Posted by NC Wayne on March 21, 2008 at 14:57:17 from (166.82.206.74):
Saw your reply to my post about the dead truck. Personally I work on heavy equipment and they have all gone to computer controls for the engines, pumps, etc. I also know a good many guys that work on other types of vehicles be they large trucks or cars. Myself as well as the others that I know would agree with you 100% in that if the computer controls are functioning correctly then "common" troubleshooting is easy. The problems come in when the computer itself isn't working properly, the problem only arises under certain conditions and/or is transitory in nature and is hard or impossible to replicate, or there are several problems that cause the computer to think that something else is wrong except for what's actually wrong. I've had pump control systems where there were several problems showing on the computer due to broken wires, loose connections, and combinations of the two. Bad thing was it would flash codes for something wrong that wasn't actually wrong because the actual problems were causing false inputs, which in turn caused incorect outputs, which in turn caused other sensors to read a problem that was there only because of a bad input from soemwhere else. In other words one real problem can lead to many false problems when the computer comes into play. There's an old computer saying about 'garbage in, garbage out', and when the computer is getting garbage from a bad sensor, etc it's bound to put out garbage too.The problem always comes in finding where that garbage going in is coming from...a bad senser or two or three or four or more... one or two or three or more bad places on a mile plus of tightly loomed, and hidden wiring...nowdays with several sensors communicating over the same wire at different frequencies, it could be one wire causing several bad inputs, but which sensor... In the end all the technology takes the repair capability out of the hands of the average person and sets it squarely back on the dealership who has the tools, etc to do the job. In doing that it allows the dealerships to have a lock on doing the repairs so ultimately they can raise their prices to whatever they want and the comsumer has no real recourse. Not to mention when there are only so many dealerships and the amount of broke vehicles gets too large for them to handle think about the wait your gonna experience to get a vehicle repaired. Don't know about you but I can't afford to have my truck setting for two weeks waiting for it to be repaired, out of warranty, and then have to pay for a loaner to boot. Even at $3 plus a gallon, I can buy alot of gas for the cost of a typical dealership repair for my old '87 F150, and my '78 Jeep. When you look at it from a contactors point of view it's even worse. New machine, under warranty, the dealership jumps. Older machine, not under warranty, and they go to the bottom of the list. In the end they have a broke machine setting there doing nothing and costing them several thousand dollars a day in lost productivity that they could otherwise be making if someone independent, like myself, could easily work on without several thousand dollars worth of books and special tools. That may sound outrageous for the tools, etc and it is. Just think though, the typical repair manual for a piece of heavy equipment nowdays is running several hundered dollars for one specific type of machine, the you add on several different brands, and dozens of different models within each brand, and your spending tens of thousands of dollars just for the troubleshooting info, much less all the special tools for each patricular brand and/or model. I'm not afraid of anything except engineers that think they have to come up with something new every year to do exactly the same things the new thing the came up with the year before and the year before that and the year before that did...But that's just my .02......
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