It's like they got to the third display in the instrument cluster
 

and ran out of things to put in it. Why does the third ring in the intrument cluster display only have oil pressure and odometer? You would think they could have fit a normal speedometer or maybe volts or something.

what do you want volts for? what they need is real water and oil temp gauges and real oil pressure gauge. I wouln't mind an optional boost gauge ;)

a boost gague for what?

For the flux capacitor.

Uh... wouldn't you need a turbo for that guage to be useful?

hahahahahaha.......classic

Thank you, Captain Obvious ;)

I am not saying they need anything, it just seems like a lot of wasted space for a oil pressure gauge.

EXACTLY!! :D

Even more of a waste when you consider it's not a "gauge" at all and a 3mm LED would be more effective. If any of real oil gauge you Mazda designers real oil gauge are out there real oil gauge lurking, you should really real oil gauge stand up for a REAL oil gauge. Take the bean counters real oil gauge out for lunch and get 'em drunk real oil gauge or something.

I suspect it won't happen anytime soon, and I'll tell you why: stupid customers.

It's obviously a completely different class of vehicle, but the Jeep Wrangler had a real oil pressure gauge from 1997-2002, but as of MY 2003 the gauge is an idiot light.

Sensor costs too high? Does it make wiring easier somehow? Nope.

Too many warranty claims for oil pressure concerns that aren't. People who don't realize that oil pressure changes with temperature due to viscosity and so, for example, it's perfectly normal for your oil pressure gauge to read really, really low when sitting at a stop sign after coming off a freeway on a 100 degree day, or just that you're going to see your oil pressure drop as your car warms up (sigh...)

Yeah, Miatas stopped using real gauges years ago too :(

What would it take to swap a real oil gauge into the RX8? I assume it's too much trouble to be worthwhile...

the radiator idiot light is also there. saw it light up a couple of times yesterday when i was reving the hell out of it.

I can't speak for the 8, but if it's anything like the Jeep, the oil pressure gauge is not driven by a sender per se but rather by the car's ECU, which tells the gauge what it should read.

This means, on the Jeep, if you install a real oil pressure sender there's still no way to have the ECU tell the gauge the proper reading to display.

If the 8's the same way, it means there's no way to get the stock oil pressure gauge to read, but rather you would have to add a third party sender and gauge...