Tom 400 CFI

Some of you may appreciate this...

[RantOn]
In the late '80's-'90's, you got just enough tech to make cars substantially better (perf, mpg, handling, build, rust, amenities, etc)....but not so much that it wrecked the thing. I hate new cars. I used to pour over car mags...every one I could get my hands on, all the time. Now? Now mags are mostly gone, but I don't look at any literature covering anything new, b/c I don't GAF. Zero interest. What happened!?

We got this late model truck at work right now....some times, it won't go above idle -throttle pedal isn't working. We don't know why. Remember throttle cables? Ahhhh...they worked pretty good for about 100 years or so? Now we got this sh!tbox truck that won't move...no idea how to fix it. We open tomorrow, Ski Patrol needs it to shuttle patients. Pretty cool.

We got this 6.7 Powerstroke shuttle bus. It keeps throwing NOx sensor codes, and de-rating to idle only. We think it's the NOx sensors. Back ordered for 6 mos. Our other (weak) theory was contaminated DEF, so we dropped the DEF tank today, dumped, cleaned, installed and filled. Haven't tested yet, but it'll likely de-rate tomorrow with customers aboard. LOVE that ****. Who wouldn't!?

We got these new cats at work....they have tech. Touch screens that are way too bright at night...operators throw a jacket over them so they can work (groom). The display is SUPER KEWL, b/c it eliminated the pesky stereo, HVAC controls, all lighting switches, all gauges/warnings....so instead of using your tactile functions and feeling for the heater switch, you have to stop the cat, (or just stop focusing on where/how you're operating it), remove the jacket from the screen, touch the wrench icon, then the defrost looking icon, then you can change the heater settings...then hit the house icon to get back to the animation of a snow cat driving screen w/a faux tach next to the cat animation. DUMB. And let me tell you....these things can throw some DTC's!!! They'll throw 50+ codes b/c the battery is low. 5 DTC's if the coolant trips the low level sensor on the hill. One of 'em was down on hill this winter, threw 134 DTC's, and wouldn't do anything except the engine would run. Blade wouldn't move, tiller 10-7, couldn't drive it, winch wouldn't do anything, I got 134 DTC's though! Where does one even start with that?? Ahhhh....good times.
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I remember when I looked forward to new-model releases b/c the new tech made a substantial improvement in the vehicle. Substantial. 80's cars getting OD? EFI? Tires that weren't 65 aspect sidewalls? Rear disk brakes? Those changes represent substantial improvements. In the cats, hydrostatic drive, the flex tiller, 12-way blade, EFI, electronic drive, a fiberglass cab with sound deadening and good seats? SUBSTANTIAL.

Now, new models....I don't even want to see them. "Improvements" are marginal at best, typically debatable and a god damned handicap at worst. Our latest cat has 27 buttons on the joy stick. 27, people!! And worse, many of those buttons have multiple functions. The thing has a fob that you press down into a recess until it "clicks", locking it in...the cat powers up. It takes no less than three tries to get that fob out. Every time. We had one cat that went down on hill, cat wouldn't recognize the FOB; push it in, you get a black screen w/a white outline of a key. Cat won't start, can't diag anything.....WTF was wrong with a KEY!? Keys worked pretty good for, IDK....120 years or so? These things are up to $500k now, you get a ****-pile of tech that costs money, breaks, renders the cat unusable.....and contributes NOTHING to the product or performance of the vehicle! We had cats 20 years ago that left the same groomed pass, at about the same speed, and used about the same amount of fuel doing it, as we do today. So what does today's new model give us? Admittedly, clean emissions .....and then a heaping pile of cow-dung tech that breaks and doesn't contribute jack chit.
Same with cars. Electric E-f'n gas pedals, apple f'n car play, animations in the f'n dash board? Modes! Settings! Configurations! Graphics! None of it has anything to do with driving. Infotainment systems that have to "boot up" (?), then sound like poo when they finally start producing sound. Even HVAC systems have to "boot up" now days...and you got to wait for the f'n heater fan to change speeds!! What was wrong with a fan switch!?
Fake engine sounds, drivers "ASSist", seats vibrating when you steer, car slamming on your brakes when someone's turning ahead of you....oh man. New models? I don't even want to see 'em anymore and it's because they've got nothing good to offer -nothing that's enhancing the driving experience, but rather a butt-load of crap that hinders the driving experience. I don't even want to see it.

Yep....we had it pretty good in the '90's....yet we had to want "more". We got it. Tom's having a rough day today. [/Rant-off]


Is there a take away to all ^that^ "whinnin' ambition"? Yes. You guys, it's awesome that everyone here has a nice 3rd gen. Awesome, fun, visceral....wicked cool cars. Keep 'em running, keep keepin' 'em nice, and appreciate them for what they are; an honest, direct, analog, exciting driving experience that you can not buy anymore. Any headaches they give us? WORTH IT!

8t2 z-chev

AMEN... My newest vehicle is 2007 and that one is bad enough with a BCU and other BS,,, you would like my 1917 Dodge-if battery is low you can start it with the hand crank No electronics anywhere on my little 30HP Chinese made bulldozer from 2000-suspect metalurgy, but always starts right up and works when needed.

Komet

Yeah, vehicles became rolling computer networks 20 years ago and I have never been interested in that. Maybe it's because that's what I troubleshoot for a living (minus the rolling part), but honestly I just think it's dumb to trust my life on the road to a system so needlessly complex that a side of the road diagnosis and trip to the local auto parts store is out of the question.

Not to mention the cost and availability of replacement parts. Random road debris takes out a fender and headlight assembly? Easy multi-thousand dollar repair.

They cost more to buy, more to maintain, more to insure. Touchscreens replacing physical buttons is the worst, and you have to have backup cameras to assist with the otherwise total lack of visibility. And you have to step foot into a car dealership (cringe) and interact with cocaine-fueled charlatans to get one. Hard pass.

OrangeBird

iTrader: (1)

One of the (very) few benefits of being old, , , , , I won't live long enough for there to be no more "Analog" cars around.

"Analog" , Tom hit the nail squarely on the head with that!

Aaron R.

This a good rant. And spot on about everything.

I love my old cars and trucks. Simple. My biggest complaint is the lack of quality aftermarket parts. Been saying for years that I can keep all my old stuff running forever if I can just find some decent repair parts.

This digital revolution is utterly ridiculous. I drove a new van the other day and all the heater/ac and fan controls were touch screen. Just trying to change the cabin air fan speed required several touches on the screen and then dragging your finger up/down the screen. Impossible to do without staring at the screen, which means taking your eyes off the road for seconds, all just to adjust the fan speed. That isn't safe and isn't even convenient.

One of my next restoration projects is a 1951 Chevy 3/4 ton truck. Gonna drive it until the day I die. Might even ditch all my 1980s stuff in favor of it.

skinny z

The option will always exist to build something truly old school.
That said, there are many benefits to modern tech. On a simple note, a distributor that can be programmed from your phone is certainly easier on one's constitution than messing with weights, springs, advance stops, vacuum cans, lather rinse and repeat. That idea follows with induction. If you've ever truly been deep into a carburetor, you'll understand that they're not the simple device they're made out to be. Jets, PV's, two sets of air bleeds, emulsion circuits, etc and so forth. Compare that to a self learning laptop assisted EFI setup and it makes the labour component somewhat more manageable.
But I get Tom's point in it's entirety. Why drive by wire? Why not a simple ignition key? Actually, I know why but that's a discussion for another day.
But if you check on anything that I've posted, I'm still firmly building the same "school" of engine that I first built in college. Lets call that decades ago. So you can eschew modern tech if you want to. True daily drivers...maybe not so much though. Then again, my daily is an 06 Chevy truck. Primitive by today's standards.
Now, how about our brothers and sisters that swap fully computerized LS engines into 3rd gens...?

topduarte

iTrader: (8)

Dont get me started on electric vehicles. And I live near the Resla plant in Austin.

My physical therapist (I have tennis elbow due to wrenching on my 94 vette).

My son's 2017 Ford 150 with only 40k miles does not start with low fuel in the tank. No recall from Ford.

Worried about my wife's 2022 suburban with all of the electronics.

Off my soapbox.

Manny

Roorancher

Really nice rants!
The newest vehicle in my household, (my wife and i have 6,) is my daily, a 15 Silverado Crew half ton. It has more than enough tech, and all i need. I will never buy anything newer. I'm 70, so I call that a luxury. I disabled active fuel management, am approaching 200K miles, and its been near flawlesd except for routine maintenance.
once in a while an electronic gremlin visits, bet he usually only sticks around for a couple of trips or a couple of days.

Tom 400 CFI

Glad y'all enjoyed the read. I could go on and on. The stuff my crew and I see at work is mind blowing. One cat w/heater controls in the touch screen, blower stopped working 5 hours into the start of the season we're just coming out of. Then wouldn't shut off -even after the cat was shut down and FOB removed. Run the batt's dead. Kewl. This ended up putting the cat down for over a month -almost into Christmas vacation week. We checked all the basics/wiring...what WE knew to check, then called the dealer. Dealer techs spent ~90 hours (three days, three techs) working on it; they replaced the touch screen, ACU -a module under the dash that I assume interfaces w/the touch screen and makes a PWM output for the blower motor(s)? They replaced that three times and programmed it 3 times. They changed both blower motors (brushless, of course) and when through both wiring harnesses from end to end...then they gave up and left. At that point the fans would run on LOW, 100% of the time, key on or off, and run the batteries dead, unless the master sw was shut off.

We fixed it by installing two, brushed fan motors, a 4 position heater fan switch, home made harnesses, and two resistor packs...all parts sourced from the "other brand's" parts bin. That got the cat up and it's worked flawlessly all winter, since our retro tech mod. And for all that, what's the OE system get you? Touch screen ($5000), ACU ($3000+tech time to program+travel time$1500), not one, but TWO brushless heater motors($1025 ea)....and is the heat any better than the systems that came before it? NO! No it's not! In fact in this case, it was worthless and the cat was down for a over month, unusable b/c it had no heat. This stuff makes zero sense, and it's totally NOT WORTH IT. I'd really like to hear an engineer explain the ROI on implementing the system above.

We got this chevy truck, a while back something went wrong w/the RAP. You'd shut the truck off, remove the key, open the door....radio keeps playing. RAP never shuts off. Door switch, right? We tested the door switch, good. Door harness, good. Right side door switch and harness. Good. Tested the dash/door harness and switch from the BCM to the door switch and back. Both sides. The whole circuit was good, both sides. Three of us tested to make sure. What comes after that? WE don't know! Send it to the dealer. Dealer put in 5 hours of labor (with factory support, we were told) and finally diag'd the....what? What did they diag?




Well, of course it was the wiper control module! Right? I mean, shouldn't the wiper control module be your first check when the RAP stays on?? Sometimes when you get help like that, you hear the root cause, and think, "Ohhhh damn, yeah, that makes sense! I should have known/checked that!" Not this time. My whole shop was like, "Damn...how would one ever get to the wiper control module, when chasing a RAP issues??" We never would have. Remember when wiper motors worked off of a fuse, couple switches and maybe a relay or two? Yeah....that worked pretty good for about 60 years or so, but we had to go and F THAT all up!

Roorancher

I can put an end to this rant very easily, but it's so enjoyable that I'm going to add something really spot-on!

I'm 70. My wife is coming up on 65. We've been married 36 years.

Almost every morning, when making toast, we use a GE Chrome Toaster, all Bakelite ***** and handles, original cord and plug. Never fails us. Makes perfect toast.
It was a gift to my parents on the occasion of their wedding. When, you ask? 1950. The toaster is 74 years old, and continues to make perfect toast. No electronics, no circuit boards. Basically just a variable rheostat and coils.

Tom 400 CFI

That's awesome! I LOVE it!! A well built, simple but eloquent machine. Perfect.


......and major congrats on a long marriage! That is impressive.

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Tom 400 CFI

I have no doubt that other's have their own opinions about the kind of tech that I'm sharing here, I figured this thread had about a 50/50 chance of being well received and enjoyed, or I get flamed...."Shadap...Boomer!"

But let me share something that is pretty shocking (to me) ...and compelling. Now this is only related to the heavy equipment (snow cats) in my rant....it doesn't pertain to general vehicles (cars), and I haven't gathered enough data in our fleet to make the same comparison w/ pickup trucks yet....I'd guess our newer trucks are about as reliable as our older ones. But w/regard to my whinin' ambition about the snow cats, I have a legitimate point; it's not just bitchin'.

Why do we turn over/buy new snow cats? To reduce down time and maintenance cost. How's that working? Well, our fleet (16 cats) is starkly divided into two categories: "old" cats and "new" cats. The old cats are all a 20 year old platform and hover around 10,000 hrs currently. The new cats are all the most recent/current platform, and average around 3k hrs or so?
*This season, our "old cats" are running slightly less $/hr in maintenance costs ($16.56 vs. 18.30 $/hr), than our "new cats" -data generated by our fleet management system. What gives?
*There is also down time; Our “new cats” have averaged 509 hrs, while the old, "hi mile" cats have averaged 144 hrs of down time, this season .
*Finally, just gettin' back to the barn!....the "new" cats have been “Down on hill” (meaning, we show up in the am and there is a cat broke down/stuck on the hill) 5 times more than our “old cats” (15x vs. 3x), this season.

This trend doesn't make for a compelling case to buy $500k new cats. Quite literally, the old skool, high hour machines are gettin' it done while the new one$ are $itting in the $hop, getting fixed and con$uming resource$. Or, we're up towin' 'em off the hill, instead of doing PM. Aside from the humor of it, it's really quite frustrating and why....

TTOP350

iTrader: (8)

So spot on about every aspect of newer stuff in general.
The newer the vehicle, the worse it's gotten. Everything seems to be tied to everything else and it's like a old strand of Christmas lights. One fails, nothing else works.
So sick of having to to dig through everything electrical on the car to diagnose what's wrong.

QwkTrip

iTrader: (22)

Older vehicles are easier to troubleshoot, it's easier to repair and keep on the road. I don't think newer vehicles will have the life that older cars do because they'll be unfixable. Too many very specific components for the aftermarket to deal with. And replacement parts will need to be flashed with the correct software which nobody will be able to do.

I have a 2012 F150 and my dealer has already told me they won't work on it because it is too old. Still an awesome truck, but it's going to become un-repairable and I won't be able to keep it as long as I would like.

I've had one BCM fail and replacement had to be scrounged from a junkyard. Could not get a new one and the vehicle was only 10 years old at the time. Multiply that by however many controllers are on that truck and you've got a serious problem festering.

drive it

iTrader: (1)

Thanks for saying what I've been thinking! I recently rented a new Jeep Wagoneer since I had visitors and needed more seating capacity. It took me over 5 minutes just to program the dash to look "normal". And to change heater/fan speeds having to use a touch screen to do anything-while you're driving...how did this crap ever pass a safety review? With all the laws on cell phone/distracted driving it's unbelievable that they have added all this crap! I will never buy another new car again.

ironwill

Was a GM dealership mechanic right out of high school in 1966, first for an Olds dealership and then a Chevrolet dealership. When I look back on those times, I LOL @ how easy it was to diagnose any problem that came in. That all started changing in the mid-'80s and has gone straight downhill since. While modern automotive electronics technology---and all the control modules (in some cars even one for just taillights), computers, CAN buss, et al---has provided easy access to 4-5-6-700 hp cars that still get 20 MPG on the highway and idle calmly in traffic with the AC and stereo blasting, it has also brough along a nightmare list of potential troubleshooting problems, the most severe of which seem to occur at dealership level.

Almost on a weekly basis, stories of wholesale recalls for hundreds of thousands of vehicles for often serious technical problems are seen on the interwebs from one marque after another. Even high-dollar scan equipment---along with a paywall to the manufacturers' tech lines--- can only provide a rough direction in which to start looking for a problem. And even with 'right-to-repair' laws in most states, they provide no guarantee that the manufacturer will provide any help to joe average.

Where all this is headed is IMO, to throw-away vehicles that have no soul or any defining character from one brand to the next. We just witnessed the demise of the Camaro carline; who's next?


smh...........

roadthrills

The short of it.......DO NOT buy any new vehicles. Between the electronics, soybean covered wiring, and lack of qualified techs coming INTO the maintenance arena........in 5-10 years there will literally be NOBODY to repair this stuff! I have my older projects sitting and will be perfectly happy to completely restore and enjoy driving those.

Sidenote......I'm certain less than 500k could completely refurbish an older Cat or 2. Analog reliability.

dmccain

iTrader: (2)

Everything i have is over 20yrs old and will remain that way.