this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2026
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This is like when cars went from oil pressure and temperature gauges to "idiot" lights. One let's you see trends in situations and be prepared for maintenance, the other tells why your car broke down.
Oh man, you've solved a problem I've had since childhood, trying to figure out what Stephen King meant when he was writing about "idiot lights".
I always figure he meant the dome light or something.
😀 yeah it made sense to me because I grew up in the changeover.
But here's the Wiki entry.
It makes sense, and I think he also (or maybe only) used the term "dope light" which I figured had something to do with drugs.
Linguistics are so interesting.
Yeah, my car doesn't have either of those and I was not happy when I realized it.
"A light will come on if there's an issue." 😡
I added some third party gages to my truck, just connects to the OBD interface.
No soft signals!!
If you have a newer car, it's worse.
Your car can say check engine and turn off a lot of features in your car if you're external thermometer in simply malfunctioning.
Your newer car will also tell you EXACTLY which sensors are showing bad data and whether it's an electrical fault in the sensor's circuit or implausible input, etc. Unfortunately you need a scan tool for it, but depending on the make you might find a decent free or cheap app to use a generic ELM327 or better, STNN1110 based OBD2 tool, that lets you scan all the modules rather than just OBD2 standard stuff.
So rather than playing parts darts or verifying every sensor by multimeter using known resistance ranges or putting up with bad fuel economy and low power... You just scan the thing and it'll tell you.
I've owned cars from the '90s, '00s and '10s (2019 being the latest) and while my cars from '10s didn't have sensor issues, I'll tell you that I'll take the complex and super hated '00s German cars over the early '90s one ANY day of the week. Super easy to diagnose.
My 2014 kangoo probably have like 3 sensors. I already changed an expensive turbo sensor and the one detecting if your seatbelt is making it beep for 3 minutes whatever you'd do before stopping every time I drive. I wonder if it's rational to fix it, costwise.
Oh it has significantly more sensors than that, trust me.
As for the seatbelt sensor, honestly depends on the cost and how long you plan on keeping it. Without knowing your car, I can't say for sure, but I suspect it's a simple switch. The issue may very well also be in the wiring, or the switch could've broken loose or something (in which case you'd likely need the belt buckle receptacle thingy).
Personally I'm so annoyed by things like that, I'd fix it. It probably annoys you, and if you do end up selling it rather than keeping it, it'll annoy the buyer.
Yeah I know, it's just very very not modern, which is good, but it also breaks down all the time which is less cool.
The French know exactly how to make a car last 10 years and start breaking down after that unfortunately.
I honestly don't know what would be a good replacement if you do need to get rid of it though. That type of van is a market dominated by the French to the point that "Berlingo" is almost a universal term for them IMO.
Yeah, as a swede I'm not used to the shaky quality 😅
The Berlingo is the Citroen version, and also an old french candy used for getting the bad taste of hot spring water out of your mouth (it's supposedly good to bathe in and drink but often taste of sulfur)
Fun fact the gauges were also made to be idiot friendly. They report the average over a period (or similar) because if they reported the live reading users used to panic and think their car is breaking down seeing the gauge move.
Maybe my vehicles were old enough before that electronic averaging. 90s. The oil pressure and temperature would respond as the engine warmed, or as you revved it. Sitting in traffic on a hot day and you could watch the temp gauge climb, and then drop when you started moving.
I could probably watch the gauges for 30 minutes
Like for fun, or you mean without change?