OK, let me see… My PDA has Bluetooth, it can play music, it has GPS and it it rather rugged. It costs $500. One can have rugged notebook with full blown OS and zillion applications for about $1500. Why does can Nav system and upgraded stereo costs $2000? I guess it is about margins. I bet manufacturer cost is $500, not $1950.

ABS and traction control are old technologies that typically work reliably and do not need a computer in a sense of iDrive or Audi MM or MB COMAND. Power windows are 30 years old and don’t need to be connected to the engine control bus.

Automakers do everything they can to prevent you from upgrading stereo yourself for $200 + speakers or adding aftermarket GPS for $300. NOOOOOOO! They’ll keep piling gizmos because that’s where the margins are and where you don’t have any choice except paying the manufacturer outrageous money. iPod integration in E60 BMW for $800??? $300 for iPod and $800 for a small gadget that does not even work reliably? My PC costs that much and happily integrates with iPod for FREE. Alpine aftermarked iPod adapter is $100. And yet BMW happily charges $800.

This is the type of cheapo engineering I would expect to find hidden underneath a Kia, NOT a BMW!

WTF is the point of paying $40,000+ for a car if teh manufacturer is going to dick you around like you purchased a $14,000 bargin basement sub-compact. Like I said when you buy a low priced car fitted with what many would consider to be high-end options like a NAV system you kinda expect to see cut rate engineering as the means of being able to equip a low priced car as such.

“Installing the wheel
1. Clean the contact surfaces on the wheel and hub.
2. Lift the wheel and place it on the hub.
3. Install the wheel nuts and tighten hand-tight. Using the lug wrench, tighten crosswise until all nuts are snug.
4. Lower the vehicle to the ground and alternately tighten the bolts crosswise to 62 ft. lbs. (85 Nm).”

So 95lbs could warp your rotors and/or stretch the threads on your lug bolts/nuts.

I love it. I’m back to the days when troubleshooting consisted of “If you have gas, air and a spark, the engine should run. If any one is missing, look there for the problem.”

I went the other way with my 1972 240z. I installed a Wolf EMS to run my ‘83 280zx turbo engine. I have made major modifications to the engine and the stock computer was worthless. The same heuristic holds true though: air, fuel, spark. I only need worry about three sensors and these are easy to diagnose since I can datalog.

I believe that the problem today is not the electronic wizardy within the cars but the fact that there is no redunancy and that they have connected (ala BMW’s k-bus) all of the various subsystems together.

Keep the engine, transmission, and interior systems separate. A failure of one should not cause the failure of another.

I also thought it was a bit low. My Saab uses 82 ft lbs for a 19mm lug nut. But here is where I got the figure.

http://forums.swedespeed.com/zerothread?id=77794

Even worse, many of these suppliers come from an auto industry background, with little experience in true software and hardware engineering.

The interesting thing is now the traditional software and hardware companies are getting into auto electronics. Will the Microsoft Sync system in Fords result in greater reliability or a BSOD (blue screen of death)? It sounds like it can’t get much worse!

I am the radio operator with International Rally New York. Each rally, I work with the Course Stewards to clear rally stages for the competitors.

Last time, the Stewards had a Tahoe. The Tahoe had the usual Stability Control system, which we could not figure out how to shut off for love or money.

I’ve driven these roads with the same driver in Audi Quattros, and know how they can be taken, and have faith in the driver.

The Tahoe was set up not to upset soccer mom. By the end of the rally, I commented to the Driver, “you’ve always wondered what it is to be a mediocre driver…now you know”.

OK, I will admit that a rally on loose surfaces is not “normal”, but I have a hard time with a system that can’t be shut off.

Is this the fault of the design or the quality or it is the fault of people thinking they can treat every modern car the same as they treated a 57 Chevy. Here is a non-electronic example: wheel lug nut torque. I can’t tell you the number of times I have had my wheels over tightened by a shop. I just bought a used Volvo with 19mm lug nuts, and they call for 62ft lbs. I checked the torque, and it was nearly 90, so I re torqued. Am I being anal? No. Because incorrect torque can cause warping of the rotors. If the rotors warp on a car because the shop over tightens the lug nuts; does that mean the car has poor quality? Of course not. If a car has been abused and has electronic problems, is that poor quality? No. Are cars getting more complicated? It depends if you thing replacing an electronic component is more complicated than synchronizing 4 carburetors. Personally, I find electronics fairly easy to diagnose and to replace. It is usually a matter of unplugging something and plugging something else in. What is needed, however, are some friendly hackers that can allow laptop users to tap into the on-board electronics diagnose their own problems; and do those other things that only the dealers can now do.

I love it. I’m back to the days when troubleshooting consisted of “If you have gas, air and a spark, the engine should run. If any one is missing, look there for the problem.”

Then again, today’s “hot rodders” basically install electronics and plastic “body kits” rather than doing mechanical work and realizing their own vision for the bodywork and paint.

My favorite part of car electronics is that cars are really miserable environments for electrical stuff. Go open the hood of any 10-year-old car and see how flexible the plastic-insulated wiring is–it will more than likely be stiff as a nail and the insulation is going to crack if you bend the wire.

Other components suffer from extremes of heat and cold, moisture and vibration. It is a recipe for failure.

Cost cutting kills the electronics. Think about it – if you were to load up, let’s say, a new Jeep Liberty with all (or most) of the above, it still functions with the same electrical system as the 2wd base model. They can’t charge the consumer a ton of money for adding additional and more robust electrical system components to handle the load of the extra gizmos, so they have to cheapen the build quality of things…and they really couldn’t cheapen the interior materials any more.

I believe that if BMW and Mercedes (especially) put the same effort and craftmanship into today’s cars as they did 10-15 years ago, the smallest 3-series and C-class probably would start at over 50 grand. They would use better components and more durable parts. I think if the German companies don’t get a handle on quality issues, their sales would plunge. Instead I see them (or hope) calling a truce and work out the bugs with things they already use. Don’t most BMW owners with iDrive have at least one horror story? (I know someone with a 745Li right before the “emergency” redesign of the front and back…3,000 miles…3 flatbed tows…all iDrive related. A Porsche was traded in for this car. A Porsche is back in their driveway and they’ll never touch BMW again.)
Personally I like cars that start up in the morning and I don’t need to attend a weekend class on how to use the damn thing!

A close second has to be the ever entertaining aftermarket hacking of seriously high tech vehicles like the A8L. I’ve seen a hands free phone installation shut a car down because the installer tapped into the fuel injector power… ECM didn’t like that too much. Some vehicles should never be touched by anybody other than a select few technicians.

I agree current production cars are becoming ever more laden with unnecessary ancillary subsystems which serve little purpose relative to the vehicle’s primary function… transportation. There is no going back now… oh no, onward to bigger and more expensive proprietarization and integration of modules, networks and data buses.

Luckily by the time many of these technological monsters are out of warranty the few technicians who are able to fix them have had years of experience diagnosing issues on the manufacturer’s dime which might increase the probability of a successful diagnosis and repair when it is on the customer’s dime. Of course in some cases it may mean the technician has to spend an hour digging for technical bulletin information from say five years ago.

Then there was the time the computer went on my mom’s 1986 Saab 9000 turbo. We lost just about every function of the car from the temperature gauge to fuel economy readings to whether the doors are open or not. Thankfully, though, the car still ran well enough to get it to the shop to have the computer replaced. That was years ago, and when things were more ’simple…

I agree with that stament. I needed some burned out lightbulbs in the dashboard repalced, and the local GM stealership did nothing but lie and pressure me into buying an $800+ module plus labour to replace a $2 lightbulb. My independent mechanic sent me to RadioShack and told me which bulbs to buy. One hour ;ater some quick soldering and $75 labour plus $5 for light bulbs I was on my way.
When the DRL modual went, The local scrap yards either did not stock them, or charged an outragious price for a used unit. In the end I just left as nothing was netorked, and the manual switches still worked.
I hate to see what everything would have cost if these items were networked together and left me paralized.

It seems that BMW has added a “rain detection” feature to it’s power window controller (kidding)…

My 4Runner’s tailgate would open by itself. It turned out to be, I swear, a faulty tailgate computer. This particular computer only controls the tailgate latch, rear window and wiper.

Somewhere I read that the Japanese tend to keep cars only a few years because getting an old car to meet emission and other regulations is very expensive. So why all those stories about Toyondas going 200,000 miles without a problem? Maybe their durability was engineered in for the American market.

Buy a new laptop, download car specific software, plug in the car’s harness, and you’re on your way.

I think I answered my own question.

Auto companies are painfully aware of the problems caused by unrepairable electronics faults. One of my friends runs the repair department for a local Chrysler dealer. When they run into one of these electronic problems, the factory reps get an earful.

In the near future cars will have a single data bus connecting a main processor to various sensors, actuators, etc. Diagnosis and repair will be greatly simplified for anyone with access to documentation, software and diagnostic tools. Unfortunately, everything connected to these systems will be proprietary. Need a (new fill in the blank) sensor for your (fill in the blank) car, you’ll only be able to get it OEM, and it’ll cost a pretty penny, and probably not be available at all after 10 or 15 years.

M-B paid for it. Its reputation for being the gold standard of automotive engineering was demolished, partly because of dodgy electronics. The unworkable and unfixable electronics in the S class caused a bust-up between M-B and Bosch like the Ford-Firestone one.

VW/Audi had had garbage electrics for as long as anybody could remember so they couldn’t really suffer more damage to their reputations in that area.

BMW achieved record sales which it probably takes as validation of its strategy. One can only wonder what it would have achieved without Dame Edna styling and electronic overkill.