How the auto industry can mess up simple things...

[Mus408]

I'm sure all of you remember the plain and simple door jamb button that would just shut off the dome light when the door was closed. Located in an easy to get to place if it needed replacement why would you want to move it to a most difficult place in the name of automotive advancement?

In the case of our 2011 Ford Edge...we get the "door ajar" warning now even though the drivers door is shut. To replace the switch,which used to be a simple thing for cars of years ago,now requires taking the whole darn door apart and even removing the side window glass from it's track because the switch is part of the door latch!

If you have patience of steel you can replace it yourself or pay the local dealer 400-600 bucks and in our case the car has 5 of those door switches!

 

[gramps]

Hmmm, my 2013 Ford Focus had a callback repair for that. Might check and see if yours does too.
gramps

 

[Mus408]

I will check into that...thanks!

 

[any ruger]

My 63 merc still teases me that way once in awhile the dome stays on a shot of silicone spray cures it for about a year.

 

[RSIno1]

You better hope it's the switch. Ford has an electronic box that all these feed through. On our Escape all the switches are good - it's the electronics. $400 for the part which has to be programed for the options on the car before it's installed which means dealer install only for another couple hundred. My fix I unsoldered the door ajar led and buzzer from the dash panel.

 

[blume357]

I like Fords but have to agree.... our Flex's AC went out last Fall... I thought it might be a fuse... a normal person can not get to the fuse box it is up above the steering wheel column behind the dash board. Somebody somewhere, might have been here, said there were something like 86 sensors in the average car now to tell you if something was wrong and half the time its just a bad sensor.

 

[Dan in MI]

The industry is held hostage by the gov't.

Your simple switch of days gone by? Well it weighs X amount and the additional wiring for that switch weighs Y amount. X+Y = xx grams. Times four doors. Replace all that weight with a micro switch and common bus wiring and you end up with .05 MPG somehow down the line. Repeat anywhere possible.

Shave some weight here to save MPG, add it back in over there for some new safety requirement and now you have to shave more weight somewhere else. And so it goes....


Regarding sensors. 86 sounds waaaaaayyyy light. For grins I did a quick check on a 4 cyl engine. 35 INPUT sensors without actually digging for the weird named ones. I'm sure 86 is probably only about 1/3.

 

[toysoldier]

I refer to today's vehicles as "nanny cars." The "low tire pressure" lite on my Tacoma has been on for a couple of years now. I just ignore it. If I had the money to spare, I'd buy an old magneto-ignition John Deere tractor, just to have something that will work, even after an EMP attack, when all the built-in computers get fried.

 

[redhawker]

Although I have a couple newer vehicles the computer systems in these things kind of scare me. Everything is connected through them. The lights, the seatbelt alarm, the radio, the fuel system and whatever else you can thing of. I'm afraid to do much to a car or truck any more. Normally I pass on the extended warranties but I went back, after about a year, and bought one for both of them. Just afraid all this electronic crap will be a problem if I tried to do it myself.

 

[Rick Courtright]

Your simple switch of days gone by? Well it weighs X amount and the additional wiring for that switch weighs Y amount. X+Y = xx grams. Times four doors. Replace all that weight with a micro switch and common bus wiring and you end up with .05 MPG somehow down the line. Repeat anywhere possible.

Hi,

Then crank the HP in that engine up to around 350, to move people who used to weigh a trim 155 lbs but now tip the scales blobbed out at 225, and we're right back where we started from! This saving tenths of ounces on the vehicle to reduce fuel consumption's a bigger scam than the climate change stuff's turned into... reminds me of some of the well fed "weight weinies" from my early backpacking days. They'd done at least as much work and were just as tired at the top of the hill as those of us carrying a bit more, but on lighter chassis. Physics is a tough master.

Rick C

 

[Fox Mike]

I refer to today's vehicles as "nanny cars." The "low tire pressure" lite on my Tacoma has been on for a couple of years now. I just ignore it. If I had the money to spare, I'd buy an old magneto-ignition John Deere tractor, just to have something that will work, even after an EMP attack, when all the built-in computers get fried.

I hit a curb and blew out the left front tire. (more on that later). When I installed the 'donut' spare not only the ' low pressure' light illuminated but another 'warning' was also flashing. Drove it two days with them telling me what I already knew.

 

[GunnyGene]

"New and Improved" isn't just for laundry detergent and snack food. It's a proven marketing strategy. :roll: :lol:

 

[6GUNSONLY]

"New and Improved" is great... till it breaks, and you can't fix it.

 

[Boxhead]

And today's vehicles run +200K miles easy and folks Rosie O'Donnell.

 

[Rick Courtright]

And today's vehicles run +200K miles easy and folks Rosie O’Donnell.

Hi,

Correction: the mechanicals do, the electronics are a different world. Especially when you burn out a $2 light bulb in a tail light and it costs $280 for the entire assembly (buddy's M-B a couple of years ago.) Bulb not a replacement item. That kind of engineering should earn a horsewhipping.

Rick C

 

[Scout943]

Gotta love today's techknolgeny ,its newer so it must be better yes ? NOPE ! :roll: :roll: :roll:

 

[Dan in MI]

Gotta love today's techknolgeny ,its newer so it must be better yes ? NOPE ! :roll: :roll: :roll:

Don't even get me started on THAT path. :evil:

 

[GunnyGene]

Gotta love today's techknolgeny ,its newer so it must be better yes ? NOPE ! :roll: :roll: :roll:

Don't even get me started on THAT path. :evil:

Too late! :lol:

 

[SAJohn]

The mandated MPG and smog requirements had the unintended effect of significantly increasing the lifetime of our cars with the exception of pickup trucks. My 1975 F-150 with a straight 6 300 cubic inch engine cost about $3K brand new (about $10K in todays dollars). It is still going strong after maybe 300,000 miles. Pickups were built with heavy duty parts and no thoughts to MPG nor smog in those days. Cruise control, A/C, power windows, power door locks, and computers where unheard of in most pickups. Even automatic transmissions were relatively rare. EMP does not scare my truck.

 

[Dienekes]

Bought a 50 cc scooter about a year ago for giggles. The wiring diagram on THAT is probably worse than on my first pickup.

Sure is fun when I pump a gallon of gas into it and then run all around for two weeks though.

 

[Chuckfish]

For these reasons and more I keep rebuilding my 96 Chevy truck.

 

[Jeepnik]

You need to understand, it isn't the industry as a whole.

The fellow who builds the car, or repairs the car aren't responsible, but they are part of that industry.

The fault of poor design falls directly upon the engineers that design them. Sadly, like many engineers they are so caught up in changes they can make, they don't stop to think if they should make the change.

Then too, some young engineers eventually learn a bit of common sense. But again, sadly, too many never do.

 

[exavid]

Just remembering those push button switch in the door frame of the older cars makes me think of the guys in high school. Some of us would cut a small strip of steel and screw one end next to the button. That way you could push down the button and twist the strip over the button. The purpose was so the dome light wouldn't come on when you opened the door. The idea was to keep it dark on lover's lane when the door opened.

 

[#1rugerman]

We had a early jeep Cherokee, to replace the headlight bulb on the passenger side you had to remove the battery and the lug wrench that came with the vehicle would not fit the lug nuts!

 

[Rick Courtright]

We had a early jeep Cherokee, to replace the headlight bulb on the passenger side you had to remove the battery and the lug wrench that came with the vehicle would not fit the lug nuts!

Hi,

Did you try that lug wrench on all four wheels? My ol' gunsmith boss loved those original "big" Jeep wagons, and his mechanic absolutely hated anything from Jeep. He swore up and down no two of them matched when it came to part numbers or stuff on the right side corresponding to stuff on the left! One day he even said he wouldn't be surprised to see a Jeep come off the line painted red on one side and green on the other...

Rick C

 

[Colonialgirl]

And then there was the Chrysler products where you had to remove one of the front tires to reach the battery.

 

[Cape Cod Terry]

Mechanics used to say AMC, the former owner of Jeep, stood for All Makes Combined. They used to mix match parts from numerous companies.

Cape Cod Terry

 

[redhawker]

In the late 70's, I believe, Chevy had a small car that was called the Monza. There was an available v8 engine option for them and I heard that they wedged that engine in their small engine compartment so tight that, when doing a tune up, to get to the back two spark plugs on the engine block required that the engine mounts be loosened and the engine jacked or hoisted up a few inches to be able to get access to those plugs.

 

[bearman49709]

And then there was the Chrysler products where you had to remove one of the front tires to reach the battery.

How about my 1968 Buick Skylark, you had to loosen the bumper mounting bolts and let the bumper drop down in order to change the headlight and they didn't last long back then.

 

[Jimbo357mag]

I love 40's era technology where everything was analog and built to last. Problem was it didn't last forever.

I also like the technology of today that gives us integrated electronic control systems in our cars that reduce pollution, extends our mileage and engine life, creature comforts, and such.

btw - I also have one of those dome light problems that just won't go away.