Cars need a wearing-out indicator BADLY...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bluez_Freak
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What we need is an engine service light to come on. Then we pay a visit to the garage and they would determine what needs doing. Anything from an oil change to an engine rebuild.
 
HBR-Roadhog
You do not need to maintian records nor take notes. When I race a car I change the oil when I come back to the GT menu. Simple right?

I occassionaly look at how many miles are currently on the car and how much power. The miles are a good indicator and if they are at a certian point I may consider a rebuild. It is not that hard.
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I doubt it is right to change oil in every race.

Also looking at the miles occassionaly is a good indicator of when to rebuild?? How many miles is that then and how do you know it is X miles or Y miles??

Sorry to keep arguing with this but I think many guys here agree it would be much helpful to have chassis/engine wear-out indicators.

If the game gives you the option to change oil and make rebuilds it should also give you a guide on when these things need to be done.

The severity/cost of the rebuilt should also be relevant to the miles travelled since the previous rebuilt - not at fixed costs like half the car's price etc..
 
tbh while i like the OP pov.

I think the damage system needs a complete rework.

If you drive a car in real life, and drive it hard, but not abuse it, it will require on average a service every 10-12,000 miles.

in the game they should implement a 'SERVICE' light all cars have them now days, and at this point servicing should be done to prevent performance loss, or damage.


If you drive into the red or down shift early you should cause damage to the engine, and if you keep doing it the engine should have a temp gauge which would get 'hot' and if you keep doing it the engine will die.

If this happens you will need a engine rebuild, like wise not servicing will cause eventual engine failure, but backfiring and a rough idle should indicate your in trouble before failure.


As for body rigidity it should be scrapped and a proper damage model should be used, which will require repairs. in FM3 you loose reward cr for damage, however I do plenty of 'rubbing' and get penalised for this, which is naff.


i have a BMW CSL which needs a engine rebuild, the body restored, total about 200,000 CR. I bought it second hand, if i knew it needed that much work i'd never have bought it, nor in Real life, however since the damage model is **** in this game it's impossible to assess visually what needs to be done, prior to buying...
 
Another thing:

Crashes need to be costly. If your chassis wears out gradually by normal driving, crashes should heavily accelerate the proccess so clean driving is indeed rewarded and reckless driving penalised.
 
Gejabo
Don't agree.

this is why:
- I don't have a engine wear indicator on my real life car.
- Keep an eye on the milage, after a lot of miles engine overhoul
- Keep an eye on the horse power it puts out, lost power.... engine overhoul
- If you find the physics are not as they used to be redo the chassis.

and change the oil every now and than.
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Not true, my Audi even tells me when my door locks are wearing out.
 
Mopatop
Not true, my Audi even tells me when my door locks are wearing out.
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Yeah, it's amazing what (often hidden) functions can be found in the electronics of modern cars.

To be honest, I think a service history would suffice. The GT Auto section should be revamped, though, from the "ooh, cost ya" mentality to a more trustworthy approximation. I mean, allowing a chassis refresh after only jumping in and out of the car is ridiculous!

Why not add some sort of colour code, to represent the mechanic's "opinion" of how necessary the rebuild is - e.g. green for not really worth it, through to red for recommended and finally black for completely knackered...
But only if you go to GTAuto to find out.

This way, you still have to consider the rebuild to find out if it's worth it (and you can check the service history, mileage, engine dyno and the car's feel to prompt this consideration) and this would make it less of a guessing game and prevent being ripped off so much! :p

I assumed that tuning the engine would make it more susceptible to wear, but I'm yet to gather enough time and experience on the matter to see if that is indeed the case.
Equally, I suspected that slapping slicks and a wing on a normal car, without boosting rigidity or changing the suspension, and then thraping it about a bit would bugger the "chassis" up, but I've not tested that thoroughly either.
 
This "wearing-out" system should affect resale prices as well.

Here's an example:

- 20% of a new car's value is lost the moment you buy it. That should be for new cars only as this is realistic too. used cars value should not be affected at the moment of purchase.

- then this 80% of the original value (or 100% for used cars) could be split to 70% by chassis condition and 30% engine condition.

- 70% chassis condition should ALWAYS depreciate by miles gradually and by damages (if any). Each crash should cause an instant drop of maybe 1% or so. Miles depreciation could be 1% per 500km or so.

- Engine condition could be affected by miles only and possibly by extent of tuning. Stage 3 engines and turbos should accelerate engine wear.

So a 30,000 credit car (when bought new) with chassis of 80% condition and an engine of 60% condition would resale for:

2nd hand value:
30,000 - 20% = 24,000 (if engine/chassis were 100% condition)

to the above figure chassis represents 16,800 credits and engine 7,200 credits when 100% condition.

less chassis -20% condition depreciation: 16800 - 20% = 13440
less engine -40% condition depreciation: 7200 - 40% = 4320

actual resale value = 13440 + 4320 = 17760.

Simple maths... Ain't it??
 
Gejabo
Don't agree.

this is why:
- I don't have a engine wear indicator on my real life car.
- Keep an eye on the milage, after a lot of miles engine overhoul
- Keep an eye on the horse power it puts out, lost power.... engine overhoul
- If you find the physics are not as they used to be redo the chassis.

and change the oil every now and than.
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you might not have these things on you car but I doubt if you have 100 cars, I'm using 20 or 30 cars on GT 5 all the time
 
Bluez_Freak
Well I guess you do not drive a Murcielago in your real life as well... I don't...

This is a game afterall and we need more RPG elements with the cars to make it much more involving and personal.
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No we do NOT. This is a driving sim. If you want RPG stuff, go play an RPG.

Plus, it would make the gameplay much easier than it already is.
GT5 is already easier than GT4. Making it even easier is just. . . I don't even know of a word to describe it, but it would be a negative word.
 
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If the rigidity has no effect on your lap times, we do not need to do the refresh at all. Therefore we don't need an indicator either.

I'm very sceptical about body rigidity having any noticeable in-game effects.
 
Kaaosherra
If the rigidity has no effect on your lap times, we do not need to do the refresh at all. Therefore we don't need an indicator either.

I'm very sceptical about body rigidity having any noticeable in-game effects.
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Bingo. I have driven some of my cars a good amount of distance and they haven't behaved differently.
The only time i use the engine overhaul is when i buy a used car 💡
other than that, it is basically useless.
 
Bluez_Freak
I doubt it is right to change oil in every race.
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Of course it can vary depending on the length of the race. 2 laps at Tsukuba does not require and oil change but it will not hurt and it is not expensive. The Indy 500 definitely should change the oil afterwards. Really it is just a matter of common sense if you drive the car very far change the oil when you're done.

Also looking at the miles occassionaly is a good indicator of when to rebuild?? How many miles is that then and how do you know it is X miles or Y miles??
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as a general rule of thumb 5,000 miles is a pretty good number surely you can divide the milage by 5 and have some idea of when the last time you spent 500,000 credits or whatever it is on your car right?

Sorry to keep arguing with this but I think many guys here agree it would be much helpful to have chassis/engine wear-out indicators.
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Sure it would be somewhat helpful but there are abotu 1 million things I thing would be better to spend the development time on.

If the game gives you the option to change oil and make rebuilds it should also give you a guide on when these things need to be done
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Not really and even if you don't do it often enough it is not that big a deal. Rebuilding to often can cost you a lot of credits but I am sure people will learn in time.

The severity/cost of the rebuilt should also be relevant to the miles travelled since the previous rebuilt - not at fixed costs like half the car's price etc..
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No. If you go in to have your engine rebuilt they are going to replace all the revelant parts in the engine it does not matter if they are 90% worn out or 1% worn out the cost of the new parts and the labor is the same.


To those who think the feature is useless. Consider this.

I have a FGT that I purchased with a little over 7,000 miles on it. New after an oil change it would have 935hp. A little more after it is broken in at 200 miles.
At 7,000 and change it had 925 hp after an oil change so at this point a rebuild would net me 10 extra hp that would stay with the car for about 5,000 miles.
Since then Bob has been driving the car a lot and has racked up over 10,000 additional miles for a total of around 18,000. The horsepower this morning was at 885 after an oil change.
If I rebuild the car now I will get a net of 50hp and a noticable improvement in acceleration yet the car is still fast enough to win the races Bob is in so I will wait until all the endurance races are complete.
 
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iLex
Ok, so we might not need an 'indicator', but at least give us a mechanic who can tell us when we need to do these things... I have one of those in real life (although he never talked to me about redoing the engine or body of our Citroen AX....).
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This would be great, perfect on the GT-auto section, "car checkup".
 
Yeah a car checkup thing could be kinda cool. Charge you like $500 credits to give it a look and tell you what condition it is in. Still would be way down on my wish list though.
 
HBR-Roadhog
You guys do know that if you buy that body ridgity kit for like 20k the car will last about 2x longer before it needs a refresh right?
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And how exactly are you supposed to know when your chassis needs to be refreshed? Is there any indicator whatsoever? I assume it's quite gradual, so are you just supposed to guess - hmm, my handling seems a little sloppy, lets spend tons of money, possibly needlessly, and see if that's the problem?

No. There should be a way that I can chart engine wear - a compression test, for example, is a very easy way for mechanics to tell if an engine is in need of a rebuild - so we have a comparison of a NEW compression ratio, like from the factory, and the cars CURRENT compression ration - still realistic, and would be a much better yardstick than just rebuilding after a bit.

Also, more realistic is that race cars, and turbo cars, wear out faster than less high strung motors - a stock N/A Miata will NOT need to have it's engine rebuilt every 5000 miles in real life. Does GT5 follow this logic (I'm actually asking here, as I have no idea)? If so, cool, keep track of your hi-po cars, and don't sweat as much over the slower ones, but if not - as others have mentioned - A SERVICE LOG would be soo easy to implement. Am I supposed to write it down on a notepad? Or just remember car 738 had an oil change 150 miles ago, and should be fine, but car number 223 might need one.
 
Geez anymore things you want the game to do for you? How hard is it to tell that your car isn't driving straight anymore? Loss of HP is easily checked, just head to arcade mode and look at your car, it gives the stock HP that you would have if your car were brand new with whatever power you added. Laziness knows no bounds with some people.

Even if you had 100 cars, who would try to refresh or rebuild that many engines? You can on drive a car at a time, so you wouldn't need to check much of anything, it's not like you are going to break your car if you miss your scheduled repair.

When the chassis gets warped, you'll notice it becomes harder to brake in a straight line and bumps and undulations really work you over in keeping cars under control. If you haven't noticed it yet, then consider yourself warned.
 
It does have an indicator though. The engine loses hp and starts to run a little rough. The chassis makes the car harder to control at speed. You really don't seem to need to do either unless it gets really noticable.
 
How do i monitor my 20 30 cars i use? When oil changes progressively show a drop in HP, i mean once an engine starts to go its HP will drop like 1 or 2 hp each race. Or when i notice a noticeable drop in top speed on a track i know well. In real life you would have to take your car to a garage and get a dyno test to see if it has lost HP vs the base known HP for that car type, lest i cannot look in my garage and see the HP of all my cars in real life.

Chassis you know in game the way you know in life if your racing a car it will start to drive badly. Or you have a mechanic inspect the frame of the car regularly.

I could support a dyno feature vs the rated HP of a car for a fee. I could even support a garage inspection that you pay for to get the low down on how bad your frame is and your engine. But an in car indicator is hardly typical of real life unless you are a totally professional racer on a racing team with reams of telemetry on every aspect of the car.
 
I agree that there should be a service history. It's hard to keep track of 100's of cars. I even have this problem when buying/winning cars. Sometimes I don't want to use them right away, but then I can't remember if I changed the oil when I do want to use them.
 
OK so even if indicators are not realistic (but helpful nevertheless, it's a "game" for god's shake!!) I think we all agree a service history/log and a check-up by an engineer (with a small fee) to determine the chassis/engine condition would be VERY realistic.

And while you have a valid point about engine rebuilt cost being somehow "fixed" the body damage restoration should be dependent on the damage the car has suffered and the distance it has driven. How realistic is making 10 meters after body restoration and then the car needs again repair for half the price of the car???
 
Fusion
I agree that there should be a service history. It's hard to keep track of 100's of cars. I even have this problem when buying/winning cars. Sometimes I don't want to use them right away, but then I can't remember if I changed the oil when I do want to use them.
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All you need to know is the last time you changed your oil, engine rebuild and frame rebuild. Plus if it kept track of the maximum HP your car's ever had it would be nice. Honestly though I just change the oil whenever I feel like it. It's only 250cr, the only thing stopping me from doing it every race is that I'm too lazy. I've never rebuilt a chassis or engine because I've never had a car misbehave badly handling wise nor have my cars dropped enough in power for me to care.

Bluez_Freak
OK so even if indicators are not realistic (but helpful nevertheless, it's a "game" for god's shake!!) I think we all agree a service history/log and a check-up by an engineer (with a small fee) to determine the chassis/engine condition would be VERY realistic.

And while you have a valid point about engine rebuilt cost being somehow "fixed" the body damage restoration should be dependent on the damage the car has suffered and the distance it has driven. How realistic is making 10 meters after body restoration and then the car needs again repair for half the price of the car???
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Both should be fixed. If you're racing and your chassis is worn down a little you don't have a mechanic touch up the chassis with a little weld here and a little straightening there. When it's rebuilt, it's rebuilt completely.

Stephen220378
How about a dyno test implemented into GT auto, say costing 100cr?
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What good does a dyno test do? You can check your HP in the garage.

danben7
no
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+1

It's really simple guys, if your car feels wrong then rebuild the frame. If the acceleration feels poor then rebuild the engine. Otherwise don't. It seems like a lot of you just want a reason to rebuild your cars and are looking for a reason to do it. Just DON'T do it!

It's no different than knowing when to replace your tires. Sure there's an indicator for that but you're supposed to replace your tires when you feel like there's no more usable grip for you or when your lap times start suffering, not because a meter tells you to. BTW tire meter down to empty = crash'o'rama. It's a guideline that's completely irrelevant because you will replace your tires when you feel like they should be replaced, not when a silly meter tells you to.

At most there should be a feature to check engine condition in GT Auto. A mechanic could probably check the oil for anything abnormal or run some tests but it wouldn't be completely accurate. Also not cheap, 100cr is a joke.

BTW I have 200+ cars and 100 of which I like using and also giving to Bob. I have not needed to rebuild anything on them not because I keep track, just because I know how they should feel.
 
Gejabo
Don't agree.

this is why:
- I don't have a engine wear indicator on my real life car.
- Keep an eye on the milage, after a lot of miles engine overhoul
- Keep an eye on the horse power it puts out, lost power.... engine overhoul
- If you find the physics are not as they used to be redo the chassis.

and change the oil every now and than.
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Not an indicator but you should be able to test it at GT auto, then they tell you how worn out it is.
 
crazedmodder
BTW I have 200+ cars and 100 of which I like using and also giving to Bob. I have not needed to rebuild anything on them not because I keep track, just because I know how they should feel.
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You must be 1 of a thousand with this ability I guess then..

Pretty sure most of us can't keep track of 4-5 car's "feeling", let alone 200+ cars...
 
Bluez_Freak
You must be 1 of a thousand with this ability I guess then..

Pretty sure most of us can't keep track of 4-5 car's "feeling", let alone 200+ cars...
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Of the cars in your garage it is quite likely that other than needing to rebuild some used cars you will need to rebuild at some point only5 or 6 of them.

It takes about 5,000 miles of driving to begin to wear out an engine in the game. That is a lot of driving and most people if they drive a car that much will have a good feel for it and will know when it is not what it used to be.

As for real life cars getting more than 5,000 miles between rebuilds. Sure but do you drive your real life car at 8,000 rpms every time you get it in? Big differnce. If the game was setup to be like real life most of your cars would be in the junkyard before they reached 5,000 miles as the repair bill would be more than the value of the car.

Also in real life it is not uncommon to change the engine in a race car after every race.

It really is not that difficult. A car will barely have lost any HP at 5,000 miles in game. At 10,000 it will have lost a bit more something like 3-4% or so. So if you rebuild every 5,000 miles your car is always near peak performance and if you save money and do it every 10,000 you are still in good shape.
 

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