Temperatures

Before we moved to California, we had a Seat Alhambra. Which is basically a Volkswagon MPV. (It's a crying shame we can't buy them here in California - they're a fantastic minivan. There's one that lives near me, that I see from time to time; it's got a Mexican reg.)

Anyway, the instruments all look the same in my fancy new eight-year-old passat as in the Alhambra. But since this blog is about the little differences...

1) The temperature gauge is, of course, in fahrenheit. Of course. I can't actually remember the three celsius numbers on the Alhambra's temperature gauge, but I looked at them so often, I really notice that the one in the US Passat is different. I think it's just that the number on the right (Too Hot! Too Hot!) begins with a "2".

Also, there seems to be no concept of sidelights. The wee dial for headlights (yeah, it's a dial), on the Alhambra turned from zero to sidelights to proper headlights. And you pull it for foglights or something. (It gets foggy enough to justify them about once every two years in Co Down, and basically never in and around San Jose. But that's another story.)

It's the same thing on this Passat ... but there's no sidelights. Weird.