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The ECU in those cars contained four fuel/ignition maps in the EPROM; you selected a different map by grounding different pinouts. He bought a Turner Conforti chip that had four maps:
1. Valet(RPM limited to 3,000)
2. Stock map
3. High performance map
4. High performance map- 95 octane/race fuel only
He wired everything up to a discarded four position rotary switch out of an old Airbus- complete with LEDs to signify which map was selected. Very cool.
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-2021 Sahara 4xe-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
The problem with opening and fixing modules or circuit boards is that the technician can rarely charge enough for the job vs. a parts swap--and he runs the risk of it not working out in the long run.
So much for "modular repair" in this case---the repair is 50% the value of the entire car.
Well my MINI threw a seat bag light yesterday. This was right after I got rid of the CEL for the EVAP system.
I'm thinking maybe I'll just use my MINI's dashboard warning lights for Christmas lighting this year--all those pretty reds and oranges and yellows, blinking at evening falls....how lovely.
Anyway, I disconnected the battery and pulled the connectors off under the seats, cleaned 'em up as best I could, and reconnected, and the light went out (so far, for 24 hours).
WE'LL SEE........
We will have to wait until the report comes out. Speculation is that the tire wasn't seating on the bead and the tech over-inflated it trying to get it to pop out and seat. (The specified limit on most tires is 40-44 psi.)
Not sure but some of the details do suggest that the customer and the tech may have known each other since the store wasn't actually open yet. Then again maybe the customer was in a situation that the tech tried to help out early.
It rarely gets much attention, but tech deaths on the job aren't that uncommon. I've had several close calls through the years. The worst of which was when another tech accidently backed a truck into a workbench, just missing me.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwja643plevJAhUCbz4KHeUrBh4QFggdMAA&url=http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/cwc/occupational-injuries-illnesses-and-fatalities-to-automotive-service-technicians-and-mechanics-2003-to-2005.pdf&usg=AFQjCNHuvRoSBUJC6cystHT9esLnlguWQw&sig2=tVerwW2luprOdIbFZcwylg
California Vehicle Code § 27156
(a) No person shall operate or leave standing upon a highway a motor vehicle that is a gross polluter, as defined in Section 39032.5.5 of the Health and Safety Code. (b) No person shall operate or leave standing upon a highway a motor vehicle that is required to be equipped with a motor vehicle pollution control device under Part 5 (commencing with Section 43000)of Division 26 of the Health and Safety Code or any other certified motor vehicle pollution control device required by any other state law or any rule or regulation adopted pursuant to that law, or required to be equipped with a motor vehicle pollution control device pursuant to the National Emission Standards Act (42 U.S.C. Secs.7521 to 7550, inclusive) and the standards and regulations adopted pursuant to that federal act, unless the motor vehicle is equipped with the required motor vehicle pollution control device that is correctly installed and in operating condition. No person shall disconnect, modify, or alter any such required device. (c) No person shall install, sell, offer for sale, or advertise any device, apparatus, or mechanism intended for use with, or as apart of, a required motor vehicle pollution control device or system that alters or modifies the original design or performance of the motor vehicle pollution control device or system. (d) If the court finds that a person has willfully violated this section, the court shall impose the maximum fine that may be imposed in the case, and no part of the fine may be suspended. (e) "Willfully," as used in this section, has the same meaning as the meaning of that word prescribed in Section 7 of the Penal Code. (f) No person shall operate a vehicle after notice by a traffic officer that the vehicle is not equipped with the required certified motor vehicle pollution control device correctly installed in operating condition, except as may be necessary to return the vehicle to the residence or place of business of the owner or driver or to a garage, until the vehicle has been properly equipped with such a device. (g) The notice to appear issued or complaint filed for a violation of this section shall require that the person to whom the notice to appear is issued, or against whom the complaint is filed, produce proof of correction pursuant to Section 40150 or proof of exemption pursuant to Section 4000.1 or 4000.2.
In all seriousness, I wondered if you were monitoring my posts- I guess I should be flattered.
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-2021 Sahara 4xe-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
I actually had another trick pulled on me, which I am STILL contemplating taking action on--although probably too much time has lapsed.
About 6 years ago I bought a used car from a dealer and he showed me the CARFAX report---clean. Many years later I bought my own report and saw an accident on it. I called CARFAX to learn the date of the entry of that record. Apparently, the dealer had made a copy of the report and edited out the accident.
Still, those off lease cars have to end up somewhere! In a former life, I managed a large Sears Auto Center.
I'm guessing it was a split rim. We have talked about these before in these forums. They can be NASTY and some have been known to explode AFTER they have been inflated and taken out of the safery cages.
We had a couple go off in the cage and unless you've seen one you have no idea how powerful the explosions can be. What I can't understand is how the customer was allowed to get close enough to the guy doping the work to get hurt. We wouldn't let a customer anywhere near the inside of the shop.
Yes, very sad!
Here is a film by Branick Industries which demonstrates what happens when a cage is used and a wheel fails.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKlJJqHFfoQ It's notable that there are a lot of cages out there that aren't strong enough to prevent injury.
I have a problem with the idea that a Sears store would have one of their people deal with a split rim. Those should be left to the truck centers that have people trained correctly and do them all of the time.
It wouldn't surprise me though if the explosion was caused by a zipper failure. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFXVOa44oSE This can happen with passenger car tires especially if a tire doesn't pop past the wheel bead easily. People often make the mistake of over inflating the tire trying to get it to seat. If a weak portion of the tire is in just the right position as the tire finally tries to seat it can rupture violently.
"J" described the first four jobs he was assigned recently. The first one was a customer who reported that he couldn't pair his I-phone 6 to the car. The next one was an I-pad issue where the customer couldn't get the tunes to pay anymore. The third reported that the airbag (SRS) lamp was flashing on/off. The fourth was complaining about a noise and vibration when driving on the highway.
There was nothing wrong with any of those four cars, the "problems" amounted to the vehicle owners difficulty in dealing with the complexity, and capability of the technology. The first one was that the owner didn't un-pair his older phone. That must be done for the system to learn the new one. The I-pad problem was the result of the owner crushing the cable for the I-pad in the armrest. A substituted cable worked just fine. The third was normal operation of the system at start-up. The lamp flashes during initialization as it performs self tests. The fourth was the real head shaker, it was the haptic seat alerting the driver that she was following the car in front of her too closely.
Each of these problems took time to get the work order, research the issue, attach and use the scan tool as appropriate, communicate with the owners when the systems had no codes or faulty data to give the tech a direction. This even included road testing when it was required in order to get the symptoms to occur. All told these four cars ate up about 1.5 hours of time. "J" is a flat rate technician and got paid "0" hours for these cars because there was nothing wrong that was the fault of the manufacturer.
"J' added another response to the thread. Later that same day another customer reported that the power hatch didn't open fully. The control switch was set to 3/4, the customer didn't know what the switch did. That was another zero on his time ticket for the day.
This is apparently getting to be more common every day that the techs time is being lost like this. For now "J" is fast enough to overcome this lost time and still produce productive days, but that's not how its supposed to work. Every tech is getting their share of these losers and in some cases it serves to force the tech out of the shop whether its the techs choice because of the demoralizing aspect of this or from the dealers because the tech can't turn enough profitable hours from what-ever good work they also get assigned.
http://www4.ncsu.edu/~mtmorris/index3.html
Back when I did a little computer consulting on the side, I drove across town to look at someone's dead monitor. Turns out she had moved her desk across the room and had managed to turn the contrast knob all the way to "off".
And no, I didn't charge for that one either.
Automakers are generally pretty mediocre (at best) at ground-up computer interface design. They should have Apple or Google do it for them.
I was the employee so it was easy. I think wage and hour would have something to say if I required my employees to do free work.
Which begs the question of why do so many dealer techs put up with that?
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-2021 Sahara 4xe-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
It's sad, really. Not that they didn't "know" instantly what to do, but that they couldn't figure it out.
1. Go to glovebox
2. Extract owner's manual
3. Read index
4. Go to "starting"
5. Be on your way
Time investment? Maybe 2 minutes.
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-2021 Sahara 4xe-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
When I left the business, it was hard enough but I would have to think it would take at LEAST an hour to explain all of the new technology. That's an hour on a busy Saturday for a slaesperson on straight commission.
And the pressure to have top survey scores is even more intense now than ever!
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-2021 Sahara 4xe-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79TwUea8E4I
Arg - did you see the guy in the red shirt sneeze into the cylinder head?
P0137 B1S2 (bank 1 sensor 2) low voltage.
Can you see the failure(s) in the data? What is wrong with the car?
BTW. This is an example of what the computer is seeing when it generates a code. I'll add more detail later, or if someone has a specific request. The little arrow at the bottom of each capture is showing which frame of the data is represented by the digital values above the graphs.
I can't go a day without seeing at least one Tesla and I've seen as many as four in a day and I'm not looking hard.
Must be those Microsoft/Amazon/Costco people with nothing else to spend their money on.
I doubt if there are many in South Dakota!
A majority of them, I suspect, in states with big incentives or folks wanting to be on the cutting edge.
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2015 Subaru Outback 3.6R / 2014 MINI Countryman S ALL4
The short term fuel trim in red,
The long term fuel trim in green,
The upstream O2 sensor in dark blue,
The downstream sensor in light blue,
The upstream O2 sensor heater current as measured by the PCM in purple,
The downstream O2 sensor heater current in yellow.
If you open the captures in a picture viewer, you can zoom in and examine each of the traces more closely than you can here in the forum.
In order to diagnose any failure you have to understand the basics of the system in question. That is what these six traces represent, just the basics of the O2 sensor operation and fuel trim as associated to that input. In order to have the O2 sensors output an accurate signal, they have to be in the correct temperature range and that's what the heaters are for.
The first clue that something is really wrong with the values in the captures is the short term trim changes. The less that short term trim has to move in order to get the upstream O2 sensor to switch from rich to lean and back the better, in fact it should be around 6% total at the most. In the captures the short term trim moves from a positive 17% correction to a negative 13% correction repeatedly, that's a total of 30% fuel trim variation and easily enough to cause a noticeable change in the engines operating characteristics. The question then becomes why is it doing that. Is the sensor bad? If you google the associated trouble code mentioned you will find no shortage of advice that will tell you to replace the sensor. But is it really bad?
Now look at the trace that represents the upstream O2 sensor heater current. See the spikes that are going up to two amps of current and then all the way back down to zero? There is a problem with the heater circuit and the sensor is too cold to work correctly. That could be a problem that is inside or outside of the sensor and you have to test and prove which is the case this time.
What tools do you need, and what testing routine(s) do you need to utilize in order to identify the exact cause of this failure?
It is OK to admit that you don't know how to proceed if that is the case, but realize this is a very simple failure and just think about what that means the potential is for the really tough ones.
Doc, I have no idea how to read that data or what any of those things mean. If I stare at it long enough (which was about 120 seconds), the pink and red lines look weird and inconsistent to me. That's all I got.
Edit: Doc's above post got in just before mine. Sounds like I was at least looking at the correct lines.
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '08 Charger R/T Daytona; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '08 Maser QP; '11 Mini Cooper S
BTW the really tough ones can be dozens of pieces of data and include both engine as well as transmission inputs and outputs.