I miss my gauges.....

Just as an FYI for those interested, here's a link to the ScanGauge X-Codes for the Prius and others. Give you an idea of what it can monitor.
» TOYOTA – LEXUS – SCION

 

I had one of them for my VW Air-cooled to monitor oil temperature.

 

No, but the future is now and that means it's ridiculous that the dashboard display is not driven by a system open to apps such that a portion of the total display area could become a user-defined gauge package.

Ah, so you usually made it home! (been there, done that)

 

Yeah, would be nice if this could be accomplished without needing to resort to third party gizmos connected to OBD port, phone apps with OBD bluetooth dongles and the like, just built-in.

Somewhat akin to Toyota's ever spreading spare tire delete; reverse this trend, and maybe exasperated ex-customers will have another look.

 

I know some are upset about the no spare but tons of vehicles come with no spare anymore.

 

Tons of vehicles I'm not interested in, lol.

 

I would wager that, like most wiring harnesses these days, the data is already available to the existing instrument cluster (an 11.6 inch center-mounted tablet, a la TESLA, in my case). Would something like liability discourage a simple software addition for some user-defined gauges? I'm already hamstrung with Apple Car Play when I'm a happy Android user...

 

That's more or less true, as the display sits on the CAN bus, so anything it could ask for over CAN, it could in principle display.

That makes it kind of unlike wiring harnesses ... as many people who've set out to add options that weren't in their trim level discover, Toyota really does have variant harnesses built for the different trims, and your work is cut out for you to add something that wasn't expected.

If they ran a low-volume operation, it would probably be more economical to build one harness with everything in it, and use it in all the trims, as the cost of building and stocking variants wouldn't be recouped at low volume. But a low-volume operation is not what they run.

 

I added a set of gauges to our 65 mustang a few years back. The oil gauge required me to add a "T" for the sender (just a narrow plastic hose to the gauge). The good news was that the gauge warned us on a trip that the oil pressure had dropped before the engine was damaged. The bad news was that there was an oil leak at the "T".

JeffD

 

Does that make that Mustang a Heisenbuggy?

 

oh it's absolutely in there. I was setting up an android car-puter in my old Subaru to work as an extra gauge package. Most of the data I wanted was already washing around on that (2006) car's network, and the things that weren't? I actually found that it wasn't too hard to add nodes as long as the addresses didn't conflict with ones already in the car. So I could just add temp and pressure sender units that injected more columns into the data table. It was a fun project.

I'm sure there is some corporate hesitancy due to liability because there always is. But they've already accepted the liability of a computer-controlled two ton lump of plastic rolling around on the public roads, right? So that one might be winnable someday...

 

You could change "liability" to "laughability" and it still makes sense.

 

Just use OBDLink with an LX or MX+ OBD adapter and the relevant Toyota add-on. Much cheaper and much more extensive than a ScanGauge. See:
https://494382-1562282-raikfcquaxqncofqfm.stackpathdns.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/oem-specific_coverage.pdf
https://www.obdlink.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/app_support.pdf
The covers look the same at first glance, but the 2nd document is better. In my gen5 rav4 hybrid OBDLink (Android with MX+) actually provides many more PIDs than those listed in these documents. I don't know why they advertise "except hybrids". There are a few frustrations on installation and connection but the Toyota PIDs are wonderful: very extensive, and those that I tested worked! Logging is also terrific (when it works). It sometimes fails to start and it may take ~10min for a file ‘in progress’ to appear in the list, to confirm that logging is working. Check before purchase that OBDLink provides “OEM-specific data add-ons” (‘live parameters’ = PIDs, not just DTCs) for your vehicle of interest.

 

It also works well on a small Android tablet that fits the console below the radio (in my rav4 hybrid at least).