If The Problem Persists, Reboot The Car 455
prostoalex writes "Ever-increasing presence of high-tech devices in modern cars is a double-edged sword, the New York Times discovers. Software from different suppliers brings up to some peculiar bugs, such as a heater turning itself on during a hot summer day. In December last year ABI Research estimated that roughly 30% of all warranty issues with new cars were microprocessor- and software-related. The NYT article also quotes an interesting prediction from IBM, saying that by 2010 almost all cars will have the same mechanical systems (hardware), and the differences will be primarily on software level." (That prediction seems as accurate as the IBM prediction that there was a worldwide market for 10 or so computers.)
Old joke (Score:5, Funny)
A mechanic, an engineer and a programmer are driving down the road in a car when suddenly it stalls out. The mechanic gets out, checks out the engine and comes back into the car to report that it's going to be a few hours of work to fix it. The engineer leaves the car to check out the problem and comes back to report that he can design a fix that should only take about an hour. Upon hearing that, the programmer says, "Hey, let's first all get out of the car, get back into it and just see if it works then."
Re:Old joke (Score:3, Interesting)
Must be one sexy heater (Score:2, Funny)
Never say the heater turned itself on. Say a heater activated itself and created a situation requiring a reboot of the car's system.
Re:Old joke (Score:5, Funny)
A mechanic, an engineer and a PC support technician are driving along a winding mountain road when suddenly the brakes overheat and fail and the car goes screaming downhill towards a dropoff. The mechanic, who's driving, manages to bring the car to a halt near the brink of the precipice. The three passengers are shaken but unharmed.
The mechanic looks at the problem and says "These brakes need replacing, they're worn out."
The engineer looks over the design and says "There's a design flaw in these brakes, they're not resistant enough to heat."
The support tech looks at the other two and says "Hey, let's push the car back to the top of the hill and see if it does it again."
Re:Old joke (Score:4, Funny)
So an engineer is driving along when her car skids off a bridge and she plunges to an untimely demise. Immediately upon passing, the engineer sinks to hell.
After spending a very short time in hell, the engineer figures out several ways to make life more comfortable and presents them to Satan. Satan is very impressed having not met very many engineers previously, and within weeks he has overseen the installation of air conditioners, escalators, and wi-fi.
Next week at God and Satans regular golf game, Satan brags about how life in hell is getting very comfortable, like an underworld country club. God is visibly perturbed by this: "What? Where did you get an Engineer? There must be some mistake."
They check the records and sure enough the Engineer was supposed to go to heaven, but was diverted by a clerical error.
So God says "Give me back my engineer or I'll sue!"
To which Satan responds "And just where are you going to find a lawyer?"
Re:Old joke (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Old joke (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Old joke (Score:2)
Re:Old joke (Score:3, Insightful)
Outsourcing is where companies move jobs to where the people are. There are two ways to get rid of it: you can allow the people to move to where the jobs are (through unrestricted immigration), or you can get rid of the jobs altogether.
Regardless, if you honestly think that the effects of world trade are limited to "geeks", then you're simply a dumbass.
Re:Old joke (Score:3, Insightful)
That is a silly statement. There people everywhere. Outsourcing is the movement of jobs to cheaper labor markets.
Whether outsourcing high tech jobs to cheap foreign labor markets is good thing or a bad thing is a value judgment that depends a lot on your circumstance and economic class. If you are someone who has lost a job and/or cannot land a job due to outsourcing, then you will consider it a *bad* thing. If you are gainfully employed an
2010... (Score:5, Funny)
At that point, we'll be too distracted by Jupiter turning into a star to really notice.
Re:2010... (Score:3, Informative)
A really, really good book. The space odyssey series is essential reading for any fan of science fiction. Particularly interesting with all Clarke's works are noting how many of his fictional technological creations have come to exist in one form
Re:2010... (Score:3, Funny)
prediction (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, some of the GM cars come with the electronic power steering, and they can adjust the feel and feedback with sofeware codes. Maybe this preditcion is not really that far off, at least for the cars that are in the same class to beging with.
Re:prediction (Score:3, Informative)
I think this prediction may go to far saying that all mechanical systems will be the same, but at this time we're seeing some parallelisms in modern electronics.
I belive it may be Toshiba that sells three DVD+R DL capable drives that have the exact same hardware, but some are crippled at the firmware level so that the drives will behave as if they can't handle a DVD+R DL. I've also noticed that certain Power Macintosh G5 computers ship with a Pioneer DVR-108 SuperDrive and do not burn DVD+RL as they are c
Re:prediction (Score:2)
It really depends on what IBM means when they say "almost all cars will have essentially the same mechanical systems."
On a basic level, that's been true for several decades: all cars consist of a metal/plastic/fiberglass body on a frame, powered by an internal combustion engine, with hydraulic braking and transmission systems.
Take a car with electronic steering control, electronic braking control, electronic suspension control, and tie it all together with an adaptable vehicle stability program, and y
Sensor error... (Score:5, Insightful)
It'd be better if there was an impossibly out of range value like -274C reported when the sensor failed so that the problem would be more clear and could be sorted as a marker value rather than one that requires a response.
Re:Sensor error... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sensor error... (Score:2)
Re:Sensor error... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Sensor error... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Sensor error... (Score:4, Funny)
One day, the damd thing would not start at all. Nada. zips. The only things that worked were the windows (oh the irony !) He did all he could, restarting time after time, until I somehow got a stupid idea : let's all get OUT of the car, lock it remotely, and the unlock it, get back in and try to start.
(drum roll)
It started ! Somehow, the car software did not do a full reboot if one did not actually LEAVE the car and lock/unlock it (a lock/unlock while being inside implicated that the system did not shut down, since I noticed that the inside lights stayed on)
One day, only programmers will be able to start their mercedes 16600 CLK-S-TDI-BS-RTFM
Operating as expected (Score:5, Informative)
What happened here is that the security system was triggered, engaging the immobilizer. The system would only reset once it detected that the car was secure. This is how it is designed to function.
If it ain't broke put in a computer and wait (Score:4, Funny)
Re:If it ain't broke put in a computer and wait (Score:4, Interesting)
It was eerie sitting there for those two minutes thinking, "They're cold booting the plane that is about to take me into the air."
Re:If it ain't broke put in a computer and wait (Score:5, Funny)
Would have been worse if it came back up reporting TWO copies of the flight plan...
Fucking morons at Microsoft can't even re-generate a fucking text file properly...something LILO has been doing for ten years...
OR...if the "fix" didn't "take" at all...as when Windows XP does not retain your wallpaper setting and insists on tiling everything even when you told it on the settings panel to center, damnit, CENTER!
Re:If it ain't broke put in a computer and wait (Score:4, Funny)
Re:If it ain't broke put in a computer and wait (Score:2)
Re:If it ain't broke put in a computer and wait (Score:2)
Re:If it ain't broke put in a computer and wait (Score:3, Interesting)
In an ideal world, I would be expecting the plane's computer to be reporting things like this to Air Traffic Control so they can start considering emergency paths even before pilots radio in a problem.
Re:If it ain't broke put in a computer and wait (Score:2)
Re:If it ain't broke put in a computer and wait (Score:2)
Re:If it ain't broke put in a computer and wait (Score:2)
Check out National Geographic and flight 903 out of Lima airport... An episode called Flying Blind [nationalge...hic.com.sg]
Maintenance workers put a piece of tape over sensor holes on the aircraft and forget to remove them after the task is completed leads to false readings for the tower and warning messages in the cockpit that leads to the plane flying straight into the water.
On cars and especially airplanes, it would be nice if there were two systems in place. One software dependent one a
Paying (Score:5, Insightful)
I will NOT pay to bring it to some expensive certified dealership to get my fucking car rebooted.
That would be akin to bringing your computer to M$ and paying them to fix it every time it crashed.
Re:Paying (Score:3, Insightful)
That is a sad statement about how much trouble we accept from our computer software. Cars shouldn't have to be rebooted, they shouldn't have software failures in the first place.
I don't think we're ever going to see a car that can be rebooted while going down the highway... rebooting usually implies a stop.
Re:Paying (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Paying (Score:2)
A lot of microcontrollers do have watchdog timers to automatically reboot the chip should the software be unresponsive.
Re:Paying (Score:2)
Interesting - and smart. I wish PC software had that so I didn't have to wait twenty or thirty seconds...or a minute...or FIVE minutes...while some stupid OS waits for some lousy driver to discover it's not going to get a response from some other object...
NOTHING is more irritating than having your entire system frozen while the software screws up - when a simple "HEY! CANCEL this opera
Re:Paying (Score:2)
Re:Paying (Score:2)
This is just idiotic. It should be taken as completely unacceptable.
Re:Paying (Score:5, Interesting)
I concur with another reply to this comment. I find it interesting we've come to a level of quality in our technology that consumers actually expect and assume things will need to be rebooted. As for the OP of this reply, if one would be expecting and not minding a reboot as normal activity, how would one at the same time expect reliability such as "a lot of redundancy" to co-exist? If something is ill-behaved enough to likely require reboots, it IMO is equally likely to not have reliable redundancy.
In the IT industry, I've encountered people who found something to work reliably 999 times out of 1000 to be good reliability (I used to work at microsoft -- many of them considered that good). But when you start talking about my car, I really think reliability needs to be essentially perfect. God help us if we start seeing this attitude in jet and airplane technology. (If we had .999 reliability in takeoffs and landings, guess how many crashes (literally) there would be every day!)
Re:Paying (Score:2)
Re:Paying (Score:2)
That's good to hear... at least about the reliability of their parts. But the most reliable never-ever-ever-fail processor is only as good as the software running on it.... I guess from my perspective, the scary part is the attitude I'm seeing around the software, not the hardware.
Uh oh (Score:2)
There was a world market for about ten computers. (Score:2)
This dates back to the 1940's. Back then, this was probably correct.
Re:There was a world market for about ten computer (Score:3, Insightful)
It was more than a prediction of this year's markets. At the time, there wasn't any clear technological advances that could make it more affordable. Remember, this was long before the transistor and ICs (which are the two key techs that have made it possible to grow almost exponentially in power).
I'm sure you've read the comparisons between a car and a computer, how the car would go at lightspeed and drive across the galaxy on a cup of f
Re:There was a world market for about ten computer (Score:2)
AFAIK the original quote is "I think there is a world market for about four computers."
Your points regaring Moore's law are good.
Dan
Interesting prediction... (Score:3, Insightful)
If IBM is talking about the computer hardware installed, that may be accurate. Every car has voice regonition, GPS, DVD player, etc. Which features are enabled depend on what you paid. We already see this in consumer electronics. But all cars (or even all those in a model) with the same engine and transmission but different tunings? I don't see that.
Re:Interesting prediction... (Score:2)
Re:Interesting prediction... (Score:2)
Old Cars Are Better Than Computerized Cars (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Old Cars Are Better Than Computerized Cars (Score:5, Funny)
Personally, I look for gas milage, reliability and comfort, but each to their own....
Re:Old Cars Are Better Than Computerized Cars (Score:2)
Well, two outta three ain't bad; the gas mileage on virtually any twenty+ year old tank ain't what it is on today's 'crumple zone/safety cage' plastic cars.
However, I can attest to the comfort of my '84 daily driver.
Re:Old Cars Are Better Than Computerized Cars (Score:2)
Well, unless all that sheet metal acts as a Faraday cage for the fuel injection module et alia.
And as it happens, I have a GPS navigation system, as well as a lighting mod to turn my headlights on at night/in-the-rain and off during the day. (Wow, what a concept!) As well as a few other mods that make the car convenient _to me_, rather than to some designers idea of what
Re:Old Cars Are Better Than Computerized Cars (Score:2)
And anti-lock brakes, airbags, better gas mileage, better performance from a smaller engine, lower emissions, traction control.
I like older cars too, but the newer ones do have significant improvements, only available with some sort of microprocessor.
Whippersnappers! (Score:4, Insightful)
But in all seriousness, why computerize some of those systems? Analog controls aren't 'bad' per se, and the upshot of digital controls is more precision, which I doubt is needed in a car. I'd be fine with 'relatively warm' than '75 F'.
Re:Whippersnappers! (Score:2)
Cashflow for garages (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Cashflow for garages (Score:2)
If I were you, I'd insist on having the "defective" one handed to you, after all, it's your property...
Re:Cashflow for garages (Score:2)
my (not so) offtopic dream (Score:5, Insightful)
The car I grew up with was like this. When it broke down my dad would get out the 500 page maintenance manual (they used to have those things for cars) and fix it himself. Now even mechanics can't fix some cars unless they pay the manufacturer for the 'right' to know how the hell the car's operating system works.
Re:my (not so) offtopic dream (Score:2, Funny)
I guess you used flint stones in place of spark plugs?
Re:my (not so) offtopic dream (Score:3, Informative)
Technically, you could have a car without spark plugs. It's called diesel. Granted, many diesel cars have "glow plugs" which are basically a way to heat things up so the damn thing can start when it's cold outside, but it's not required to operate the diesel cycle. I'm sure the original poster simply forgot spark plugs, but please realize that they aren't strictly neccesary.
Re:my (not so) offtopic dream (Score:2)
So the dream of having a non electronic car is not very out of reach. Any diesel truck or other diesel vehicle old enough to predate ECU's could probably survive a nuclear EMP.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is misstated (Score:5, Insightful)
Ever-increasing presence of high-tech devices in modern cars is a double-edged sword, the New York Times discovers.
The problem the NYT is describing here is not high-tech devices. The problem is crappy firmware.
The auto industry is driven by release dates. The release date for the '06 version of your favorite car is already determined by the industry. Doesn't matter if it's not 100%, it ships that day, regardless.
This is not the best environment to create software in. Hence, you get crappy firmware and that's where those 30% of service calls come from. Believe me, if the auto industry wanted to make bullet proof firmware, the tools are out there (think Mars Rover and VxWorks for example). But the service calls cost less than the development effort, and the end result is - crappy firmware.
Re:The problem is misstated (Score:3, Insightful)
This is not the best environment to create software in.
This is the environment in which 99.9% of the products you use everyday are created. Why should software be treated differently?
Re:The problem is misstated (Score:3, Informative)
"why should software be treated differently?"
excellent question!
one answer would be that the practice of writing software, unlike many other practices that involve moving physical objects around, is highly amenable to reflection (and thus improvement).
unfortunately, reflection requires visibility requires openness, and finding the right balance between that and the secrecy prevalent (in many cases sensibly so) in the physical-objects-munging world, is difficult for large organizations, especially
2010 Car of /. (Score:5, Funny)
2. The hood ornament will be a cute penguin.
3. The first bumper sticker reads "In Soviet Russia..."
4. The second bumper sticker reads "Yes this car is part of a beowulf cluster!"
5. The engine will be listed as a 886 or 986 model, and you'll have a lot of dependencies like fuel versions and so on.
Re:2010 Car of /. (Score:2)
ubuntu warty to ubuntu hoary beta was the sweetest upgrade I've ever done...
Can I get it in Mac? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Can I get it in Mac? (Score:2)
That could actually work... have a car that is normally trying to be still, unless you put it in drive and press on the accelerator.
Let go of the accelerator and the car stops safely.
Have a few radar systems to round off the rough edges of "safely", and you've got an iCar.
Commonality between cars will increase. (Score:2, Interesting)
had a problem with my 2002 Jeep (Score:5, Interesting)
Rather than take it in for a $90 diagnostic fee, I found a trick: put in key, turn "on", "off", "on", "off", and finally, "on", and the diagnostic code(s) display in the digital odometer.
Take that code to google, and I found that the jeep had the same problem which was supposedly "repaired".
I took it back in, and mentioned the codes it was showing, and put up a fight with the service manager saying, "No, you will not charge me for the 'diagnostic' check, I already know what it is. It's code ABC and XYZ. Now, fix."
Re:had a problem with my 2002 Jeep (Score:3, Interesting)
Much simpler.
They'll clear out the CEL, too.
Re:had a problem with my 2002 Jeep (Score:3, Informative)
Re:had a problem with my 2002 Jeep (Score:2)
It's about $185 on ebay. It will read the codes righ from the cars computer, let you reset the CEL (check engine light) and lots of other, more fun stuff, as well.
Worth the $185, I think. But I like electronic toys, and cars, so electronic toys for cars are a double win for me.
Back in the day (Score:4, Interesting)
In a lot of cases, we could tell the telemetry on the car in the last week. Also cars adjusting themselves to the driver. (Pretty annoying when you loan your car to your lead foot mate of teenager).
Cars have, without a doubt, come just as far again since then.
I also have to agree that the mechanics of cars won't be seeing too may improvements in the next decade or longer. The real advances will come in fine tuned computer controlling of all the support systems. Fual, air, spark, all adjusted based on temp, humidity, how hard the driver is pushing the car, and many other factors.
I don't see any reason why a straight gas car can't do over 100 MPG, given the right fuel.
Re:Back in the day (Score:2)
Reboot the plane (Score:4, Interesting)
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of those... (Score:2)
I can just see it now, "Son did you know that you (Score:2)
Bugs in car computers - my own experience (Score:5, Insightful)
The first time, I took it to a local mechanic my family used for years. He checked everything out, reset the code in the computer, charged me about $50, and said "Looks like it's all ok to me!" I argued that the code had to mean something. He merely mumbled something about it being an emissions-related code that must have come on as a fluke, and maybe I just didn't screw my gas cap on tightly enough the last time....
Well, a few months went by, and sure enough, on came the "check engine" light once again. This time, I had a friend reset it with one of those hand-held ECU code retreivers/testers. He looked the error code up in his book, and said it was an "evaporative emissions leak" error. The only thing we could find possibly wrong on the car was an old PCV valve that might have been sticking. I had that replaced, and waited to see if that would help.
About 2 months later, on came the light again. This time, I searched all over the net to try to find out if any other Montero owners had the same issue. Finally, over on mitsubishisucks.com, I found a message thread about the same problem. One guy claimed his SUV kept doing this until the dealership charged him about $150 to "update the firmware in the engine computer". WTF?!? This whole thing is just an issue with buggy firmware, and yet customers are being billed to have it fixed by the dealership!?! Needless to say, I've just learned to reset the stupid code myself and ignore it.
Re:Bugs in car computers - my own experience (Score:3, Interesting)
Stupid editorializing (Score:2, Interesting)
Why does that seem far-fetched? Cars today are mechanically similar to the Model T Ford.The only changes that have been added over the years have been for the convenience of the driver, like power windows and auto transmissions.
By 2010, there will be more hybrid cars and (as predicted) more computerized cars. Other than that, I don't think there will be any differences. What does timothy th
How many cars... (Score:5, Insightful)
Will there someday be money in ripping out all computers in cars and replacing them with simple mechanics?
The problem with cars... (Score:4, Informative)
This stresses hardware a lot.
CTRL-F (Score:2)
Bill Gate's next market? (Score:2)
If we could get it first installed in our (US) national economic competitors, such as France or China, that might be a good idea!
My Favourite Engine (Score:4, Interesting)
Since it's diesel, there's no ignition system. It did have an alternator, but really it was just there to charge the battery so the starter motor could run, but it came with a handcrank so that if need be, you could handstart it. I did that once. Painful, but possible.
No engine computer. No electricity needed whatsoever. Everything was mechanical.
The timing was done by a cogged system, so there was no timing belt to break. In fact, the only belt in the entire engine was for the alternator. The water pump was also cogged.
The manual had a succinct sentence in the debugging section: "If the engine is getting clean fuel and air, it must run". This was actually a bit pessimistic; one fellow I knew ran out of fuel a few miles away from home once in a flat calm and ended up pouring a mixture of turpentine and paint thinner into his fuel tank. The diesel fired up and run just fine, albeit a bit smokier than usual.
Tech Support For Cars (Score:5, Funny)
HELPLINE: 'General Motors Helpline, how can I help you?'
CUSTOMER: 'I got in my car and closed the door, and nothing happened!'
HELPLINE: 'Did you put the key in the ignition and turn it?'
CUSTOMER: 'What's an ignition?'
HELPLINE: 'It's a starter motor that draws current from your battery and turns over the engine.'
CUSTOMER: 'Ignition? Motor? Battery? Engine? How come I have to know all of these technical terms just to use my car?'
--------
HELPLINE: 'General Motors Helpline, how can I help you?'
CUSTOMER: 'My car ran fine for a week, and now it won't go anywhere!'
HELPLINE: 'Is the gas tank empty?'
CUSTOMER: 'Huh? How do I know?'
HELPLINE: 'There's a little gauge on the front panel, with a needle, and markings from 'E' to 'F'. Where is the needle pointing?'
CUSTOMER: 'I see an 'E' but no 'F'.'
HELPLINE: 'You see the 'E' and just to the right is the 'F'.
CUSTOMER: 'No, just to the right of the first 'E' is a 'V'.
HELPLINE: 'A 'V'?!?'
CUSTOMER: 'Yeah, there's a 'C', an 'H', the first 'E', then a 'V', followed by 'R', 'O', and 'L'
HELPLINE: 'No, no, no sir! That's the front of the car. When you sit behind the steering wheel, that's the panel I'm talking about.'
CUSTOMER: 'That steering wheel thingy. Is that the round thing that honks the horn?'
HELPLINE: 'Yes, among other things.'
CUSTOMER: 'The needle's pointing to 'E'. What does that mean?'
HELPLINE: 'It means that you have to visit a gasoline vendor and purchase some more gasoline. You can install it yourself, or pay the vendor to install it for you.'
CUSTOMER: 'What? I paid $12,000 for this car! Now you tell me that I have to keep buying more components? I want a car that comes with everything built in!'
------------
HELPLINE: 'General Motors Helpline, how can I help you?'
CUSTOMER: 'Your cars suck!'
HELPLINE: 'What's wrong?'
CUSTOMER: 'It crashed, that's what went wrong!'
HELPLINE: 'What were you doing?'
CUSTOMER: 'I wanted to go faster, so I pushed the accelerator pedal all the way to the floor. It worked for a while, and then it crashed-and now it won't even start up!'
HELPLINE: 'I'm sorry, sir, but it's your responsibility if you misuse the product.'
CUSTOMER: 'Misuse it? I was just following this damned manual of yours. It said to make the car go to put the transmission in 'D' and press the accelerator pedal. That's exactly what I did-now the damn thing's crashed.'
HELPLINE: 'Did you read the entire operator's manual before operating the car sir?'
CUSTOMER: 'What? Of course I did! I told you I did EVERYTHING the manual said and it didn't work!'
HELPLINE: 'Didn't you attempt to slow down so you wouldn't cash?'
CUSTOMER: 'How do you do THAT?'
HELPLINE: 'You said you read the entire manual, sir. It's on page 14. The pedal next to the accelerator.'
CUSTOMER: 'Well, I don't have all day to sit around and read this manual you know.'
HELPLINE: 'Of course not. What do you expect us to do about it?'
CUSTOMER: 'I want you to send me one of the latest versions that goes fast and won't crash anymore!'
---------------
HELPLINE: 'General Motors Helpline, how can I help you?'
CUSTOMER: 'Hi! I just bought my first car, and I chose your car because it has automatic transmission, cruise control, power steering, power brakes, and power door locks.'
HELPLINE: 'Thanks for buying our car. How can I help you?'
CUSTOMER: 'How do I work it?'
HELPLINE: 'Do you know how to drive?'
CUSTOMER: 'Do I know how to what?'
HELPLINE: 'Do you know how to DRIVE?'
CUSTOMER: 'I'm not a technical person! I just want to go places in my car!'
It's a pretty good laugh
You call yourself technical? Fix it yourself! (Score:2)
Besides diagnosis... you get to "over-clock" your A/F ratios, shift points, delete emission devices (not that I would ever do that). All kinds of fun stuff!
Hell... this year I have a an O2 wideband [innovatemotorsports.com] that plugs right into the black box on the scanner software [efilive.com]
I've rebooted a car once. (Score:2)
I was having a driving lesson and the thing cut out altogether. It wouldn't start at all. After trying a few things I suggested that we could disconnect the battery for a few seconds to reboot the ECU. Unplugged the battery, plugged it back in, and it started first time. I got the lesson for free
Same problem on my car! (Score:2)
Except for the occasional climate control bug, almost exactly as in the article. Sometimes, with no apparent external factors, the climate control system just decides to cook my in the driver's seat. Usually happens on days which are neither excessively warm or cold. In the Yukon, there's three climate zones, and the other too are j
New FORD acronym (Score:3, Funny)
Fix Or Repair Daily
It will become
Format Or Reboot Daily.
Heh. Just wait... (Score:3, Insightful)
We're already starting to see telephone viruses.
It happened to me (Score:4, Funny)
I stopped at a rest area, shut the car off , went in, but when I went to restart it , the tach showed it was still at idle , and the computer would not let the starter engage.
My (then) 15 y/o kid just shrugged and said , I'd reboot it. Well I disconected the (-) battery cable , waited 20 seconds , put it back on , PROBLEM FIXED.
I wonder if BMW uses WinCE?
Cheers
Re:It happened to me (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It happened to me (Score:3, Interesting)
The car's original software is tuned to 87 octane fuel. The BavAuto chip tunes it to 91, but it's adaptive. When I reboot the computer, the car takes a while to re-learn stuff like how low it can idle before stalling. Every time I come to a stop, the tach drops and dro
Probably not 30% (Score:3, Interesting)
Having formerly worked for an auto supplier designing microprocessor-based control modules for the Big Three, I have first-hand experience with microprocessor- and software-related warranty returns. I would not be the least bit surprised if this 30% figure is significantly on the high side. There was one vehicle model in particular that we got an enormous number of warranty returns on. We checked each and every one of them against the mechanic's report and found that less than 2% of the returned modules were actually defective, and the vast majority of those were unrelated to software or the microprocessor. My question, of course, is whether the ABI study would include ALL of those warranty returns, or just the ones that were actually defective.
The real problem was twofold: The module in question stored all of the fault codes for the entire vehicle, and it was located in a place where the mechanic could replace it in less than 10 minutes. As a result, the mechanic would see a fault code, match it up with an easy-to-replace module, and simply replace the module storing the fault code (never mind that the code was generated by, say, the engine controller). We would get the module back as a warranty return, and the mechanic would go on looking for the true source of the problem. I understand that certain expensive components are purposely made horribly difficult to replace so they won't be returned unless there truly is a problem with them.
This is not to say our software was perfect. We once discovered a bug that would reset the odometer if you took the right combination of actions. It was a very unusual combination of actions, but the bug was highly reproducible.