Why did they make cars with a manual trans. and no tach?

Don't know about Escorts but if you have an early Focus without a tach, just go to the JY and find an instrument cluster with a tach. Swap them and instant tach!

i put a tach in anything im going to drive hard, I don't like valve float and some of the motors ive owned would rev way past there peak power output. My Dakota is stick with no tach and I don't feel the need to put one in it because I just put around town in it.

An F-150 with the 300/6 and a 5spd didn't need one.

Shucks, cars were built for many years with out tachs and manual transmissions.. Now they even put them in automatic cars. Go figure.

Learned to drive on a stick and owned several sticks when I was young. Stick shifts were cheaper, automatics cost extra back then. And none of them had tachs. Learned to shift by ear and mph. First car I owned that had a tach was an automatic. Never understood why tachs come with automatics. Now all my cars have tachs, both manual and automatic. Don't think you can get a car without all those dodads on it anymore.

codrus wrote:

Rupert wrote: A Model A had a push-button starter! Haven't we progressed from that?

I thought the Model A was a hand-crank start?

Model T was … don't know about the Model A

In reply to wbjones:A Model A like a TR-3 came with both. My A's always started off the motor. One of my TR-3s definitely needed the crank!

In reply to Kenny_McCormic:Yes, the button was actually under the clutch. Ford was about 80 years ahead of the US safety nuts on that one.

Gearheadotaku wrote:

Rupert wrote: In reply to Gearheadotaku: Do you mean oil pressure and/or temperature gauges? Don't need them! Just make sure the fancy Mom Mobile SUV has a tach & of course the full off-road package should she need it in the Costco parking lot!

WHERE THE HELL IS THE DIPSTICK!!!!

WHAT THE HELL IS A DIPSTICK!!!

My first car was a 95 Sentra GXE manual. No tach but it had a temp gauge which is more than I can say for my MS3.

I just learned to shift by ear, its rare that I use the tach in the Mazda today unless something is happening that I don't like the sound of.

In reply to Petrolburner: If I owned a GM product, I'd probably want to do away with the ignition key too! GM doesn't seem to be doing too well with keyed ignitions right now.

Funnily enough, I recently reluctantly bought a ride with a fob instead of a key. It's the only way the ride I wanted comes. That's why I'm so unhappy. I had no choice without going elsewhere & buying what I didn't want.

The first thing I did on my new ride was disable the auto lock function. (It's a real pain to have a car locked while in your locked garage.) The next thing I did was disable the headlights on whenever the ignition is on function. Luckily, both were software changes and easily done or undone.

Lack of a tach played hell with deaf drivers. Starters and ring gears, frequently.

bentwrench wrote: I don't need a tach, I shift when the pushrods start leaving dents in the hood!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4ipMAU7orA

No 2nd or 3rd gear. Watch in 720p, tach needle stops moving about 500rpm past 10k and he revs it out a little longer before shifting to 4th...