FBXL Social

this is the car version of "how hard is farming, just throw a seed in some dirt"

I have not yet had a vehicle where something did not entirely match the service manual

@sickburnbro I have, but I usually figured it out.

@sickburnbro How hard could it be to be a chef? I can make toast, am I a chef?

@sickburnbro It's like saying computers now are no more complicated than they were in the 60s because they use transistors

@Escoffier "cooking is basically the same as the 1500s, it's just that less people know how to do it"

@monsterislandcolonizer it's just pure mitwittery; "give it gas" - oh ok, so I just dump gas in .. the intake? yeah? like that?

@Escoffier @sickburnbro

@sickburnbro @Escoffier "I can change a lightbulb, am I an electrician?"
"I can take aspirin, am I a doctor?"

@sickburnbro @Escoffier "Tires are cheap and repairable, the wheel hasn't changed since 4000 BC"

@sickburnbro Believe it or not sauces are no longer used to cover up the flavor of spoiled meat.

@sj_zero @sickburnbro I have a picture from my grandmother's 16th birthday of her with the car her dad built her
Can you imagine someone doing that now

@Escoffier it hadn't always spoilt, sometimes it had just "turned"

@sj_zero @monsterislandcolonizer nowadays you can't even get away with just an odb2 reader, you need a whole ass computer that can talk with and command the whole slew of little computers in a car.

"does the ECU or BCM control this?"

@sickburnbro my old man is an old school mechanic and he doesn't know much about anything newer than 2010, and he refuses to learn it. Too many computers and sensors.

@sj_zero @sickburnbro @monsterislandcolonizer "Jebediah, get over here! I need a new surface on the Model T's Infotainment center!"

@sickburnbro @sj_zero @monsterislandcolonizer The transmission has a computer, the brakes have a computer, the engine has a computer, ...
Oh, one of them detected you did work without the dealer: Limp mode.

@RobCaruso @sj_zero @monsterislandcolonizer it's not even that bad in all cases; it is in some - but some cases they have parts with multiple fittments and want to make it harder to blow up thousand dollar parts.

@sickburnbro @monsterislandcolonizer “bro just manually reprogram the ECU with a chip clip and an arduino how hard can it be”

Literally how I had to reset my immobilizer in my MR2 btw

@sapphire @monsterislandcolonizer an Arduino? you need to use a 9V battery

@sickburnbro @monsterislandcolonizer nah, you intercept the EEPROM coding in stream and rewrite it as you turn on the car with the wrong key and zero out the key info which tricks the car into thinking it’s factory new and ready to accept the initial key learn-in

It’s why that’s the only car I’ve got with three keys and extra the only car I’ve got with a valet key (that isn’t even cut as a valet key so it does nothing special)

@sickburnbro @sj_zero @monsterislandcolonizer It's not always wrong, but it is certainly more complicated as you originally said. Much of the time, OEM software is required which can cost hundreds or thousands to get. (Thankfully enthusiasts generally have black or gray market versions available) My car requires a trip to the dealer to change a 25$ TPMS sensor, or I have to spend a couple hundred on an after market programmer that only works on some brands of sensors.

@RobCaruso @sj_zero @monsterislandcolonizer Right, it's not that it's required that you go to the dealer, it's that you need dedicated tools, which are usually targeted towards shops, so the prices aren't great for individuals

@sickburnbro I briefly owned a 1966 dynamic 88 and the difference between that and a modern car is astounding

@Escoffier most people don't understand how nice power steering is

@sickburnbro That is no joke.

100%

@RobCaruso @monsterislandcolonizer @sickburnbro @sj_zero you still have TPMS? I had discount tire put standard stems in my truck that has it because I know how to check tire pressure, the TPMS is a common failure point on a tire because it’s so many parts compared to a regular stem

@sapphire @monsterislandcolonizer @sickburnbro @sj_zero I autisticaly hate trouble lights on the dash. 😪

@RobCaruso @monsterislandcolonizer @sickburnbro @sj_zero pull the bulb for the TPMS light lol

@sickburnbro @sj_zero @monsterislandcolonizer tbf $100-200 can get you an OBD-II reader that'll read and communicate with even the BCM, read live-stream data, and do SOME special functions like an electronic throttle body relearn or SAS reset for a clock-spring replacement (topdon artidiag 600s). obviously not every scanner will support the same learn/programming functions for every single brand (iirc launch tends to be better with more European stuff, and topdon for domestic).

Cannable is cool software

@sickburnbro Get a pre 1980s car, and it is still pretty simple. Pre '75, even easier.

@ShovelTrouble @PopulistRight even the mildly computerized stuff had baked in pretty well by the end of the 90s, early 2000s. Standarization on OBDII had solidified, and things weren't to complex; plenty of solid engine designs.

@sickburnbro @ShovelTrouble @PopulistRight Makes me think that people want to dump fuel injectors and go back to carburetors, as if they would accept a car with the reliability of a pull string lawn mower.

@ShovelTrouble @PopulistRight well, all of it adds complexity, there now has to be a digital conversion somewhere in the line for what was once an analog connection to a float in the tank ( accompanied by float levels changing when the fuel sloshed enough on a low tank )

@EvilSandmich @sickburnbro @ShovelTrouble I had several carb-cars - no problem. I also had an injected diesel (80s), which was very reliable, and better on gas. Some had one chip in the distributor - so, just kept a spare chip in the glove-box.

I always carried a spare water-pump, fuel-pump, starter, and generator - all those being crookedly-designed to break, to generate parts-revenue (post 50s). But, at least they were common and inexpensive.

Friends with newer cars would get stung hard on a "new computer" costing thousands. Every part was custom to their particular model/year, so no 3rd party would make them (the Japs started that game). As a result, even their fuel pump cost more than all the wearable parts on my cars combined - and they had to drop the gas-tank just to get to it - LOL!!

@PopulistRight @EvilSandmich @ShovelTrouble fuel injection in diesel has been around for a long time. The control of injection by computer and not mechanisms was what was new starting in the 80s.

But yes, that kind of nonsense is why they passed laws about parts being available on cars for a given period.

@sickburnbro @EvilSandmich @ShovelTrouble It's not just availability of the part. For example, on a 70's GM or Ford, the same part will work in multiple models over a span of model-years - so 3rd parties could tool-up to make those parts, and sell them cheaper than GM/Ford - which also meant the GM/Ford part was sold cheaper (competition).

The Japs started the game of making unique parts for their cars which did not span models/years, so there was a much smaller market-share available for a given part. The USA makers then copied this idea.

All forms of "planned obsolescence" and similar should be illegal - from CPUs to auto-parts. It is evil - parasitic in nature. The purpose of the market-system is for us to get what we want, with profit as an incentive to get it made, and with better value being more popular = profitable. Products / business-models / practices that are contrary to this should be shut-down.

With CPUs, the difference between an Intel I3/5/7/9, is how much of the functionality they intentionally-cripple in the "cheaper" CPUs - where the cost to engineer "crippled, but still works," means the "cheaper" ones are actually more expensive in R&D, with the same production-cost.

@PopulistRight @EvilSandmich @ShovelTrouble it's not *just( planned obsolesce though - when you can just change the part next year, you don't have to spend as much time thinking about it before you make it; AND - if you do make a mistake, you can just .. stop dealing with it next year! And so that, for a company view, makes the cars cheaper!

But it of course totally fucks consumers over.

@monsterislandcolonizer @sickburnbro @Escoffier >>"I can take aspirin, am I a doctor?"

You'd be shocked...