Some folks are just not educable–at least on the topic of how their cars work.
A lot of the problem can be traced to wretched human interface design. For whatever reason, the guys (they are almost all male) who design cars, electronic stuff, etc are enamored with cute, but usually incomprehensible, icons instead of words. Never mind that almost everyone on the planet who has access to a car at this point has a few hundred words of English and/or Chinese and that by the end of the century, probably most of the human race will be able to get by in either of those languages and quite possibly a third, our machines communicate in pictograms that hardly anyone understands.
one more post to support my idea that the dang car should talk to the owner in words out loud to tell them exacltly what the problem is. such as “help help, my tire pressure is low. danger danger bill robinson,” and wave its arms around in a wild but robotic kind of a way.
As long as it doesn’t call them on their cell phones…
Actually, these past few years I’ve become an advocate of cars using an LCD display to tell the driver when an issue is at hand. Rather than light a light and then require a code reader to read a code, there’s no reason a display couldn’t say “Manifold Absolute Pressure/Barometric Pressure Circuit High Input” ot whatever.
Calling a tow truck may be better than half the posts we get on here saying their oil light came on, they checked the fluid level and it was OK, but all wondered why their car died shortly after they started it back up
I totally agree that the days we have to tell people to “go get the code read at Auto Zone” (or any where else) should be over with. Does anyone have a theory why ODBII codes are presented so crypticaly and why a car owner should not have easier access to a translation for a check engine light? I never have figured it out why it has been made so hard on the general public to deal with codes.
I think you hit the nail on the head, VDCdriver! We saw something similar in the last few decades, when they replaced all the “Walk” and “Don’t Walk” lights at pedestrian crossings with the “Red Hand” and the “White Stick Figure”. On a humorous note, I remember when those first started appearing in my city, my father said it was because the schools could no longer teach children to read, and it was cheaper to change all the signs than it was to fix the schools.
I have a theory. They want to present it cryptically because they want you to bring it back to (the dealer) for service. If you can figure it out yourself and install the part, they lose that service revenue stream. Every owners manual I’ve ever read has some version of the phrase “bring your [name of car] to your authorized [name of car] dealer for service” plastered on nearly every other page.
I think “tsm’s” suggestion for an LCD display is EXCELLENT! And it would cut out a lot of fraud and mechanics working on commission replacing unnecessary parts too. As it stands, with the generic “check engine” light, most people are at the mercy of the garage, unless you have an honest mechanic you really trust, and even then, you’re never really 100% sure they aren’t padding the bill just a little.
Not a big deal at all. It takes time for new ideas to catch on and things related. Not all cars have this so when a person gets a car with a tps lamp its new to them. I have one vehicle with and one without.
Here is an example although not vehicle related…when indoor plumbing was first being installed in rural areas the old timers resisted since they believed it was nasty to have a toilet inside the home.
It’s not just those guys. I was out in Colorado, and there was this weird picture on a yellow sign on the side of the road. It took me 4 of them to figure out it was a falling rock. What’s wrong with “Falling Rock”? Even if you can’t read, you can learn of figure out 2 words.
A very large percentage who have not had the light come on? That would imply that either most tires don’t fluctuate or most drivers regularly check their pressure. (Or many drivers just regularly punch that button and reset the reference point.)
Well, they have (depending on the model) several to dozens to (in the near future) hundreds of computers in them to do all sorts of different things. Why not add some sort of human interface?
Here is what I found on the internet: The Firestone recall in the United States in the late 1990s which was attributed to more than 100 deaths from rollovers following a tire tread-separation, pushed the Clinton administration to publish the TREAD Act. This act mandates the use of a suitable TPM technology in order to alert drivers of a severe under-inflation condition of their tires. This act affects all light motor vehicles (under 10,000 pounds) sold after September 1, 2007.
I was thinking it looked kinda like the light that flashes when I’ve been sliding around in the snow, indicating a wheel is slipping and traction control is working. Only difference is this is just a cross-section instead of a whole wheel like I’m used to.
Couldn’t they just print little letters that say “CHECK TIRE PRESSURE” so it’s absolutely clear? Our Mercury has plain text like that for the air-suspention when we shut it off to go on a lift, as well as speed control, and overdrive off – no guessing what it means then.
My grandparents had a Chrysler New Yorker (later 80’s I think) 4 cyl turbo and it would speak out loud through the radio…“A door is a jar” (made me laugh before I understood it), “Your coolent is low”, “Your engine is overheating”, “Your oil pressure is low”, “Your fuel is low”, and my all time favoriate as they put it in gear to pull out of the driveway it would say “Please fasten your seat-belt!” and when the driver did it replied “Thank you.”
I remember as a kid I thought that was the coolest thing because there was a button that my grandfather could push on the doorframe and it would do a test of everything the car could say.
Can’t recall but it may have even had one for “Your tire pressure is low” even back then; I remember we had a 80’s Pontiac that had a picture of a car where it lit up problems it even lit up an icon when a light burned out which one.
Part of the problem is mechanics pull codes and randomly replace stuff instead of testing the system that threw the code. We had one time a locking gas cap plus a improperly replaced fuel filter threw the code “Bank A lean” or something like that. Go figure.
LCD could be good though, when the oil light comes on it could flash “LOW OIL PRESSURE – STOP SAFELY NOW” or “LOW OIL PRESSURE – PULL OVER IMMEDIATELY” to clear up any doubt. And it could be programmed for any number of languages.