Lil Dog

Ok... I am still confused. What car? What are the situations where you need to look at that location??? Pedestrians, yes.. I get that, but other vehicles? I have more trouble with the passenger pillar in the way...

HOHN

+1.

The blind spot is already large. You get used to having to move your head back and forth to see what's going on outside.

To me the biggest distraction of a pillar setup is that the guages are so close. Your eyes have to radically refocus to look at them, and that takes time, so it takes longer to "glance" at the guages in a pillar because your eyes go from focused at infinity, to up close, then back to infinity. That's slow.

A dash guage that's farther away is much less of a change in focus, so you can keep your eyes on the road more of the time.

Then again, the closeness of the gauges also helps you see exactly where that needle is.

With a digital gauge, a dash mount would make more sense, but analogs might have a stronger case for pillar mounting.

JMO

oscaroc

I worried about the blind spot also when I was buying gauges, and I couldn't find any alternatives I liked. then I seen an Audi that had gauges in the HVAC vents and I thought that was a really good idea. So i built a three guage pod that fits right into the center dual vent in the dash. The bad about that is i lost a lot of heating or cooling air. And it was a pain to build.

I think I have a picture of it in my gallery

kawi600

I looked into this too. The gauges arent really a problem. the pillar itself is the problem since its so wide. Also if you run those rain guard things, even the clear ones obstruct your view. Real dangerous when youre trying to take a turn in a busy city with lots of cel-phone using pedestrians around.
I just got in the habit of doing a double head-check looking around both sides of the pillar before turning.

Russ Roth

The problem with having such a large blind area is not in having to look around it but the times you have a brain cramp and FORGET to. Under certain circumstances even a pretty large car can disappear behind it. When I do gauges I will choose not to increase the blind spot. I am thinking I will build a dash pod to hold 4 gauges and have it somewhere out of line of sight. Just MHO.

justme-

To answer Lil dog- I lost a police car in that blind spot the first week I had this truck on a rotary (round-a-bout/traffic circle). Talk about tense!
The smoke rain guards do make it worse- think I'm going to replace these (old ventvisor's that broke after 3 years!) with clear ones.

anyone ever try an autometer dash mount?

wcbcruzer

I too didn't notice a difference when I put my gauges in. Maybe some pillars stick out more than others?

Hammer

Man I don't know....
I have read all this about blind spots with pillar gauges and do not see what the big deal is.I have both a triple and a double,which is seen in the shot I linked,and the vision is no worse than factory with either one.On the ventvisors deal,if you buy the right ones then your vision is not compromised and the view is not distorted either.Thats why I have the "Weather Tech" in channel visors.They do not have screwed up optics and provide you with the same view as what your eye sees normally.

There is one other option for gauges on the dash and it mounts in the center screw at the windshield by the defroster vents.Its designed for the 98-02 trucks but with a little dremel work can be made to work with the older dashes.

Gabe32

what part number for a 2 guage pillar pod fits a 91 ranger?

justme-

Whaaaaa??

HFD410

I have no idea what "blind spot" ya'll are referring to. My guages are there and I have'nt ran over anybody yet. I notice no difference. Guages on top of the dash would be in my way.

TOM R

had a dual pillar mount on my 99 ram and after a few days didn't even notice em, so i am puttin the triple pillar on this truck, but then again i sit pretty far back from the dash

HOHN

I'm tall enough to where dashmount gauges don't change my view at all, because the gauges are just obscuring my view of the hood.

I can see how people would have different preferences based on height.

jh