You told mondail he missed the main points of the article but the article has very little information so if you have more information post it so we can all have the main points.
Or are you going to intentionally withold information like in a previous thread?
We will let mondail ask for himself.
Where in the Motor Magazine article does it state that it will be a few years before this is installed in cars? The article gives no time frame for implementation nor does it state how far along the research even is.
Why do you interpet my comment to Triedag has anything to do with the Coni-seal program? It is regards to what kind of “notifications” he wants to see on his dash.
You said it was a press release, those are your own words. If it was a press release it should be available to everyone, please provide the link.
If it isn’t, what was the point of your comment? You implied that it will be implemented in a few years.
I don’t need to explain squat to you.
The system is already up and running with military equipment. Something is driving the trust in human diagnostic ability away in this area just like it did with the ability (or willingness) in regards to the mechanic having control over the parameters that govern how the engine performs. I truly believe these systems are the future (and for the masses) just like the car that drives itself will one day become a reality, how do you like that one for decision making?
I think railroad cars now have sensors that detect hot boxes and relay this information to the engineer. This technology has been around for quite a while. In the earlier days, the crew in the caboose watched cars on the train for problems. When I rode passenger trains, an inspector would examine the bearing box on each wheel of every coach. I remember at night these inspectors would have a flashlight and look at the wheels. I can understand the use of the sensors on trains where there are many wheels and obviously the engineer can’t hear noises in the bearings. However, my car only has four wheels and I can hear a rough bearing inside the car.
I suppose this system is o.k. What does bother me on my 2011 Sienna is that I have all these warning lights, but no gauge for the rate at which the battery is being charged or how much oil pressure is being pumped through the bearings. I remember looking at the gauges in 1949 Dodge that we had when I was a kid. My Dad explained to me the purpose of each gauge. On one trip when I was in 6th grade, I noticed that the ammeter gauge was at the top of the scale. I pointed this out to my Dad. The next day, the car wouldn’t turn over. Apparently, the battery had a shorted cell and this was causing the generator to run at full charge. On another trip, I noticed the oil pressure gauge was much lower than where it normally read. I pointed this out and my Dad immediately pulled into a filling station. The car was more than 2 quarts low on oil. For being observant, I had an extra quarter in my allowance for the week. Warning lights don’t pick up when the alternator is running at full charge, or when the oil pressure may be low, but just high enough not to trigger the oil pressure light.
I’m not against progress, but let’s not take two steps backward for every step forward. A status report is o.k., but for me I would like to be able to monitor important functions of the engine instantly.
Sure these two companies are looking to create a market for their product and that product is peace of mind for the driver. I view the project as a way to use todays communication capabilities to keep people informed of what’s going on with their car. Allthough it is not mentioned how a report from the system that part “a” is operating out of design tolerances and this report turns out to be erroroneous I would think that some double checking of the report would be advisable.
Myself I welcome any help in locating strange noises that the car is producing. I can remember very well spending many unpaid hours with the “chassis ear” looking for an intermittent “click” or “pop” from the body. The big one I remember spending alot of time on was the uni-body weld failing on the e-46 BMW. That was a really tough problem to duplicate and find. Perhaps this kind of system could be adapted to aid these type of searches.
I certainly don’t see such great technical difficulity in using the stytem to report all the parameters that a current scanner does. It would be something like always having a event data recorder always hooked up and recording. Engine and charging system parameters like Triedaq are monitored right now it is just that the information does not make it to the driver and I do not know why this is so.
With new BMW’s as soon as you hook the car up to the scanner a “library” of data is sent to BMW "headquarters’ in New Jersey. It is not at all uncommon for the personel looking over the download to know quite a bit more about what is going on with the car than the tech because they get a more complete story than the tech. Perhaps this is done to prevent information overload that would make the job harder for the tech rather than easier.
Up until I left BMW we always had to manualy look for TSB’s, I would like the system improved so as that this information was just another field on a scanner to look at. I really think there is much room for improvement in regards to getting information to both the tech and the car owner and I see this Coni-seal program as a step in this direction.
Sounds like this complex system of sensors and fault prediction is itself just one more thing to worry about breaking and needing to fix.
Let me relate a story about not believing what a device tells you. Twentyish years ago VW came out with a test instrument that was provided to the dealers, for 4 figure price tag. It would provide all engine info and even had a probe for the magnetic timing receptacle and would display the timing on the digital readout.
As the VW rep showed us how to connect it, etc. this brought up the question from myself and a few others; “how do you KNOW that timing readout is correct?” The answer was “it’s fail safe”.
So, a few days later a tech uses this on a VW getting a 30k miles service. Car leaves and 2 weeks later the VW rep drops in to tell us this car suffered a catastrophic engine explosion and had been towed to another VW dealer about 30 miles away. Upon teardown it was determined the static timing was 30 degrees advanced. Ouch, and then some.
The car had been driven after the service around town only but once upon the open road the excessive advance had knocked a few pistons and gouged the cylinder walls within 25 miles.
Since I knew guys at the other dealer, including the one who tore it apart, I believed the timing theory. I also knew the guy who did the service and knew there was no way that he screwed up this bad.
So as shop foreman I went round and round a bit with the VW rep over this issue as the rep was applying a lot of pressure to us to cover this repair.
Eventually we brought a VW demonstrator into the shop and connected the machine along with dragging out a timing light.
The machine showed that when the timing was manually advanced a lot the readout on the display was showing that the timing was near dead-on. Needless to say, both myself and the mechanics standing around watching this refused to use this thing again. Ever.
Still, the VW rep would not admit to a problem with it and disgustedly stalked off without saying another word when this test was performed several times in front of him, with the readout being nowhere near what the reality was.
If something comparatively crude as this is not to be believed then why should anyone believe something far more high tech and touchy?
No reason to believe it would be any less reliable that the electronics that are running and keeping watch over things currently,every reason to expect an upgrade in reliability as electronic systems have evolved since 1995. Take a look at just the physical construction and wiring techniques used in 1995 (the year OBD II was introduced) and look at these same components on a car of today.
Waste of money and will never be implemented…Hello, dont you think that maybe the brain-trusts of the Big Three, the engineers from Toyota and Nissan or the any of the engineers from BMW,Mercedes,or Jaguar have not thought of this type of system already??? Lets spend some cash in places like, better quality in materials… The military is using this type of stuff because there likely protecting airplane engines that probably costs a half million dollars and will cause a plane to fall out of the sky. Thats far from a twenty five thousand dollar car that like mentioned before will ultimately be ignored until it fails anyway.
Coni-Seal is broke and haven’t paid their bills all year.
Are you using this argument to dispute the validity of the information presented by Coni-seal? that would be the “abusive ad-hominem” fallacy. Arguments that call into question the character of the person are fine in court, but they do not prove anything here.