Car Update
The Passat's check engine light went off. Though our mechanic had told us that the computer would snitch that there had been a fault of some kind, Sue nevertheless took it to a nearby Jiffylube to do the inspection. Sure enough, it passed. So much for modern technology.
So, now we can shop for a new car more leisurely, without worrying that NCDOT would come after us for missing the deadline on our safety inspection. I hope, however, that we won't totally lose momentum on the car search until the thing actually dies. Meanwhile, the radiator is slowly leaking fluid.
posted by Chris @ 4:49 PM
2 Comments:
The engine light on our 2001 Prizm likes to annoy us when the car is feeling a bit snooty about the gas we've put into the tank. (It went on a lot on our car trip out west, where the "regular"-grade gas has lower octane because of the altitude). We were rather taken aback the first time it happened, but when we checked the owner's manual, it reassured us that a steady engine light simply meant that we should switch gas brands, which would fix the problem after one to two full tanks had been expended. A blinking engine light, however, meant real engine trouble.
Call me difficult, but I really think that there are better ways for engineers to help the end user distinguish between real engine trouble and mere -- er, indigestion. My husband has worked in human-factors design, and both of us have been radicalized about this kind of thing. Someone deserves a nasty phone call over that one -- preferably at a really bad time, to approximate the stress we felt when it went on while we were driving on a near-deserted stretch of interstate in South Dakota.
I think this ties into the previous discussion about why does it cost so much for the High Priest Auto Mechanic to read the bones and tell you what your car computer has to say.
The Automotive-Industrial Complex evidently has some interest in keeping things opaque to the end user.
Maybe someone needs to build the Open Source Car.
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