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Comment by liendolucas | Hacker News Reader

Finally, also note that an LCD screen is not needed at all in the driver's console. Analog indicators for speed, rpms and simple lights are just fine. What I would really really like to have on all vehicles is an error LCD screen that describes with full and clear details any type of malfunction. We're still stuck with error codes but hey we give owners all these fancy and unnecessary digital toys and when a problem araises we need to plug a scanner to decode what's going on with our vehicles.

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I actually don't mind the driver's display being a screen, because it has no controls and I don't have to interact with it besides looking at it. The most important things it displays (speed and revs) are mimicking dials anyway, but it's nice to be able to see things that most lower-cost manufacturers would never bother making a dial or numeric display for (primarily economy and remaining range, for me).

I don't understand why I get a warning that tire pressure is low but no indication which tire is problematic.

It’s a tricky problem because if you drive with a separate set of tires in winter/summer or anytime you rotate your tires the mapping from the TPMS to each tire would have be updated.

I don’t know enough about it to know if or how any manufacturers solve that—maybe it’s something that you can manually reset when rotating tires? My car is a 2016 so I’m in the same boat and stuck with a blanket “low pressure” warning.

My 2012 car could report individual tire pressures for each tire. After a few minutes of driving, it would know which tire was witch even after rotating them.

It's not too difficult for the car to know which TPMS chirp relates to which tire.

Hyundai shows which one.

Mine doesn't (i30 2020 EU model).

Do any modern cars have OBD readers integrated into the infotainment system?

It seems like a no brainer to show the error code w/ a description. Though that might decrease the number of dealer visits compared to a non-descriptive check engine light.

Tesla vehicles display error descriptions prominently whenever an error code is presented, and detailed error diagnostics are available for anyone to browse in the service mode menu on the touchscreen. (Service mode is publicly accessible but does require looking up online how to open it.)

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