New Ultra-Gauge: First Impressions, Quick Hits, and quick comparisons to ScanGauge-II

Re: New Ultra-Gauge: First Impressions, Quick Hits, and quick comparisons to ScanGaug

Update. I quickly learned you can't do this. If you assign the upper left hand screen space (A) on screen 1 to the impg display, you can't also assign impg to the upper left hand screen space (G) on screen 2. The impg gauge can only have one assigned display location.

Like Raj, I gave up on the automatic paging feature. I want LOD and impg and trip mpg average displayed all the time, not 1/3 of the time. Now I just display one screen with the gauges I use. Currently, they're impg, trip avg mpg, load, ignition timing, battery voltage, and IAT. I discovered it's easy to page manually to the other two display screens, simply by pushing the DOWN button on the back of the UG.

 

Re: New Ultra-Gauge: First Impressions, Quick Hits, and quick comparisons to ScanGaug

I had the opportunity to find out what happens to the UG display under DFCO today, as I drove the xB to lunch, and had some long downhill coasting. The UG simply ignores DFCO, and continues to display (for instance) 168 or 233 impg down the hill. When you think about it, there really isn't much difference over a 500 mile tank, between idling down a 1 mile hill at .2 gph or 0 gph.

 

Re: New Ultra-Gauge: First Impressions, Quick Hits, and quick comparisons to ScanGaug

Some cars do not actually turn the injectors off during DFCO but run what is called Deceleration Enleanment where it just runs less fuel, I'm not sure if the above vehicle is one that does that.

For the OBDII splitter cable check out www.obd2cables.com/

 

Re: New Ultra-Gauge: First Impressions, Quick Hits, and quick comparisons to ScanGaug

"Deceleration Enleanment"? Did someone in Congress or an advertising company come up with that? Maybe it's a medical term?

-Raj

 

Re: New Ultra-Gauge: First Impressions, Quick Hits, and quick comparisons to ScanGaug

No, my xB reports 0.0 gph when turned off.

Yes, you can do both trip and tank averages. I keep trip average mpg and trip distance on the first screen, and tank average mpg, distance to empty, and tank miles on the third screen. I reset all trip data when I stop the car. I reset tank data when I fill the tank.

 

Re: New Ultra-Gauge: First Impressions, Quick Hits, and quick comparisons to ScanGaug

Yes you could, but you'd have to manually go into the menu and reset the Avg MPG - Trip gauges before each trip, and the Avg MPG - "General" gauges after each fill-up.

So not like the SG-II, which automatically resets the Trip gauges after so many hours between engine starts. I do miss having that feature.

I'm thinking I may make up for it by resetting my actual in-dash FCD before each trip.

-Raj

 

Re: New Ultra-Gauge: First Impressions, Quick Hits, and quick comparisons to ScanGaug

I drove my xB from CA to UT last week, using the UG to monitor FE. My calibration fluctuated from 8% to 21%, but it looks like 21% is going to be closer than the 13.5% that my SG was set at. I averaged 47.7 mpg on the 820 mile drive.

Since the impg display doesn't change in DFCO, I learned to watch for the open loop indicator. That told me I was in DFCO.

I forgot and left the UG in the window in full sun (windows cracked). Internal temps didn't exceed the alarm limit of 140 or 145 degrees, but I was only in 75-80 degree temps.

 

Re: New Ultra-Gauge: First Impressions, Quick Hits, and quick comparisons to ScanGaug

Hi folks, I thought I was going to get a Scangauge until I saw the mention of Ultragauge. So I did a lot of online reading and ordered an Ultragauge yesterday. I got an e-mail today that it had been shipped, and I should get in a few days. I just have one concern about using it - if it is not turned on and can be seen from outside the car, what's to keep a thief from thinking it's a GPS unit and breaking into the vehicle to get it?

Curious in Baltimore,

Richard

 

Re: New Ultra-Gauge: First Impressions, Quick Hits, and quick comparisons to ScanGaug

If you decide to mount it with the included velcro you could just take it off and hide it out of view. If you use the window mount it is still very easy to dismount but of course the mount will still me there. It is a bit small to be a gps but I suppose someone might mistake it as one.


On another note has anybody had difficulty unplugging the ultra-gauge I can't seem to unplug it is there release tab or does it just take a lot of force?

 

Re: New Ultra-Gauge: First Impressions, Quick Hits, and quick comparisons to ScanGaug

HI folks, I got my UG about 3 weeks ago and find it to be a very helpful tool. I was able to quikly switch it from my HI2 to my Dodge pickup with ease. Impg display seems a bit closer to reality than the one on my insight plus it can be calibrated easily. Recommendation.........doesn't suck. Price.........sweet, I only paid 52 for it with shipping and tax and didn't bother with the rebate. It might not even have been offered, i didn't look. Mounting.......sucks a little, just need a little imagination. It upped my mileage in my dodge 2500 2wd hd pickup from 15.5(which i thought was really good) to 17, when i'm not towing. Git one......sorry SG

I had a little trouble with the tab on the bottom of the plug being difficult to pull off as well but found that by squeezing the outside edges and moving it around gently, it would pop with less difficulty.

 

Re: New Ultra-Gauge: First Impressions, Quick Hits, and quick comparisons to ScanGaug

I may have convinced my brother-in-law to get one of these. He has been working on DWL with his Jeep.

 

Re: New Ultra-Gauge: First Impressions, Quick Hits, and quick comparisons to ScanGaug

Did either of you guys get screwed on your rebate? My submission got sent back marked "Return to Sender - No Such Number - Unable to Forward." (Yes, just like the Elvis song.) I should have known better when I saw the PO box number was 123456. ("That's the same number I have on my luggage!")

-Raj

 

Re: New Ultra-Gauge: First Impressions, Quick Hits, and quick comparisons to ScanGaug

Got the little gizmo today after ordering it on Sunday. Nice package. Took one look at the windshield mounting thingie and pulled out my Leatherman. I hate suction cups. Hate 'em. I never stick crap to my windshield. Made a deep cut in the suction cup about half an inch from the center and cut a doughnut hole. Pulled out the doughnut and tossed it. So much for the warranty....



On the Smart Car, on the dash between the speedometer and the center a/c console, is a narrow area of fabric that is exactly the width of the domed area on the suction cup base. I slid the lips of the base under the edge of the speedo housing and the console and pulled it down to the lip of the dash. Then I locked down the little lever to make it tight. It worked pretty well. Pretty solid. Very nice appearance! Absolute perfect placement, at 2 o'clock, halfway between the wheel and the dash, just above the airflow of the left center vent, couldn't ask for a better location in three dimensions. Absolutely perfect! Same color, too, as Smart black plastic. And this is weird, the LEDs are the same color as the lights on the cheapo marine radio I got from West Marine! Gotta tuck that long cord somewhere, tho. I'll try to route it through the a/c cover into the interior of the dash but the plug may be too big. If you find yourself in a high crime area, it's easy to pop the Ultra-Gauge off its 4-fingered mount with your fingernail if you drink lotsa milk, then you can tuck it into the nook just below the mount. If you don't have a Smart Car, I don't know what you'll do. Something different. Stand in the bushes with a ballpeen hamnmer, maybe. Specially since the thing stays on for a while after you pull the key, announcing to the world in big blue letters, "Steal me, I'm a brain puzzle for crackheads." In fact, the Ultra-Gauge would make a great practical joke for these dimwits. "Hey, dude, I'll sell you dis GPS for 20 bucks." "Dat's not a GPS!" "Yeah 'tis." "No 'taint. Lookit dah plug. Wats dat?" "I dunno. Gimme ten." "I ain't givin' ya ten. Whaddafok's it?" "I dunno. Gimme five." "I ain't givin' ya five. Whaddafok's it?" "I dunno. Somekinda stoopid GPS thing."


The LOAD GAUGE (upper left) reads 41.2 at idle with the air conditioning on (red light, center console). The TEMP GAUGE (upper right) reads 134.6 F because the car is warming up and has been idiling for about three minutes. The INSTANTANEOUS GALLONS PER HOUR GAUGE (lower left) reads 0.3 with the a/c on. With the a/c off, it reads 0.2. The AVERAGE GPH GAUGE (lower right) reads 0.6, reflecting a little bit of driving that I had just done. You can program three separate displays with four gauges each (of 49 available for the Smart Car), and page between them by either pushing a button on the back or activating the auto-paging feature. Note that I have just crashed into a residential hedgerow because I was fiddling around with the Ultra-Gauge rather than watching where I was going. Plastic cars are surprisingly resiliant!

Gently plugged it in to the watchyamacallit plug and the Ultra-Gauge lit up. Nice and bright. Really easy to read. Really a pleasant surprise. Then it gives me 49 friggin' gauges! Whaddam I gonna do with 49 friggin' gauges? It's a lot bigger than I expected. Everybody in giant gas hogs said it was smaller than they expected. I'm in a Smart Car. I do calisthenics to scratch my ass. The thing's gigantic. Glad I didn't get the Scangauge. My old eyes like the big old letters, way bigger than the letters on the speedo! Easy to read even on bumpy pavement. Easy to mess with with one hand. I think we're going to be friends.

Didn't find the rebate form as tiresome as some. Super effort went into their web site. Very classy, well laid out. The forum is a joke, tho. This one is a lot better. Lotsa geeky guys over here, too, who'll want to screw around with the damn thing and do rocket science on it. My only problem was calibration. I'm trapped in a city with nowhere to go. It said I was getting over 1000 mpg. (Do I win a Ford Focus or something, Wayne?) Don't really give a damn about Instantaneous MPG anyway. Gave up on that for now. Much more interested in the LOAD GAUGE. Stuck up the LOAD GAUGE, TEMP GAUGE, INSTANTANEOUS GPH AND AVERAGE GPH. I'm gonna play with them for a while.



Just got back from Central California/Houston round trip. Took the trailer and picked up a 1050 pound pallet. Only had 4 days so I was hoofin' it, not hypermilin'. Saved $150 on the freight, anyway, including one motel in Houston with gawdawful 100-percent humidity and 95 horrible degrees. Can't sleep in the Smart Car when it's like that, no matter how comfortable the bed is.

Only problem was some joker in Houston with a giant white truck with rhino bars drove up on to the back of my trailer at a stoplight and lifted my back wheels off the ground. Then he honked at me when the light turned green. Texans don't have a clue. Didn't hurt the trailer at all.

Call it PTERO'S PTERRIBLE PTRUCKING, putting freighthaulers out of business, one pallet at a time. Got nearly 45 mpg on the rebound 'till I turned on the AC. Looking forward to trying the next one with the Ultra-Gauge.

LOAD GAUGE... what the heck is that?

DAY 2
First real drive with the Ultra-Gauge. Never used a Scangauge. Got a dual pyrometer on my Jag, tho, so there. Didn't bother with the calibration. Too much trouble. Want to mess with the load gauge. It's 85 degrees out. Just let the car idle. Load gauge says 17 at idle. Turn on the air. Thirty friggin' four. Thought so. You people who think your gonna die without a/c are driving two cars. Man up. Roll down the windows. Take your shirts off. Girls, too. Get a trucker's tan. It'll peel off after a few days.

Give it the gas. Whoa! 50 comes easy on the load gauge. Looks like Ultra-Gauge has got something to teach my pillow foot. 50's where I want to start. 50 is like near mpg nirvana. Stochiometric mix. Maybe 48, maybe 52. Somewhere in there. Probably varies. First we'll play around with some 200 mile trips, trying to keep 50 nailed. No a/c, of course. Hypermiling ain't for sissies.

With the a/c on, I get up to speed between lights, then pull my foot all the way off the gas for the upcoming red light. Load gauge falls off to 5. Cool. Decelleration is running the a/c and the fuel is shut off. Instantaneous gph says 0.2. I pull to a stop in neutral. 0.3 gph with the ac blasting, probably a high 0.3 because 0.4 ticks up nopw and again. I pop the a/c off, 0.2 again. Gotta remember that I can get free a/c on the mountain downhills for my next hypermiling desert trip. Use it to resusitate my gasping sissy passenger. (Actually, no one will ride with me. That's okay, they're all too heavy, takes extra gas.

Speaking of weight in a Smart Car, the dang thing is so light that there are downhill stretches where I actually get better mileage with more weight. It's because of wind drag. I'll have to do a comparison one of these days. Spooky!

DAY 3 Cruising around town with the LOAD GAUGE
Driving around the busy city streets with the LOAD GAUGE really shows how a dedicated hypermiler is forced to waste gas by a buncha idiots in a mindless hurry. If I go with the flow, the LOAD GAUGE is up against 80 or 90 most of the time. You don't want to be antisocial and slow down the flow of traffic, but these people are racing to red lights and all lanes are Indy 500. On weekends or in the dead of night, its pretty obvious that I could get to the same places in about the same amount of time at half the load. And I mean I could do it easily.

People think, "Oh, that silly little car is slowing everybody down!" when I'm timing the lights. I often blow by everyone who slammed to a stop when I can find an open lane. But open lanes are hard to find. These idiots have no social consciousness about traffic sense. They'll race ahead, swerving through all lanes to be first, and frequently end up stopping in the right lane, preventing people from proceeding with right turns at the red light. And when the light turns green, they'll sit there with their heads up their butts while the cars ahead pull away, then accelerate agressively to make up for their delay, throwing off any attempt at smoothness by those behind them and forcing everyone in line to waste gas with unnecessary acceleration.

So anyway, I love this gauge already. I don't care how accurate your gauge is, if you can't use it with constant (second by second) reference in traffic, it can't really be effective. This read-out on the Ultra-Gauge is more than adequate. It's enormous. It's in your face. I mean, the way it's mounted, I see every change instantly out of the corner of my eye when I am focused on idiots trying to kill me in their daily destruction derby. There were wrecks everywhere today. I love this car. It can swerve like a jackrabbit!

The TEMP GAUGE is really sensitive. I never realized what I was missing with analog gauges (not that the Smart Car has one). The temperature readout is changing all the time. You can use it in concert with the LOAD GAUGE to get an idea of how hard your engine is working, keeping in mind that you are heating that water up with gasoline. Of course, you want to achieve and maintain an ideal temperature, probably the middle 190s for a highly-efficient car (or even hotter if you're into Carnot theory), but I was surprised that the temperature didn't hold steady like I expected. Real surprised. So when I learn new stuff like that, I've gotta integrate it into my technique. Like, what am I doing to make the temperature jump around? Isn't it better to drive in a manner that keeps the temperature changing slowly rather than quickly? Stuff like that.

Potential available gauges include:

• % Engine Load
• Engine Coolant Temperature (ºF)
• Short Term Fuel Trim Bank 1
• Long Term Fuel Trim Bank 1
• Short Term Fuel Trim Bank 2
• Long Term Fuel Trim Bank 2
• Fuel Pressure (PSI)
• Intake Manifold Absolute Pressure (PSI)
• RPM
• MPH
• Timing Advance
• Intake Air Temperature (ºF)
• Mass Air Flow Sensor 1 (g/s)
• Absolute Throttle Position 1 %
• Bank 1 0xygen Sensor 1 Voltage
• Bank 1 0xygen Sensor 2 Voltage
• Bank 1 0xygen Sensor 3 Voltage
• Bank 1 0xygen Sensor 4 Voltage
• Bank 2 0xygen Sensor 1 Voltage
• Bank 2 0xygen Sensor 2 Voltage
• Bank 2 0xygen Sensor 3 Voltage
• Bank 2 0xygen Sensor 4 Voltage
• Run time since last Start (hours:mins)
• Distance traveled with Check Engine Light On.
• Fuel Pressure (Diesel)
• Bank 1 Wide 0xygen Sensor 1 Lambda
• Bank 1 Wide 0xygen Sensor 2 Lambda
• Bank 1 Wide 0xygen Sensor 3 Lambda
• Bank 1 Wide 0xygen Sensor 4 Lambda
• Bank 2 Wide 0xygen Sensor 1 Lambda
• Bank 2 Wide 0xygen Sensor 2 Lambda
• Bank 2 Wide 0xygen Sensor 3 Lambda
• Bank 2 Wide 0xygen Sensor 4 Lambda
• EGR Flow %
• EGR Flow % Error
• Evaporative Purge %
• Fuel Level % of full
• Number of Warm-ups since Check Engine Light Cleared
• Distance traveled since Check Engine Light Cleared
• Evaporative System (PSI)
• Barometric Pressure – Inches of Mercury (inHg)
• Catalytic Converter Bank 1 Sensor 1 Temperature (ºF)
• Catalytic Converter Bank 2 Sensor 1 Temperature (ºF)
• Catalytic Converter Bank 1 Sensor 2 Temperature (ºF)
• Catalytic Converter Bank 2 Sensor 2 Temperature (ºF)
• Battery Voltage
• Relative Throttle Position %
• Outside Ambient Air Temperature (ºF)
• Absolute Throttle Position 2 %
• Accelerator Pedal Position 1 %
• Accelerator Pedal Position 2 %
• Command Throttle Position %
• Engine Oil Temperature (ºF)
• Mass Air Flow Sensor 2 – Calculated
• Instantaneous MPG
• Average MPG – General
• Average MPH – General
• Run Time – General
• Distance – General (miles)
• Fuel Used – General (Gallons)
• Average Gallons/Hour - General
• Fuel Level
• Instantaneous Gallons/hour
• Distance to Empty (miles)
• Time to Empty
• Volumetric Efficiency (MAP vehicles only)
• Average MPH – Trip
• Average MPG – Trip
• Fuel Used – Trip (Gallons)
• Gallons per Hour (GPH) – Trip (Gallons)
• Run Time – Trip (Hours:Minutes)
• Distance -Trip (miles)
• Oil Change Distance (miles)
• Service Distance (miles)
• UltraGauge Internal Temperature (ºF)

*Actual available gauges is vehicle dependent.

Compare this to the Scangauge.

 

Re: New Ultra-Gauge: First Impressions, Quick Hits, and quick comparisons to ScanGaug

Don't know about my rebate yet. I'm out of town for a couple more weeks.

 

Re: New Ultra-Gauge: First Impressions, Quick Hits, and quick comparisons to ScanGaug

I've convinced two colleagues to buy Ultragauges. One is a high mileage Saturn SL2 owner, who drives 35k miles/yr. He rode 150 miles with me to see how I hypermile. He's motivated by the desire for better mpg, although he's a leadfoot when it comes to speed.

The other Ultragauge candidate is a struggling Honda Accord owner. She asked me to plug my UG into her Accord to read her trouble codes relating to her CEL, which turned out to be P0401 and P1676, EGR and TCS problems, respectively. What sealed the deal for her is her broken speedometer. The Ultragauge's MPH display will save her the several hundred dollar cost of a speedometer.

 

Re: New Ultra-Gauge: First Impressions, Quick Hits, and quick comparisons to ScanGaug

Did receive my Rebate for one of the Gauges I bought, not yet for the other sounds like they only process them once a month. They did receive the second rebate form , just have not refunded it yet.
They actually refund it to your paypal account , Nice!

10-17-10 --- Received both my Rebates.

 

Re: New Ultra-Gauge: First Impressions, Quick Hits, and quick comparisons to ScanGaug

I received notification yesterday about my rebate from Paypal. It will be credited to my credit card.

I convinced another colleague to buy an Ultragauge. She's also interested in improving her mpg.