I would like to start by asking how much you know about engineering and about meeting deadlines and prices?

You don't fire a chief engineer because he designed a gauge and the company that bid the lowest on manufacturing them uses cheap sensors to put it together.

You dont have bad gauges, you have bad sending units.

I had the same issues with ProSport gauges, which probably use the same sensors that your mad dads do. Actually Glen at prosport assured me that they are the same sensors that defi uses as well

If you want quality that is going to match your dash fork over the cash for some Defi gauges. Honestly, if your car is modified to the extent you described and you cant afford another $600 for quality gauges then you cant afford to be driving the car your driving. How many other corners have been cut?

20% of all electronics fail. there is a good chance that any electronic gauge will give you trouble. have you considered mehcanical gauges? Autometer and Omori both make some quality gauges, however you wont find a startup sequence and exact matching colors. I do believe that the Omori gauges are fairly close in color.

Dimming gauges require you to wire them into your dimming circuit. I am sure there is a writeup somewhere on the forum describing what to do.

Are you using your gauges for looks or tuning or safety or ?



Its pretty simple, what your asking for is like asking for a race compound sticky tire to also drive in the snow and last 40,000 miles.

Cheap tire - cheap rubber
Expensive tire - expensive rubber

Cheap gauge - cheap electronics
Expensive gauge - expensive electronics

This is one of those times where you get what you pay for. No reason to bash Maddad before giving them the opportunity to cover your bad sensors under warranty. If you dont like them, take your warrantied replacements, sell them and buy some more expensive gauges. You wont be happy with pro-sports, or STRI, or any cheaper gauge.

I dont mean to come off like an @$$, but its unfair to vendors when people blow off steam before giving them an opportunity to make things right.

For the record,
Pro Sport replaced my oil pressure sensor twice and my egt once in a 12 month period. After that I never had any more problems.

There is a chance that a bad batch of sensors made it through a production line and that a warranty replacement could solve your issues

 

Why not just save the cash and go for the defi gauges. This way you don't have to worry about getting gauges that will be as much trouble as your Maddad and not as reliable as the prosports that receive conflicting reviews. I understand the Defi are a bit expensive but thats what you pay for when you want something really reliable. Plus there is a lack of selection when it comes to "Amber" gauges for the STI.

Also if your having this much of an issue with MADDAD they should just give you an entire new set of gauges besides continually fixing your old ones and I'm almost 100% with what NewGenSTI stated: it must be your sending units. I have a bad oil pressure sensor that I have to replace and that is causing my Oil Pressure sensor to go nuts.

 

I will agree that the Defis are too expensive. My last Prosport did have a lighting issue, the white leds burned out and flat lined the gauge reading pressure. I switched it to red illumintaion all the time and never warrantied it but did buy a new one for the STI. Price is king in my book, but cheap is cheap. You can't expect too much when you buy 4 for the price of one Defi.

 

Autometers. They don't "look" cool, but they will work.

 

defi, do it, three years no probs...do it

 

I love my STRIs, for what it's worth.

 

I'm planning on getting the STRIs. I have done a good amount of research and there seem to be only a few people who have minor issues with them. Dunno, IMO it isn't worth the extra $500 for the Defi's...

 

My defis have been installed since the end of 2006 and yet to have a problem.. Buy Defi... do it once and call it a day.

 

PLX Devices Inc. - Multi Gauges, Single Gauges, Sensor Modules, Wideband Air Fuel Ratio, Data Logging, Fuel Saving / Scan Tools

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I've been strongly considering a PLX setup to a Defi setup in my 08 STi. Thought I'd pass it on...virtualization meets gauges.

 

I've got defi's and love them, but if I could do it all over again I would go with PLX. You can view 4 parameters on one gauge

 

For the same reason, I have ditched that kind of guage. I am building my own OBD-II LCD display panel instead to directly fetch what the ecu is reading.