Patent ID: 7427914

Claim:
A method for alerting an operator of a vehicle to a highest priority vehicle fault condition of a plurality of vehicle fault conditions, the method comprising: detecting a plurality of operating conditions of the vehicle; comparing each of the detected operating conditions of the vehicle to a corresponding predetermined threshold for each of the plurality of operating conditions; detecting more than one vehicle fault condition when the comparison between each of the detected operating conditions of the vehicle and the corresponding predetermined threshold for each of the plurality of operating conditions results in more than one vehicle operating condition exceeding its predetermined threshold; and identifying a priority level for each of the detected vehicle fault conditions when more than one vehicle fault condition is detected; wherein each of the plurality of vehicle fault conditions has a predetermined operator action associated therewith; wherein the priority level for each of the plurality of detected vehicle fault conditions is designated based on the predetermined operator action associated with each of the plurality of vehicle fault conditions; and wherein, when more than one vehicle fault condition is detected, the operator action that is associated with the detected vehicle fault condition having the highest priority among the plurality of detected vehicle fault conditions is the only operator action output to the operator of the vehicle.