How about having a car run like shit, with lots of smoke and even the odd flame as pure unburnt fuel is ejected from the exhaust after crashes. Misfiring in other words? How about in a manual covet, the gears crunching as the synchromesh gets destroyed? What about a deformable steering wheel that moves in a crash, or bits of interior trim dropping off? Or as mentioned before, engine breaking from its mounts? Or snapping a half-shaft in a truck by giving it too many wheel spins?
I noticed they put a few values in the electronics named "water_temp" and "oil_temp" too so I'm sure they still working on engine damage. It would be neat to have these suggestions in the game too though.
I don't think any of the drivetrain code is finalised yet, it is just there to make the rest of the physics playable until proper drivetrain simulation can be added. When it is added, I bet a lot of these suggestions will be implemented.
