Display current gear without clutch engaged?

[CaptainSlow]

Originally Posted by LeeMaster

And then it brings us back to the question, how can the R indicator be shown on idle when the engine speed and wheel speed is at zero.

There is a sensor that tells the car that it is in reverse, which flips the relay to turn on the reverse lights. The ECU reads this in the gear selection display programming and displays the "R".

There is no sensor to tell the car which forward gear it is in...there would be no need for it. That information is calculated, just like MPG or DTE.

[cfusionpm]

Originally Posted by CaptainSlow

Same thing with MPG...there is no sensor that reads fuel mileage...it calculates it based on other PIDs..

That's probably why it's wrong most of the time.

[CaptainSlow]

Exactly. Because it's doing its best to calculate something long-term based off of immediate data, then projecting that out. That will never be as accurate as doing the math yourself using the actual miles driven and the actual fuel used.

[cfusionpm]

If the instantaneous readings are accurate, there's no reason the long term calculations should be off. It'd just be a simple summation. Let's say instant MPG is calculated once a second. Avg MPG would be the sum of all 1-second values divided by number of seconds since last reset. It looks like it does this about every 30 seconds. The reason MPG is off must be because the instantaneous values are off (or at least different than the ones pulled from the Torque OBDII app). My avg MPG is anywhere from 5-15% less than the car estimates.

Just another reason why calculations are dumb. Give me a sensor with real readouts any day.