Youbet's post made me think:
For example, under the hood of our '94 Ford Taurus wagon is a four-foot-square chip covering the entire engine that says "Intel Inside. DO NOT TOUCH! Contact dealer for assistance."
OK, it's probably not that bad, but it certainly discourages the weekend mechanic from trying to figure out which carburetor screw needs tweaking. (To you slackers who're thinking "Screw?" or even "Carburetor?!?", don't provoke me any more than you already have.) Do you more experienced folks remember when you could buy the $25 manual telling you exactly which whatsis to tweak with a left-handed whoozit? Now you can't even figure out the ECU codes without a hacker's website guide.
Our Taurus' idiosyncrasy is its cruise control. When we bought the car (five years old with 58K miles) the cc worked fine. One day it stopped working, which made me think "Oh, well, cheap used cars." A few months later it started working again ("Cool!") and after a couple weeks it quit again.
It works when it wants to, and it either works perfectly or it doesn't work at all. It doesn't seem to be dependent on other symptoms and there are no other problems on the steering column or the dash. I've read through the manuals and the troubleshooting guides but there's no answer to the "on again, off later" issue. It's flip-flopped like this for nearly seven years
At one point I thought it might be the equivalent of a bad boot or a software bug. However the problem comes & goes whether or not the car's ECU has been completely powered down (battery disconnected) or not.
It's a lot easier to fix something that's broken hard than to figure out an intermittent glitch. Anyone heard of a similar problem or know of any troubleshooting references/websites?
While they're more reliable, they're also a lot less user-friendly. More like a black box than an integrated assembly of independent systems.youbet said:I find the definition of "tune up" on modern cars interesting. Generally it means changing the plugs and some filters and closing the hood. There really isn't anything for the mechanic to "fine tune" or adjust. They change the plugs and filters, look at some high profit wear parts for opportunites to do some additional work, and close the hood spending as little time as possible.
I always "tuned" my own cars when that meant changing points and plugs, setting timing and dwell, etc. It was labor intensive, needed to be done frequently and you could save a bundle doing it yourself with inexpensive tools and gauges. Then, pollution control do-dads were added under the hood and the job got tough so I stopped. Now, there isn't much involved in doing a 'tune up" so I'm back to doing them myself again.
Cars are indeed much more reliable these days. Thank goodness.
For example, under the hood of our '94 Ford Taurus wagon is a four-foot-square chip covering the entire engine that says "Intel Inside. DO NOT TOUCH! Contact dealer for assistance."
OK, it's probably not that bad, but it certainly discourages the weekend mechanic from trying to figure out which carburetor screw needs tweaking. (To you slackers who're thinking "Screw?" or even "Carburetor?!?", don't provoke me any more than you already have.) Do you more experienced folks remember when you could buy the $25 manual telling you exactly which whatsis to tweak with a left-handed whoozit? Now you can't even figure out the ECU codes without a hacker's website guide.
Our Taurus' idiosyncrasy is its cruise control. When we bought the car (five years old with 58K miles) the cc worked fine. One day it stopped working, which made me think "Oh, well, cheap used cars." A few months later it started working again ("Cool!") and after a couple weeks it quit again.
It works when it wants to, and it either works perfectly or it doesn't work at all. It doesn't seem to be dependent on other symptoms and there are no other problems on the steering column or the dash. I've read through the manuals and the troubleshooting guides but there's no answer to the "on again, off later" issue. It's flip-flopped like this for nearly seven years
At one point I thought it might be the equivalent of a bad boot or a software bug. However the problem comes & goes whether or not the car's ECU has been completely powered down (battery disconnected) or not.
It's a lot easier to fix something that's broken hard than to figure out an intermittent glitch. Anyone heard of a similar problem or know of any troubleshooting references/websites?