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Post by the light works on Dec 7, 2012 15:28:31 GMT
There is a small Mercedes floating about that is known for having a headlight unit that requires removal of part of the front of the car to get to... its a mechanics nightmare, as it can be a hour-and-a-half job to change the bulb, and can cost the customer up to £100 (or more) to do?... Merc say that with the "Long lasting" LED lights they use the lights should last a "Lifetime".... WHO's Lifetime?... the bulb or the car or the owner?.... From experience... "You have a brake light out sir?.. I am pulling you over to tell you this, it is not in its own right a ticket-able offence unless I see you again in the next week and you havnt changed it... We give you some slack with Brake lights as no one yet has managed to put their foot on the brake then get round the back to check it before the light goes out?....." (1980's) I liked that copper... he was a sensible one..... after having the utility body put on my work truck, I drove it for two days with no brake lights, before I noticed in a window that I didn't have them. had to use magnetic towing lights until I could get to a dealer. now get this: I TOLD the dealer everything I knew: the lights functioned perfectly as turn signals, and the towing lights I was using as temporaries worked perfectly, which indicated that the problem must be a light control module in the cab. they spent 3 hour$ trouble$hooting, $tarting form the BACK of the truck, before they found... it was the light control module in the cab. last time I will have service done at a dealer. |
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Post by GTCGreg on Dec 7, 2012 15:51:40 GMT
I try to stay as far away from dealer service departments as I can get.
Part of the problem is that usually the guy writing the service order isn't a mechanic. Sometimes if you can get them to write on the service order to have the mechanic call you before starting the job, at least you can explain the problem to the guy that is going to do the work. Some dealers will do that and others won't.
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Post by the light works on Dec 7, 2012 16:19:58 GMT
It's more the case that they have enough people who don't know any better that they can afford to drive off the smarter potential customers. - plus there's the warranty work.
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Post by silverdragon on Dec 8, 2012 7:42:07 GMT
Old school.... get in the cab, start engine, turn EVERYTHING on, walk round and check every bulb.
New way, get in, turn on, and watch the dash, 'cos it "self tests", and the bloody cab knows when it has a bulb out..... dash indicators flash green if all is ok, red if there is a fault.
Me?.. I still do "Old school", I am going to do a walk round anyway to check for damage, and I never trust a flashing light.
I have also had dash faults, where a reported problem is "Ford disease" , or bad connections in the actual Dash....
(If in doubt, use a bigger hammer... as in kick the bloody thing see if it stops flashing?...)
Ford disease?... if you ever drive an old Ford, you know THAT one... the connections on ALL old fords (say 15yrs+) were never all that good, got damp etc, so a bulb not working could be a bad connection?... take it out, clean the contacts in the light unit (scrape with screwdriver) and rub the contacts on the bulb on the tyre, that usually fixed it.
I think they now use a better connector than Copper that gets Verdigris that easily?...
I am also one of the Old School that plays the old game of "Hunt the Dipstick"....
I usually cheat and point towards the Transport manager?....
Anyway, before they started painting all things like that in bright YELLOW, finding the dipstick under the hood is a game we all played... sometimes it turned up in the most hard to get to places, other-times it was obvious.
I check Oil, Water, other fluids and Screen wash every day....(On Works vehicles..)
The number of times I have had faults with just basic maintenance that EVERY driver should do is unbelievable?...
Got Half a Gallon of water out of a drain plug on an Air tank one time... Transport manager was watching with the look of "WTF are you up to", he didnt even know it was there (the drain plug...) let alone it should be emptied at any point?....
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Post by the light works on Dec 8, 2012 12:08:05 GMT
My primary points of inspection on the main engine on shift night are that the latches for the spare bottles have usually gotten bent over and have to be straightened so they latch and to purge the water separator for the shoreliine compressor. the air cans really only need to be purged every couple months if the water separator is routinely purged. don't need to check the oil much, because it routinely gets overfilled, and doesn't burn any except when working a fire. (which reminds me I should have checked it last week) the department mechanic gave us a huge long list to be checked every shift - and I dutifully went through the list for several months befire he made the accusation of pencil whipping it - whereupon I decided that none of my shirt, my paycheck, nor my certification card said mechanic. now I check those things that I am competent to maintain and let him do the checking to see if one of the walking beams might be missing, or a frame rail might have become twisted. he knows I check stuff,because I file at least one repair order per shift.
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Post by silverdragon on Dec 9, 2012 7:09:02 GMT
As a Agency driver, I find it difficult to interact with some places about certain vehicles personalities....
We all know that car that you had to give several mins to warm up before it would drive in a straight line kind of thing?... well, some wagons get that way as well, no two wagons drive exactly the same, and as they age, they develop personalities all of their own.....
So when DOES that become difficult?....
When an agency drive like me cant just get in and drive the flipping thing.....
I have had the wagon with a loose connection somewhere in the dash that the regular driver NEW you just had to thump in the right way to get it to work....
at 55mph and the thing lights up like a Christmas tree, four hours waiting for a recovery vehicle because that "Fault" put the engine into limited power, and the mechanic arrives gives it a thwack and it rights its self....
"You can carry on now" was the advice from the Transport Manager.....
I cant put my exact reply on here as it contravenes language restrictions.
It a "Known fault" and as far as I am concerned, sending me, an Agency Driver out in a vehicle with a known fault, with no prior warning, is against my code of Legal Decent and Honest....
I dont get paid enough to accept that.
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Post by c64 on Dec 9, 2012 9:21:06 GMT
That's why I just love my clasic car. Modern enough to have anything you really need (or at least available as an option like airbags and ABS I don't have) and everything wired up and working independantly. If something fails or breaks, the car is usually still able to drive. The only thing which can fail which makes the car stop running is the engine ECU, the accelerator potentiometer and the HAL Sensor telling the ECU when to fire the single injector. The rest is all independent and not really required to make the engine run - except the ignition of course. All the other sensors and actuators are just to give the car a good mpg but don't stop the car when they fail. The only disadvantage is adjusting those many systems and the maintenance since you really need to know how everything works and how to adjust and maintain. Sadly there are not many garages any more that can give this car a proper service.
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Post by the light works on Dec 9, 2012 15:22:38 GMT
That's why I just love my clasic car. Modern enough to have anything you really need (or at least available as an option like airbags and ABS I don't have) and everything wired up and working independantly. If something fails or breaks, the car is usually still able to drive. The only thing which can fail which makes the car stop running is the engine ECU, the accelerator potentiometer and the HAL Sensor telling the ECU when to fire the single injector. The rest is all independent and not really required to make the engine run - except the ignition of course. All the other sensors and actuators are just to give the car a good mpg but don't stop the car when they fail. The only disadvantage is adjusting those many systems and the maintenance since you really need to know how everything works and how to adjust and maintain. Sadly there are not many garages any more that can give this car a proper service. sorry, but a car with an ECU is not a classic car... THIS is a classic car. |
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Post by c64 on Dec 9, 2012 19:22:22 GMT
Yeah, right. It's officially a " modern-era classic car" (Youngtimer) but in only 7 years, it becomes an official EU classic car (Oldtimer) including tax reduction as a "rolling museum".
Made 2th place and 1th place in youngtimer rallies though. Guess who complained most about the ECU, the owner of a car with a huge V8 engine.
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Post by the light works on Dec 9, 2012 22:07:33 GMT
and what is the specific age where that transition takes place?
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Post by Domovoi on Dec 10, 2012 14:42:32 GMT
There is a small Mercedes floating about that is known for having a headlight unit that requires removal of part of the front of the car to get to... its a mechanics nightmare, as it can be a hour-and-a-half job to change the bulb, and can cost the customer up to £100 (or more) to do?... Merc say that with the "Long lasting" LED lights they use the lights should last a "Lifetime".... WHO's Lifetime?... the bulb or the car or the owner?.... From experience... "You have a brake light out sir?.. I am pulling you over to tell you this, it is not in its own right a ticket-able offence unless I see you again in the next week and you havnt changed it... We give you some slack with Brake lights as no one yet has managed to put their foot on the brake then get round the back to check it before the light goes out?....." (1980's) I liked that copper... he was a sensible one..... after having the utility body put on my work truck, I drove it for two days with no brake lights, before I noticed in a window that I didn't have them. had to use magnetic towing lights until I could get to a dealer. now get this: I TOLD the dealer everything I knew: the lights functioned perfectly as turn signals, and the towing lights I was using as temporaries worked perfectly, which indicated that the problem must be a light control module in the cab. they spent 3 hour$ trouble$hooting, $tarting form the BACK of the truck, before they found... it was the light control module in the cab. last time I will have service done at a dealer. Odd. Most of the vehicles Ive owned had three separate lights back there. One for the turn signals, one for tail lights, and one for break lights. |
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Post by the light works on Dec 10, 2012 14:55:16 GMT
after having the utility body put on my work truck, I drove it for two days with no brake lights, before I noticed in a window that I didn't have them. had to use magnetic towing lights until I could get to a dealer. now get this: I TOLD the dealer everything I knew: the lights functioned perfectly as turn signals, and the towing lights I was using as temporaries worked perfectly, which indicated that the problem must be a light control module in the cab. they spent 3 hour$ trouble$hooting, $tarting form the BACK of the truck, before they found... it was the light control module in the cab. last time I will have service done at a dealer. Odd. Most of the vehicles Ive owned had three separate lights back there. One for the turn signals, one for tail lights, and one for break lights. most larger US made vehicles use a combined brake/turn light. I think the small cars are getting away from that, but the bigger ones still do it. |
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Post by Domovoi on Dec 10, 2012 15:25:35 GMT
What year did that happen? Cause even that 2010 Ram 3500 I had, had three separate lights. Yeah, Ive seen some trucks that weren't set up that way. So YMMV
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Post by the light works on Dec 10, 2012 15:30:43 GMT
What year did that happen? Cause even that 2010 Ram 3500 I had, had three separate lights. Yeah, Ive seen some trucks that weren't set up that way. So YMMV Dodge Rams have been made in Mexico for some time, now. |
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Post by Domovoi on Dec 10, 2012 15:38:42 GMT
Yeah, a portion (not arguing the percentage of that portion) of the Ram is assembled there. And your point? That does not answer my question.
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Post by GTCGreg on Dec 10, 2012 15:46:34 GMT
I know on the ford E and F series, as well as International mid-frame trucks, you can just program the computer for separate or combined turn/stop lights. Don't know about Ram but I would think that would also be the case. EDIT It would appear that starting in 2008, the RAM cab trucks come from the factory with combined stop/turn lighting. It's easy for a bodyfitter to change though. This document from RAM describes how to make the change to separate stop/turn lights. www.rambodybuilder.com/2012/docs/cc/dddpextlitmod.pdf |
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Post by the light works on Dec 10, 2012 15:47:40 GMT
my point is that that means the dodge ram is exempt from the "most larger US made vehicles" claim.
so what's YOUR point - some US automakers are shifting from the combined system to the independent turn lamps faster than others.
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Post by c64 on Dec 10, 2012 16:43:29 GMT
and what is the specific age where that transition takes place? 20 years or older is "Youngtimer". Doesn't make any difference except the value of the car can go up since it isn't just rated by mileage and age any more. There are price lists like for collector's toys. 30 years and older is "Oldtimer", that's when things become interesting. If the car is in a good condition and wasn't retrofitted with anything you couldn't buy within 10 years after the car was made, you can get an "H" license plate, pay a lot less in tax and you may enter the environmental zones even without a catalytic converter. Also the insurances belief you that you take good care of your car so your liability premium is a lot cheaper. Since my car was built in 1990 and the most modern stuff I had built in was available in 1998 (USB sockets, 8051 micro controllers, "weak" white LEDs) I can have the H-license plate when the car turns old enough. |
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Post by the light works on Dec 10, 2012 17:02:16 GMT
here, 20 years old is "old" 30 years old is "a beater" my second car was 12 years old in 1990. unfortunately, it is fitted with the new style softtop and a CD changer; so no "H" plate for me.
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Post by Domovoi on Dec 10, 2012 18:29:13 GMT
my point is that that means the dodge ram is exempt from the "most larger US made vehicles" claim. so what's YOUR point - some US automakers are shifting from the combined system to the independent turn lamps faster than others. US automakers really arent US automakers anymore though are they?   Honestly I don't know how much of every model is made elsewhere, but I do know that my old trucks had separate lights. Maybe the auto makers finally realized that in this economy they need to reduce the cost of production. Going back to the simple stupid design probably lowers production costs. As an aside. My 03 Civic had two bulbs on each taillight (not including reverse) The taillight, and then a turnsignal/break light. |
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