Things start at the top and work their way down.
For instance, the flatscreen displays that are now standard in pretty much all new vehicles (very few cars are being made anymore). These first appeared about a decade ago in top-of-the-line luxury-brand vehicles and made them appear to be more top-of-the-line because less-expensive makes and models did not have them.
Now that they all do, it no longer looks as top-of-the-line. It actually looks kind of common. And it may be worse than just how it looks.
This brings up another feature that first appeared in top-of-the-line vehicles. Or rather, disappeared from them.
The dipstick.
For more than 100 years, the way you checked whether there was the proper amount of oil in your vehicle’s engine was to raise the hood and pull the dipstick out from the metal tube it fit into, wipe it off with a rag or paper towel, reinsert it, remove it – and look at it. You used your eyes to see whether the oil level was approximately at the “full” mark on the dipstick and if it wasn’t, you added oil until it was. You also looked at the oil, which served as a measure of its condition. If the oil was black, that was a clue it had not been changed in a while and probably ought to be.
The dipstick itself could also provide a clue as to how a vehicle’s engine was maintained. If the oil wasn’t changed often or the engine was run hard and hot, the dipstick would sometimes be discolored by varnish. This was helpful in terms of avoiding a prospective used car that had been abused by its prior owner.
Dipsticks are also simple, reliable and inexpensive things – like the mechanical throttle cables that have disappeared from under the hoods of new vehicles, in favor of “drive-by-wire” electronically controlled throttles that are not simple or inexpensive when the electronics stop working and the components need to be diagnosed and replaced with new electronic components.
They – dipsticks – rarely break because there’ not much too break. If the metal tube that’s pressed into the side of the engine block breaks, you pull it out and press in a new one. If the dipstick itself breaks – which is almost impossible unless you purposely bend it – you just buy a new one and insert it.
Well, all of that is in the process of going away – like throttle cables and gauges that aren’t LCD displays.
The 2025 Ram 1500 pick-up I recently test-drove (reviewed here) has a new in-line six cylinder engine that replaces the V8 you can’t get anymore. You could check the V8’s oil level by popping the hood and having a look at the dipstick. To check the new six’s oil level, you scroll through the LCD display inside the truck and tap the app. The oil level is then displayed on the screen.
There is no dipstick.
This is how you check the oil without actually looking at the oil. So you can’t tell how it looks. You also can’t look at the dipstick, itself – which (again) is no longer there. So it’s hard to see – or will be, down the road – whether the engine was run hot and hard. And of course, you must trust that the electronics are working and giving you accurate information as regards the oil level.
Probably, they are.
Until the day comes when the electronics stop working. Or the the LCD display stops displaying. At that point, there will no longer be a way to check the oil level anymore. You’ll have to assume – and remember. You’ll also have to trust – that the oil change place didn’t over (or under) fill the engine.
Probably, this won’t be a problem for the first and even the second owner. In general, the electronics in late-model vehicles are pretty reliable. But they are still electronics and these eventually fail, as mechanical things eventually fail. But when electronic things fail, it is often a more difficult thing to figure out what, exactly, has failed – and a more expensive thing to replace whatever the component is that failed. Often, because there are components – plural- involved in a system that must be diagnosed before it can be brought back to working order. And – with electronics – the components are often specific to that particular make/model/year vehicle and – after a decade or so – may no longer be available.
If they aren’t, what are you going to do?
The Stoics believed that – as guiding principle – simpler is usually better.
They were probably right about that, too.
. . .
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