Scott Dorsey

SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote:
>Scott Dorsey wrote:
>> Cliff <Clhuprich@aol.com> wrote:
>>> On 14 May 2009 10:09:08 -0400, kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote:
>>>
>>>> Secondly, and more importantly, by the time the light comes on or the alarm
>>>> goes off, it's often too late and the damage is done.
>>> IIRC Most of those engine temp sensors read coolant temp ....
>>> so if you lost the coolant ...
>>
>> Depends on the car... some shoot up and some drop down abnormally low.
>> Either way, if you're watching the gauge for trends you can see something
>> wrong. Maybe not in time, but your chances are better.
>
>And of course the computer could easily be programmed to watch the
>temperatures and pressures for trends and sound an alert when an
>abnormal trend occurs. It doesn't have to wait until the temperature or
>pressure reaches a catastrophically high (or low) level.

I believe that BMW is talking about doing just that.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Nate Nagel

Scott Dorsey wrote:
> SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote:
>> Scott Dorsey wrote:
>>> Cliff <Clhuprich@aol.com> wrote:
>>>> On 14 May 2009 10:09:08 -0400, kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Secondly, and more importantly, by the time the light comes on or the alarm
>>>>> goes off, it's often too late and the damage is done.
>>>> IIRC Most of those engine temp sensors read coolant temp ....
>>>> so if you lost the coolant ...
>>> Depends on the car... some shoot up and some drop down abnormally low.
>>> Either way, if you're watching the gauge for trends you can see something
>>> wrong. Maybe not in time, but your chances are better.
>> And of course the computer could easily be programmed to watch the
>> temperatures and pressures for trends and sound an alert when an
>> abnormal trend occurs. It doesn't have to wait until the temperature or
>> pressure reaches a catastrophically high (or low) level.
>
> I believe that BMW is talking about doing just that.
> --scott
>

or you could just have a low coolant indicator combined with a
temperature gauge... at least my old ('86) BMW had it; I know this
because I had to clean the sensor to get the stupid light to shut off,
and the foul goo that dripped off it when I removed it ruined a good
pair of jeans

nate

--
replace "roosters" with "***" to reply.
http://members.***.net/njnagel

SMS

Nate Nagel wrote:

> or you could just have a low coolant indicator combined with a
> temperature gauge... at least my old ('86) BMW had it; I know this
> because I had to clean the sensor to get the stupid light to shut off,
> and the foul goo that dripped off it when I removed it ruined a good
> pair of jeans

That's another problem with too many sensors, or poorly designed
sensors. When you look for trends, the computer can reject outliers that
are due to sensor errors, EMI, etc..

I could tell you stories about poorly designed thermal diodes embedded
inside microprocessors, and the elaborate software that had to be
employed to reject bogus readings (which were most of the readings).

me

On Sat, 16 May 2009 04:18:15 -0400, Cliff <Clhuprich@aol.com> wrote:

> I have a heads-up display too.
> Very nice. Took about 5 seconds to get used to.
> Anything else is now hard <g>.
>--
>Cliff

I like them in airplanes. Then again, I've never had a rabbit fly
across in front of my airplane and there wouldn't be much I could do
if one did. In a car you need a clear visual view of the road at all
times. I don't like them there.

Scott Dorsey

me <noemail@nothere.com> wrote:
>I like them in airplanes. Then again, I've never had a rabbit fly
>across in front of my airplane and there wouldn't be much I could do
>if one did. In a car you need a clear visual view of the road at all
>times. I don't like them there.

You should come down here... we have a regular call of "hold on 16L for
deer on the runway."
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Cliff

On Sun, 17 May 2009 13:04:56 -0400, me <noemail@nothere.com> wrote:

>On Sat, 16 May 2009 04:18:15 -0400, Cliff <Clhuprich@aol.com> wrote:
>
>> I have a heads-up display too.
>> Very nice. Took about 5 seconds to get used to.
>> Anything else is now hard <g>.
>>--
>>Cliff
>
>I like them in airplanes. Then again, I've never had a rabbit fly
>across in front of my airplane and there wouldn't be much I could do
>if one did. In a car you need a clear visual view of the road at all
>times. I don't like them there.

It's not a problem at all. Just focus. At least with mine.
--
Cliff

Steve

Hachiroku ăƒ�ăƒ�ăƒă‚¯ wrote:

>> FFS, that's less than the recommended service interval on most new cars
>> over here... You 'merkins and your outdated obsession with changing the
>> oil every ten minutes.
>
>
> WHAT?!?!?!
>
> I don't let Dino oil go more than 5K! I change my synthetic at 4.5K.

OIL WASTER!!! ;-)

Actually, 5k is probably about the max I would use a conventional oil
other than a heavy-duty engine oil. Conventional gasoline engine oils
just don't have enough acid neutralization ability to go much longer.

Synthetics, different story. I just had an oil analysis done on my Jeep
4.0 with 5000 miles on the oil. I was using Rotella T synthetic, and the
TBN (a measure of the oil's ability to neutralize acids) was still
around 5.0, which is comparable to many conventional passenger car oils
have right out of the bottle. There was no reason to change that oil
before somewhere around 9000 miles.

>
> Works for me. Last three cars all had well over 250,000 on them.

We just sold my wife's 1993 Chrysler (3.5L v6) with 260k, the engine was
running like new. I had the valve covers off at about 230,000 miles to
replace gaskets, and it looked clean as new inside. It had oil changes
between 7000 and 9000 miles most of its life. Mobil 1 10w30 all its life.

Now, I would NOT do that with an engine known to be very hard on oil
like the Chrysler 2.7 or the various Toyotas with sludging problems, but
anything else... sure.

You can read all sorts of oil analysis reports online at:

http://bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubb...Board=3&page=1

It might take a while to get to fully understand what the numbers mean,
but any time you see the TBN above ~2.0 and there are no excessive
silicates or wear metals, the oil is still good to be used.

Steve

SMS wrote:

>
> A lot of the reliability stories for Japanese cars are not because
> they're more reliable under normal operating conditions with all
> scheduled service performed promptly, it's because they're able to
> better withstand owners that abuse them.


My experience is just the opposite. Under average use, they purr like
little toasters, but the Japanese affinity for open-deck aluminum blocks
means that you get a puddle of useless slag after an overheat. In
contrast, you can push an iron-block/head American v8 until any oil
deposits on the outside of the block burst into flame (been there, seen
that on a friend's old 80s Buick), but let it cool down, fix the leak,
and top it off with coolant and you'd never know anything happened.


Of course today, engine management systems will pretty much protect any
engine by alternately disabling cylinders and letting the air flow
through the engine keep things under some degree of control. IIRC, the
first year of the Cadillac Northstar was the first engine with a "30 mph
with no coolant" capability, and they're aluminum.

Steve

SMS wrote:
> Nate Nagel wrote:

> Almost like you could identify Chrysler products from the unique sound
> of the starter.

Well... not since 1989 when they switched to the same Nippondenso
starter as Toyota.


Its fun to watch old 70s TV shows and hear the Hollywood stock Chrysler
starter audio whenever someone starts up a Pontiac.... :-p

Steve

SMS wrote:
> me wrote:
>> On Wed, 13 May 2009 16:36:19 -0500, Vic Smith
>> <thismailautodeleted@comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Again, you offer no specifics. Might as well be Joe Schmoe talking in
>>> the lottery ticket line. And there are well-known instances of
>>> sludging and head gasket failures of specific and common Toyota
>>> engines, most likely caused by lax fluid maintenance causing exactly
>>> the failures you're speaking of.
>>
>> While lax maintenance certainly didn't help with the Toyota problems,
>> that was clearly not the basic issue.
>
> This is true. Many people with lax maintenance didn't experience the
> sludge problem, while many people that did proper maintenance did have it.


And furthermore, other engines tolerated equal abuse without problems.
There was much more to that than simply "bad maintenance," even if bad
maintenance might have contributed to the problem in some cases.

Steve

SMS wrote:
> Nate Nagel wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>> A car made for an intelligent driver will have a gauge instead of (or
>> in addition to) an idiot light, so that the driver can see that the
>> engine is running 20 degrees hotter than normal and will have a chance
>> to rectify the issue before it becomes critical.
>
> I think they should have a gauge, a light, and an audible warning.


You mean like my wife's 1993 Chrysler had?

When a gauge went out of range, the chime "binged" and a "check gauges"
light illuminated. Don't ALL cars have that now?

me

On Mon, 18 May 2009 12:20:01 -0500, Steve <no@spam.thanks> wrote:

>SMS wrote:
>> Nate Nagel wrote:
>
>> Almost like you could identify Chrysler products from the unique sound
>> of the starter.
>
>Well... not since 1989 when they switched to the same Nippondenso
>starter as Toyota.
>

Funny, I was listening to a Toyota start up just a couple days ago and
I thought to myself "that's about as close as you get to a vintage
Chrysler straight 6 start up as I've heard in years". It even had a
bit of the "rattle down" you'd hear as the Chrysler oiled up.