Ford, The Survivor

"frank" wrote in message
...
Chicago trib has list of iconic GM cars on its car page today. One was
Pontiac Fiero. Remember that one? Had a habit of catching fire at
least in So Cal when they came out.

Absolute worst was Mazda rotary engine they came out with in mid late
80s, real bear to do any work on it. One of those everybody had to
have one for a while. then reality kicked in.


My truck has almost 90k on the odometer. I expect to have expenses
other then regular maintenance. My main gripe was that you cannot replace
individual parts now, you must replace whole assembles. Very expensive. I
spent several years hanging around and working in garages in my teens. When
wheel bearings went bad just got new bearings, greased them up, and put them
in the hub along with a new seal and slid back on the spindle. Now you have
to buy a new spindle, disk, speed sensor, etc. A $30 dollar job got turned
into a $300 dollar job.

In the 1990's I had my first vehicle with a computer, no problem, but
then I could still diagnose a 'check engine' light with no special tools.
Just a jumper between a couple of the sockets in the interface connector.
That was just to damn easy for the manufactureres. The redisigned the
system so that the average person has no idea what the light is trying to
communicate. It has two ways of signaling. 'Steady On' means minor problem.
'Blinking' means major problem (at this point it detunes the engine so it
will not run over 3000 RPM or 1300 RPM, I forget).

On 11-06-09 10:43, Dr.Smith wrote:


My truck has almost 90k on the odometer. I expect to have expenses
other then regular maintenance. My main gripe was that you cannot replace
individual parts now, you must replace whole assembles. Very expensive. I
spent several years hanging around and working in garages in my teens. When
wheel bearings went bad just got new bearings, greased them up, and put them
in the hub along with a new seal and slid back on the spindle. Now you have
to buy a new spindle, disk, speed sensor, etc. A $30 dollar job got turned
into a $300 dollar job.

Today, it is very likely that the wheel assembly on a car will go 300K
km or more without any maintenance at all (other than replacing the
brake disk and pads). And that is because these units are sealed
against moisture and dirt while also holding the lubricant in place.

IOW, it costs more but results in less failure and ongoing maintenance.
90K (miles?) is not much.

In the 1990's I had my first vehicle with a computer, no problem, but
then I could still diagnose a 'check engine' light with no special tools.
Just a jumper between a couple of the sockets in the interface connector.
That was just to damn easy for the manufactureres. The redisigned the
system so that the average person has no idea what the light is trying to
communicate. It has two ways of signaling. 'Steady On' means minor problem.
'Blinking' means major problem (at this point it detunes the engine so it
will not run over 3000 RPM or 1300 RPM, I forget).

It astounds me that they don't have a simple problem code readout on the
dash of the car. And in today's world, a USB socket (again in the
passenger compartment) to plug in a "thumb" drive and continuously
record the state of the automobile for the owner to playback on his
computer. Might not be popular with dealerships - but then the auto
makers should illuminate and discover that their customers are not the
dealerships.

Ford's new "SYNC" system (2.0) is supposed to provide this capability
per the article in wikipedia. The Ford site is mute on this (or hides
it well).

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Alan Browne wrote:
On 11-06-09 10:43, Dr.Smith wrote:


My truck has almost 90k on the odometer. I expect to have
expenses other then regular maintenance. My main gripe was that
you cannot replace individual parts now, you must replace whole
assembles. Very expensive. I spent several years hanging around
and working in garages in my teens. When wheel bearings went bad
just got new bearings, greased them up, and put them in the hub
along with a new seal and slid back on the spindle. Now you have
to buy a new spindle, disk, speed sensor, etc. A $30 dollar job
got turned into a $300 dollar job.

Today, it is very likely that the wheel assembly on a car will go
300K km or more without any maintenance at all (other than
replacing the brake disk and pads). And that is because these
units are sealed against moisture and dirt while also holding the
lubricant in place.
IOW, it costs more but results in less failure and ongoing
maintenance. 90K (miles?) is not much.

In the 1990's I had my first vehicle with a computer, no
problem, but then I could still diagnose a 'check engine' light
with no special tools. Just a jumper between a couple of the
sockets in the interface connector. That was just to damn easy for
the manufactureres. The redisigned the system so that the average
person has no idea what the light is trying to communicate. It
has two ways of signaling. 'Steady On' means minor problem.
'Blinking' means major problem (at this point it detunes the
engine so it will not run over 3000 RPM or 1300 RPM, I forget).

It astounds me that they don't have a simple problem code readout
on the dash of the car. And in today's world, a USB socket (again
in the passenger compartment) to plug in a "thumb" drive and
continuously record the state of the automobile for the owner to
playback on his computer. Might not be popular with dealerships -
but then the auto makers should illuminate and discover that their
customers are not the dealerships.

Ford's new "SYNC" system (2.0) is supposed to provide this
capability per the article in wikipedia. The Ford site is mute on
this (or hides it well).

My understanding from reading the bureaucratese/CYA material in a Ford
owner's manual, and a few Ford newsgroups, numerous data are recorded
within the vehicle's main computer. Some are apparently confidential,
and will not be extracted without cause. The important ones might
indicate any overspeed on the engine, in warranty repair cases; speed,
throttle position, brake status, in accident investigations. And so
forth.

There is so much measurement taking place in modern cars, there really
is the likelihood that an enterprising designer could come up with a
better selection of parameters and a better display than the few now
available. Trouble is, anything that can read and display the data
might also be able to modify the factory settings outside
government-approved and -accepted bounds.

http://www.sctflash.com/LW.php

As more and more states become California-ized in emission
requirements, more products will bear the California-style admonition,
"Not legal for sale or use on street-licensed vehicles in California".

--
Frank ess

On 12-06-09 16:06, Frank ess wrote:


Alan Browne wrote:
On 11-06-09 10:43, Dr.Smith wrote:


My truck has almost 90k on the odometer. I expect to have
expenses other then regular maintenance. My main gripe was that
you cannot replace individual parts now, you must replace whole
assembles. Very expensive. I spent several years hanging around
and working in garages in my teens. When wheel bearings went bad
just got new bearings, greased them up, and put them in the hub
along with a new seal and slid back on the spindle. Now you have
to buy a new spindle, disk, speed sensor, etc. A $30 dollar job
got turned into a $300 dollar job.

Today, it is very likely that the wheel assembly on a car will go
300K km or more without any maintenance at all (other than
replacing the brake disk and pads). And that is because these
units are sealed against moisture and dirt while also holding the
lubricant in place.
IOW, it costs more but results in less failure and ongoing
maintenance. 90K (miles?) is not much.

In the 1990's I had my first vehicle with a computer, no
problem, but then I could still diagnose a 'check engine' light
with no special tools. Just a jumper between a couple of the
sockets in the interface connector. That was just to damn easy for
the manufactureres. The redisigned the system so that the average
person has no idea what the light is trying to communicate. It
has two ways of signaling. 'Steady On' means minor problem.
'Blinking' means major problem (at this point it detunes the
engine so it will not run over 3000 RPM or 1300 RPM, I forget).

It astounds me that they don't have a simple problem code readout
on the dash of the car. And in today's world, a USB socket (again
in the passenger compartment) to plug in a "thumb" drive and
continuously record the state of the automobile for the owner to
playback on his computer. Might not be popular with dealerships -
but then the auto makers should illuminate and discover that their
customers are not the dealerships.

Ford's new "SYNC" system (2.0) is supposed to provide this
capability per the article in wikipedia. The Ford site is mute on
this (or hides it well).

My understanding from reading the bureaucratese/CYA material in a Ford
owner's manual, and a few Ford newsgroups, numerous data are recorded
within the vehicle's main computer. Some are apparently confidential,
and will not be extracted without cause. The important ones might
indicate any overspeed on the engine, in warranty repair cases; speed,
throttle position, brake status, in accident investigations. And so forth.

There is so much measurement taking place in modern cars, there really
is the likelihood that an enterprising designer could come up with a
better selection of parameters and a better display than the few now
available. Trouble is, anything that can read and display the data might
also be able to modify the factory settings outside government-approved
and -accepted bounds.

A system that reports states does not mean it can be used to replace
programming of parameters in the system. IOW, a properly designed
system can output data without the same data path being used to replace
tables, parameters or executable code. Such outputs could also prevent
the o/p of "proprietary" data (if any) in the system.

The point is that if there is a fail status on the oxygen sensor or EGR
valve, or whatever, I'd like to know so I can order the part and
replace it myself or drag it along to the garage at the next oil change
and ask them to do it.


http://www.sctflash.com/LW.php

As more and more states become California-ized in emission requirements,
more products will bear the California-style admonition, "Not legal for
sale or use on street-licensed vehicles in California".

Again, the point is not to 'tune' a car, but to extract data from the
car. A properly designed data logger could do that w/o providing
modification services...

--
-- r.p.e.35mm user resource: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpe35mmur.htm
-- r.p.d.slr-systems: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpdslrsysur.htm
-- [SI] gallery & rulz: http://www.pbase.com/shootin
-- e-meil: Remove FreeLunch.
-- usenet posts from gmail.com and googlemail.com are filtered out.