MYVI-METER-PANEL

A blog post on the Perodua Myvi and Alza's self-illuminating instrument cluster written by a retired expat named Wolf Vaupel has been going viral on social media over the weekend. The blog post alleges that there is something wrong with the way the Myvi and Alza's instrument cluster works.

Here's how the story goes - the expat's wife bought a Perodua Myvi in August 2014. He discovers the car's self-illuminating meter panel which lights up during the day and claims the feature is deadly because according to him, a lit up meter panel is an indication of whether your headlights are turned on or not. He further claims that this type of meter panel behaviour does not comply to international standards.

The Perodua Myvi that he is talking about features a self-illuminating meter panel that use a different type of backlight compared to regular meter panel. Some car manufacturers have special brand names for this type of panel - Toyota calls it Optitron while Kia calls it SuperVision.

Watch the video above for a video we recorded back in 2011 when the second generation Perodua Myvi was launched. This type of meter panel generally looks more premium, but will appear completely black if there is no backlight. The meter panel requires to be lit up to function, there's no two ways about it.

So if the meter panel is always on, how would someone know whether your headlamps are on or not? In the first place, I don't think the visibility of the meter panel has ever been considered an indicator of whether your headlamps are on or not. The standard is a headlamp symbol that lights up in your meter panel. If you have been using an illuminated meter panel as an indicator, it's time to stop, because Optitron-style panels are becoming used more often these days.

Secondly, if you decide you need a little more help in determining whether your headlamps are on or not, there are definitely clear differences with the interior of the Perodua Myvi depending on whether your headlamps are on or not.

Watch the second video above, which shows that when the headlamps are on, the meter panel actually dims to suit the night environment, and the other buttons on the center dash stack light up for night usage, where they remained off when the headlamps were off.

Optitron-style meter panels are getting more and more common these days. We double checked some of the other cars in our fleet. Anthony Lim's Ford Focus ST and previous generation Honda CR-V facelift which both have Optitron-style panels do not even differentiate the brightness of the panel between day and night by default - this must be set manually.

What you can do is basically just look in front of you and see if your headlamps are on or not. And there's also the headlamp indicator we mentioned. If this is unacceptable, one solution that Mr Vaupel might want to pursue is to just upgrade to the 2015 Perodua Myvi facelift, where Perodua has taken out the Optiton-style panels and replaced them with regular meter panels which don't light up during the day.