{"id":469,"date":"2005-08-06T19:57:54","date_gmt":"2005-08-06T18:57:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.piglet-net.net\/pigblog\/?p=469"},"modified":"2005-08-07T20:25:01","modified_gmt":"2005-08-07T19:25:01","slug":"the-electronics-fallacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.piglet-net.net\/pigblog\/?p=469","title":{"rendered":"The electronics fallacy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I spent some of today* servicing my car. My car is fairly modern (1999), and *loaded* with sensors and ECUs.<\/p>\n<p>Despite this, I was perfectly able to service it.<\/p>\n<p>This made me think of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.piglet-net.net\/pigblog\/?p=411\">this post<\/a>, or more specifically the comment:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nThey decided to put chips in them and everyone got scared.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The thing is, there&#8217;s no reasson to be scared. All the developments have made things easier, at least for routine work. Take a mini. (A proper mini, not the BMW thing) One from say, 1980. Do the manufacturer&#8217;s service on it, and repeat every 6000 miles. Don&#8217;t forget your grease gun (hah! hardly anyone knows what one is these days!), a dwell meter, a timing light, feeler guages etc. Revel in adjusting points and valve clearances. This will take you a long time. It&#8217;s not hard, but there&#8217;s a lot to do.<\/p>\n<p>Now contrast with a modern car. Change oil, change filters, check a few bits and pieces.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m only picking on the mini here because it&#8217;s the polar opposite of today&#8217;s cars. Designed in the fifties, still going (just) in 2000. I&#8217;m not suggesting the mini is inferior, just very very different.<\/p>\n<p>This argument goes the other way when the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.piglet-net.net\/pigblog\/?p=110\">fancy engine ECU goes mad<\/a> though, and you need <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.co.uk\/url?sa=t&#038;ct=res&#038;cd=2&#038;url=http%3A\/\/www.ross-tech.com\/vag-com\/&#038;ei=VVz2Qq6iOJuCRbjFzO4N\">several hundred pounds worth<\/a> of equipment to get a fault code out of it. Any halfway-decent (or even mediocre) spanner-monkey can fix the 1980 mini- it&#8217;s all very basic, proven stuff.<\/p>\n<p>*actually, yesterday, as I&#8217;m <em>really<\/em> typing this on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I spent some of today* servicing my car. My car is fairly modern (1999), and *loaded* with sensors and ECUs. Despite this, I was perfectly able to service it. This made me think of this post, or more specifically the comment: They decided to put chips in them and everyone got scared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cars-driving"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.piglet-net.net\/pigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.piglet-net.net\/pigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.piglet-net.net\/pigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.piglet-net.net\/pigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.piglet-net.net\/pigblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.piglet-net.net\/pigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.piglet-net.net\/pigblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.piglet-net.net\/pigblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.piglet-net.net\/pigblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}