all - apart from by those who deliberately run low cold pressures (for track). And any dealer that didn't simply tell the customer to check and fill air into the tyres as required, is giving wrong advice anyway. I really fail to see why you think this is an issue anyway, when the car will display the actual tyre pressures? So you can see that there is in fact too little pressure?
LotusJas said:
I really fail to see why you think this is an issue anyway, when the car will display the actual tyre pressures? So you can see that there is in fact too little pressure?
On the 650, it's buried in the car menus - it's quicker to get out of the car and check the tyre it's complaining about.Still - I think the fact that it's dropping below the expected pressure suggests that I should add a few more psi.
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