What brand of oil pressure and temp gauges?

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Hi all,

I've searched for quite a while and haven't found any decent discussions of good brands of oil pressure and temperature gauges. (Please direct me to any I might have missed!) None of my vehicles have more than idiot lights and I'd like to fix that.

Assuming this hasn't been discussed before, what are the recognized most accurate brands? Are there any peculiarities in the senders to be aware of? (I'm not interested in having a mechanical oil gauge in my passenger compartment, thanks.) Any other considerations to be aware of when installing?

Thanks!
 
I've got a Daytona Digital Temperature Guage. The sender takes the place of the drain plug, and the thing is quite accurate. Its only drawbacks are that it's pretty pricey, and was pretty hard to find. I ended up getting mine at an ATV/jetski dealer. Even though it was a little pricey, I love it!
 
I've tried those cheapo Autogauges. Not accurate and low quality. I finally settled for Defi gauges. You get what you pay for.
 
vdo has a good line of gauges. They also have a wide variety of temperature sender plug sizes, to fit an oil plug hole, etc... Thats something that I havent seen from other vendors, who tend to only have one or two sizes of sender.

JMH
 
Thanks, everyone, for your input! Does anyone know of any tests between brands to rate how accurate they are? All I can find is slick marketing information on the manufacturers' websites. Before I plunk down my money, I'd really like to know that I'm getting a high accuracy/high resolution device.
 
There is a USA company named Beede Instruments that still makes auto instruments. I bought one from JC Whitney for my '72 Plymouth. JC doen't advertise them under the company name, but they are the more expensive "air-core like OEM" electronic gaiuges in the JCW catalogue. Due to inertia (laziness) I haven't installed the gauge (coolant temp) yet. But they have a tech Q&A forum on the web which I used when I wanted to find out how to verify calibration and function of the gauge. Received prompt and complete response from their technical staff.

Both the instrument and sender have the heft, feel, and appearance of quality stuff "like they used to make"

I was under the impression that all of the aftermarket instrumenst wer Taiwan or chicom stuff now. Not so. So you can still buy quality US products even from JCW.

Being a devout cheapskate I run a JCW mini triple gauge mechanical set in my El Camino. $19.95 then; more now. Works good too.

My $0.02
 
The tachometer in my F150 is made by Datcon. It is at JCWhitney, listed as the 0-4000 rpm tachometer for about $65. This tach has terminals. You have to supply the wiring. I think you could find Datcon retailers on the net for temp and OP gauges.
 
I've always liked VDO and Motometer. While I prefer analog gauges, the digital display Cockpit series by VDO worked well and looked good in my Scirocco many years ago.
 
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