A Quick\nReview of the Use and Benefits of the Tachometer<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These\ndays, most vehicles are equipped with a tachometer \u2013 a dashboard gauge or\nreadout indicating the revolutions per minute (RPM) of an engine. RPMs are\nusually referred to numerically in thousands of revolutions per minute. On a\ntachometer, the readout simply reports engine speed from 0 to 6, 7 or 8,\ndepending on the type of vehicle, engine and transmission. Some engines can\nhave much higher speeds \u2013 into the 13s and 14s. Regardless, multiply the gauge\nnumber indicated by 1,000 (often \u201cX1000\u201d noted on the readout) to get the RPMs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tachometers\nalso display, at the higher end of the readout, an area usually marked by red\nlines or numbers. These \u201credline\u201d zones indicate engine speeds where engine\ndamage is most likely to occur. To be\nclear: Drivers should avoid pushing the engine speed to redline levels.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n For the\nmajority of drivers out on the roads today, knowing their engine speed is less\nimportant than knowing their vehicle\u2019s ground speed, which of course is\nreported by the vehicle\u2019s speedometer. Race car drivers, however, need the\ninformation provided by tachometers to get the most out of their vehicles as\nthey match throttle control and gears (and therefore engine speed) with race\nconditions. And for those drivers who either wanted to maximize fuel economy or\nvehicle performance (or both), manual transmissions and tachometers provided an\nopportunity to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While\nmanual transmissions are still around (and many drivers still love the overall\nexperience of driving a manual), modern technology and advanced vehicle\nengineering make today\u2019s automatic transmissions a better choice to maximize\nfuel economy and power. And interestingly, many modern vehicles with automatic\ntransmissions are equipped with a tachometer, even though most drivers probably\ndon\u2019t pay that much attention to it. Despite the advances in engine control\nsystems and how those carefully manage engine speed, the tachometer is still a\nuseful gauge to the driver, especially if he or she switches to \u201cmanual\u201d mode\nshifting (for sportier driving or off-road driving or even driving in slippery\nconditions). Engine speed is also an important factor when a vehicle is under\nan increased payload or towing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In most\nscenarios, drivers should keep engine speeds from reaching the redline. And\nwhile some engine management systems will automatically prevent this (and\ntherefore help prevent engine damage), a tachometer provides real-time\ninformation to a driver so he or she can know exactly how the engine is doing\nat any given moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bottom line advice:<\/strong> <\/strong>Stay\nout of the red.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A Quick Review of the Use and Benefits of the Tachometer These days, most vehicles are equipped with a tachometer \u2013 a dashboard gauge or readout indicating the revolutions per minute (RPM) of an engine. RPMs are usually referred to numerically in thousands of revolutions per minute. On a tachometer, the readout simply reports engine speed from 0 to 6, 7 or 8, depending on the type of vehicle, engine and transmission. Some engines can have much higher speeds \u2013 into the 13s and 14s. Regardless, multiply the gauge number […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":29879,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[639],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-how-to"],"acf":[],"custom_fields":{"post_thumbnail_image":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/feature-46.jpg","icon_selection":"article","external_link":"","featured_article":[],"upload_background_image":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29876"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29876"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29883,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29876\/revisions\/29883"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}