Twas the Night before Christmas when all through the car, Not a single Mod was talking, not even the BSD-R. The gauges were hung with lights on everywhere, In hopes that Eric O’ soon would be there. The signals were all nestled down around ground, As noise and garbage was all that was found. The rear Camera was the educated guess, Rear panels with clips and screws, what a mess. When off comes the connector with a mighty pull, CAN-L and CAN-H no longer at null. Cars with bad cameras will not go in drive, Eric rants about Cars, Techs, and all that Jive. Merry Christmas to all and a Happy New Year, Kick back and relax with a cocktail or beer.
We don't care about the ranting and raving. We like to watch the videos because you teach us. Ain't that right people but anyways you guys have good holidays❤
Back in August, my sister and I were driving along in a rental Nissan with a CVT. Out of nowhere, the car went into limp-home mode at highway speeds and threw some CVT warning message on the dash. We pulled-off the road and tried the stop engine, open driver door, close driver door attempt at a reset. The car then would not start. After a few minutes of panic, I remembered my SMA training and looked up "Nissan won't start" on Google, and found directions on how to reset the CVT. 17 minute later after following the directions, I was able to start the car which ran fine for the rest of the trip. The solution: Wait 15 minutes with the key off (this was easy because the car was already off), turn on the ignition to the ON position and wait for all the dashboard lights to go off, press the accelerator all the way to the floor for 10 seconds, turn off the key and release the accelerator, wait three minutes, and then try to start the car. It actually worked. Had I not been a SMA viewer, I would not have thought to search for and try such a solution, and my sister and I would have missed a wake for my aunt. Thanks Eric O!
Certainly all the newer vehicle creature comforts (such as that camera) are nice but being designed (I guess intentionally) to take down the whole operating ability of that car when it developes a problem is ridiculous.
What should we do when even old cars have all this stuff soon? I drive a '99 in the rustbelt and it's reaching end of life with 300K miles on it. All older cars are just as old/rusty. Import from south west? buy new car and lean on the warranty? I'm afraid to buy a 10 year old used car because it will likely be less reliable than what I have now. Cars seem to be throw away and breaking down by 100K. The 90s and early '00s reliability has been engineered out.
Saw a video where a man had a Toyota truck sitting in his parking lot because it was “dead”. No mechanic could find what was wrong. The guy from the video showed up simply plugged a windshield connector to the head of the car and bam truck started right up. Absolutely bs that a switch would kill the entire car.
Making things that used to work fine in older cars today have to be incredibly complex and expensive to do the same thing. Done on purpose - capitalisms end game.
We used to say about Marine Corp air craft and helicopters. It takes a PhD to design them a college grad to break them and a high school drop out to fix them.
I know it's miserable to have to work on any car let alone your own on Christmas, but thanks for turning on the camera for all of us. Hope you and your family still had a great Christmas. We all appreciate you, Eric!!
If if were a Toyota instead of a Kia, he coulda kicked The CAN down the road to Skottie to call it a POS. Just thank the Lord it wasn't a Jeep and you had to renew your expired Autoauth subscription or use the 12 +8 SGW bypass in the nether regions of your dash😂
EVERYTHING has been cheapened and compromised today! I'm 63, and have noticed this through the decades. Whether you are talking cars, home electronics, Boeing jets, or even men's underwear (they used to last years and had good 'family jewels' support... now they last a few months at most, and the material is thin, cheap, and flimsy), we are living through some harrowing times. This is a WAR ON QUALITY, and the consumer is losing bigtime! Something needs to be done!
Yup, corporate greed and planned obsolescence. They figured out how to make things cheaper and last just long enough to fail after the warranty expires so they can sell you a new one. I had a dehumidifier for 15 years without a problem. I’ve had to buy 4 new ones in the last 15 years.
Wouldn't it be great if sombody started to manufacture kitchen ranges, refrigerators, wash machines, dish washers, etc. exactly as they were from the mid to late 1970's. Like you indicated the drop in quality is a contrived war or somebody would have picked up the old designs and materials. This last summer while travelling rural farmland of the canadian prairies I came across two places that were still using functioning refrigerators from the '60's (green). I have two small deep freezes that have been in continuous use since purchased in the mid 1970's .
As an electrical engineer, it absolutely baffles me that engineers are designing systems in a way where the entire network is tied together. Thats just idiotic. It’s going to break either way, tow truck operator’s are the only ones making extra money by designing it that way.
But they save 8 cents per car by not having redundant wires to critical systems.. And they saved an unpaid intern 3 hours of programming time by not having him program in when to ignore certain data lines.
Your not thinking then. They have hated you can go to independent mechanics, and they can't stop you. By killing off the mechanics you will be stuck going to them again. That they can't fix it, is your problem. Buy a new one.
At least their still using different modules for separate functions. Wait until they go to one computer to run the entire car; Apples M2 Ultra has enough computing power to do it.
Fellow engineer here, I agree. They should have individual and isolated circuits instead of a parallel bus. Just one module failure and you're screwed the way it's currently designed.
Making things that used to work fine in older cars today have to be incredibly complex and expensive to do the same thing. Done on purpose - capitalisms end game.
@Anthony-qj7qe, and much of that "computer" is designed around "emissions" garbage, the rest is "OMG you've got 47 way adjustable, heated/cooled seats and Facebook on your console display!!" -_- I remember a time when heat/AC controls used simple levers and cables, then vacuum actuators and now electric actuators that sometimes "require a professional scan tool to recalibrate." Engines with "wet drive belts" turning the oil pump and a component of it tends to fail, starving your engine of oil destroying a "$4K-$8K engine". There are also "water pumps behind the timing cover" which if you don't notice the "weeping of coolant indicating failure", then coolant is dumped right into the oil pan below like a catch-can, likely ruining the engine. So they turned a ~2 hour job that most DIY's could do at home, into a "8+ hour book time" job for dealer techs and for what?! Profit and maybe "driving" people away from "ICE" vehicles to all-electrics which are not only more expensive overall but are more "disposable".... Imagine what it's like buying a new A-EV for "$40K" give or take, then after months, a year or so, the wiring/battery tray becomes damaged and the insurance company says, "Due to risk of FIRE, the vehicle is totaled despite the fact it seems perfectly fine and drivable...." Imagine if a "fender dent" suddenly totaled a new "ICE" vehicle. Beyond stupid.
I bought a 2020 4 years ago. Before that my newest was an ‘06. I have 4 vehicles and 2 motorcycles so don’t drive everything a lot. If I let my 2020 sit for about 2 weeks it won’t start. Dead battery. And I have a 2 battery system..! Computers suck the juice out. I can leave my 73 Mach 1 sit for 8 months and it starts..!!
Same 😂 getting my old Corvette presentable again and selling my Nissan....got stranded in it one time at the post office...it was a simple clutch switch that was actuated by a weird plastic bump stop in the clutch pedal arm ...it disintegrated/crumbled from age 😂 fortunately something in my head said hey , the brake pedal switch did the same thing so I reached down and actuated the clutch switch with my hand so the car would crank over...got home put a bolt 🔩 in that hole no issues since 👍
I've spent 40 years as a tech. Cool vid, bro ! I hate new cars too lol In case anyone wonders about the high prices of new vehicles, here is a fact. Over half the cost of a new IC vehicle is from the ever tightening EPA & CAFE standards. All the wiring, computers, and additional systems for emission controls. In the attempt to be green, the EPA has manufacturer to build these high tech cars that will be non-repairable junk in less than a decade. All in the name of "less emissions & greater efficiency" . Never mind the mining to get all the copper, iron, aluminum, rare earth minerals, refining of said minerals, and manufacturing it takes to create a vehicle. How much extra pollution is left out of the EPA's equation ? You know those shutters on the front of the radiators on new trucks ? That allows them to aerodynamically get an extra 300 feet per gallon of gas. This is where we are. Pure stupidity.
I believe that it takes around 80-100 barrels of oil to produce a normal vehicle, if you do a soup to nuts analysis. From the mining, refining, transportation of raw goods, foundries, machining, stamping, welding, plastics, electronics, and delivery to POS, it takes a Brobdingnagian amount of energy and carbon to produce a car and deliver it to a consumer.
@@markseehawer3762 Not to mention that lithium mining operations are notorious for employing child labor (kids are good at mining because they're small and can get into tight spots).
I hope that you post this video every Christmas Eve forever. "The backup camera that stole Christmas.". It could go viral and lead to an industry wide awakening to the issues involved. Now THAT would be a Christmas miracle
I think the fact that the vehicles' internal data network being as poorly designed as it is where a single point of failure can cascade and bring the entire thing down is a bigger problem. Really speaks volumes of the whole 'enshittification' of products these days.
I'm 72 and I still drive the magnificent old 1986 Toyota 4X4 truck I bought new in '86. Carbureted, simple, designed to be repaired without computers. When the ignitor died and the industry hadn't yet started making inexpensive replacements I did some research and bought a used MSD 6AL and it has been faithfully working for a quarter million miles. If it quits out somewhere there is a very high likelihood I can fix it right out in the field with common hand tools I carry with me. It is common when I am out driving it for someone to pull up next to me and ask if I will sell it. The quality and simplicity of these old rigs is nowadays recognized and appreciated.
I had a 1986 Toyota 4x4, it was basic as all get out. Manual brakes, manual steering, no radio (unti I put one in). I added a sun roof. I loved that truck, it was magnificent. It was totaled in 1991 when I got hit by two motorists, neither of which had insurance. I really loved that truck, it did everything I asked it to do.
I have a 1988 Toyota pickup bought in 1997. Had to replace the engine due to ignoring a blown head gasket that ended up ruining the engine. Jasper remanufactured replacement going strong for about 20 years now. If no accidents, it will outlive me. Simple computer that just lights up a dash light with coded blinks. Checked the capacitors in the computer recently trying to figure out an erratic engine light that never threw a code. Capacitors checked out like new and narrowed down the problem to water in the gas tank. Marvel Mystery Oil in the gas tank to the rescue.
Eric , I hear you. I work on the network/ security team for a steel company. The critical network stuff is totally isolated from the fluff people try to put on the network. Stupid cameras, bar code readers etc. Contractors trying to put their junk on our network for internet access. The list is endless. If it wasn’t isolated the entire network would go down constantly. I hope they start doing that with cars. Don’t put silly unnecessary devices on the network that can easily fail and cause the car to not drive. Maybe two networks. One for critical systems to make the car run and one for the junk that people think they need. For a camera or like you said a door handle to fail and put you on the side of the road is craziness.
Those sensors and cameras have purpose, several purposes actually. All that tech is sneaked in because one day, someone could have all gizmos for driving your car away (already demonstrated and quite possibly in use in rental cars). Remotely, from china or india or whatever far away place. Or leave one stranded in the middle of nowhere (remote shutdown, lock doors etc). Expect no privacy in or around new cars, it is not hard to deduce - they come with cameras, microphones, computers and internet. Its wonderful, isn't it? Spyware on wheels. I've read articles about insurance companies using remote telemetry (the same gizmos all over the car) and asses driving habits, ergo, insurance costs. I guess, the data may be used for car crash investigation too.
When I secured a friend’s business network, I used a few simple techniques. The wifi is powered by the cheapest carrier and is not connected to any device that runs the business. The business network is not connected to the Internet in any way. If a device needs a software update, it is disconnected from the biz network and connected to the wifi for a short time. If they decide they need remote access, it would be with a different carrier.
@@SeersantLoomMy insurance company said I could install their app on my phone. Which tracks if you use your phone to text while driving. And I could save $4.00 a month. I asked her what’s the purpose of that. She said it prevents accidents by making customers aware it will be flagged. But it wouldn’t count against you. Just a deterrent. I told her if your tracking by phone. How accurate could it be. And I think they are doing it for a benefit. Like not paying claims. Anyway. I told her I don’t trust anything doing surveillance on me. I’m a good driver. My record shows that.
FWIW, I worked as a departmental IT support tech. More to the point, this back up camera issue seems akin to a corrupted printer driver causing your computer to brick itself completely. That is, a seemingly trivial hiccup/malfunction of an auxiliary feature totally pooching your entire system. Ain't technology grand? 🤔
The worst part about being a mechanic is that I can't afford to make my personal car problems someone elses job, even if i wanted them to be. The lack of trust in others might be half the problem, too. Good intuition, Mr. O, even if it's just a pattern of 1.
I’m going to disagree with the camera not being needed. The rear view and the side view mirror don’t allow you to see right behind your car. Kids and pets have been saved thanks to the back up cam. Now have you seen Chryslers with the camera flipped left to right? What’s up with that? I’ve encountered it a few times but never repaired the issue as it was not a concern.
@@TwisteeTheDefiant1I don’t care how much you adjust your mirrors you will not be able to see a toddler, cat, dog or a child sitting directly in back of the car. It also helps some people that aren’t good at parallel parking park but to each their own. Moreover most people don’t take the time to go around the vehicle and look. There are those that use a remote starter to avoid sitting in a cold car and the minute they’re ready they just get in the car and go.
The day has come that a vehicle will not start BECAUSE OF A BROKEN TAIL LIGHT. And the tail light still works, but the blind spot monitoring module within it got wet and shorted the data bus so the start button cannot talk to the PCM to tell it to run.
The sad fact is that the way visibility is on the newer vehicles, a backup camera is actually a necessity; not to make the vehicle operate but because of the blind spots! When you said the camera was causing the issue I didn't believe you. lol Merry Christmas and thanks for making this video which I will gladly share.
42 years mechanic here in Ireland. Last 20 the hardest with changes in technology. Bad enough if problems are wiring or components, but now software , in some cases can be the issue! Tired! Great channel. Happy holidays
What Eric said. I'm 77 started driving at 14. Grew up in cars from the 1950's to ''70's. Give me a carburetor, points ignition, cable operated heater / ac, hand crank windows. We survived quite nicely without all the "convenience " features now considered essential. Been there, done that. Tool box in those days consisted of a pliers, screw driver and crescent wrench. (Most significant gain in modern vehicles is that they are much safer in the event of an accident.) Problems are not just the plethora of electronically controlled everything but the way it's all incorporated into the can buss operating systems. A backup camera should be as simple as the cheap stand alone add on units that can be purchased online. There is no reason that it needs to be tied to everything else through a can buss network and absolutely no reason why it should have any influence on any other operating system.
I used to avoid buying cars with unnecessary features! Now even the lowest priced vehicles are cramed full of extras. You aren't allowed to import low complexity transportation into the USA. Now a new car costs more than most people can afford to pay! Car loans were 36 months, but now you're going to be lucky to pay it off before the warranty expires!
@@randymack2222 I'm buying a brand new car this spring and all I want is something reliable to get me from point A to B. I'm just glad that one manufacturer still makes a base model with a manual transmission. (nissan versa) But I'm annoyed that even the base model isn't so base anymore. It still has everything controlled by electronics that nobody asked for. And I am praying I can find a way to disable the automatic braking safety shit they put in there because I don't want my car randomly hitting the brakes on me and causing a crash.
Agree for the most part but could do without the points ignition…Hall effect sensors are significantly less mechanically complex than points and very simple electronically.
1990s to early 2000 is the sweet spot for me. I like fuel injection, electronic ignition, and anti lock disk breaks. Cars from that era had all that but where still pretty easy to diagnose and fix. Things really fell off the deep end around 2010 and up......
In my day we had points and condenser, it got us everywhere we wanted to go. If there was a camera in the car it was a Kodak instamatic. And we liked it that way.
When I was going onto large open cut mine sites in Australia, that run the really big dump trucks, Cat 24M graders and D-11's.........the workshop managers are struggling to deal with the "electronic crap" on those machines, to keep them working. So its across a broad spectrum of manufacturers and applications.
My daily is 15 years old and my pickup is 25 years old. I will keep them running as long as I can, including replacing the inevitable rusted body panels and rotten structural frame members. I live in the salt belt too but my backup camera will NEVER leave me stranded because I don't have one! Merry Christmas!
My Calif International pickup was bought new by dad in 61. I have a 62 C-10 and a 4wd 64 international. The other 3 vehicles are older Camrys...one has 500k miles. Gimmy the old stuff.
Since I am a retired GM tech, it is nice to see someone else get twisted over this stuff. As I watched vehicles develop into today's cars and trucks I decided to retire. The low amperage circuits can use smaller wires to run them, but the slightest resistance causes the whole system to crash. Down in Oklahoma I got talked into putting trailer wiring on truck, cars, and of course mini vans. The small wiring could and would not handle trailer lights. New trailer lights was coming out called 'trailer-lite' that was system sensitive and would not put a load on the vehicles wiring. It is all new. Have and Happy New Year.
@@rvdboston9568 These circuits have a set resistance value. When voltages and resistances change even slightly computer circuits do not know how to 'read' signals. This is the reason low battery voltages set many codes in dozens of systems. Do not listen to me. I just worked on them for 50 years as a Master GM Certified tech.
@@donaldross1077 watch the video - it is not about high wire resistance. It is about low resistance. Camera died and pulled signal wires to the ground.
Super well timed video! Son's KIA went down and my cheap little code reader had nothing. With his kids and work, he had no time for the shop. This video and now a broken screw later (Lol Oops) it's running regular again. I'm so glad that I've been subscribed for years now! Thanks Man
That "one screw" in the panel is a "PRI".......previous repair indicator. When you attempt to remove the panel, it will be missing and let you know that you're not the first one to go down this path. There's thousands of them rolling around some mechanic's tool box. Been there, done that.
A coworker of mine had a similar issue. His year old Jeep started to switch the radio on and off every second or two. The dealer diagnosed it as the backup camera crashing every time the computer tried to reboot it, which would cause the infotainment to crash, and reboot in a loop. Modern cars are far too tightly coupled in their design if the backup camera can affect the infotainment system when it fails.
@Dartht33bagger Company vehicle is a 2019 Silverado. I never use the backup camera. You have mirrors and eyeballs. Only use I can think of is maybe a trailer. None of my cars has a backup camera.
@@bryangillis1839 im a truck driver. drive a milk truck (tractor trailer, tanker). i dont need a damn backup camera. i use mirrors all day, and when i drive my crosstrek i dont even look at the backup camera. i wished i could have ordered the car with a infotainment delete and just got a normal din sized radio, that i could replace with an aftermarket pioneer head unit
@@Jelsick I agree. All of my cars are old enough that none of them have backup cameras and I prefer that. However, a federal law passed in 2008 mandates that all cars starting with model year 2018 must have a backup camera. Which also means an infotainment screen is required; something else I'm not interested in.
@Dartht33bagger Funny, the screen on the Silverado goes black periodically and doesn't come back until you shut the truck off for a few minutes. Of course the backup camera won't work because the screen is dead. It's been doing this since it was new. Go figure 🤔
Rainman Ray said the other day one of your talents is you don't get frustrated and deal with problems maturely and effectively which you do. However your grief is felt and understood when accountants build cars. Happy new year and thanks for the tuition.
Dealing with cars all day takes a lot of patience. And I know how it can be when the repair starts going not as planned. I am willing to bet a good amount that Eric’s true frustrations are handled off camera. Or at least edited out. For the sake of the viewers 😂
This is why i love the quality and durability of my 2001 Subaru Outback. I never have any issues with this car and it's still beautiful after 23 years on the road.
Wow, my wife owns a 2004 Subaru Outback, with the H6-3.0 engine. We bought it used back in 2014 and it's still running strong! It's a pleasure to drive, and you can feel the quality. I do all my own work on it (except alignments and tire replacement), and would rather keep this going than buy a new(er) Subaru.
We had a problem with my wife's 2024 Subaru, the radio in it went bad, we couldn't drive the car, because the radio also had the shifter screen and several other functions integrated. An added bit of fun was that when the radio went, it fried my phone that was plugged in charging. Hope you had a good Christmas.
good grief. what model subaru is it? i have a 2022 crosstrek but it is a manual, almost the last of it's breed. 2023 is the last year for manual crosstreks. i do NOT want a CVT nor a laptop mounted in the dashboard. it has a small screen and that's more then i want. how about no screen, just a normal radio?
I'm a forklift mechanic in a large factory. One area of the plant in particular is rough on equipment because of a wet and oily environment and glass particles. We tried several brands of newer forklifts but they all are ecm controlled now and throttle by wire. Not to mention switches instead of levers to raise/lower and tilt. It was nothing short of a nightmare keeping those machines running. We went back to the 1980's Cats we had and although we have to have some parts custom made for them they just keep going! 12volts to the coil and a simple impco propane system rules all. Things just don't need to be this way. We are going backwards with this new stuff at an alarming rate!
if we didnt have meglomaniacs, & religion, stopping us for the last 10k.... star trek would be a bed time story.. & thats a fact.. i go back in history 50k. find what was ''deleted'', like inventors now that end up dead.. cancer was cured centuries ago.. its not just cars.. its the whole frigin system.. ausie.. boiler maker.. oh, & we only have nuke power for the military, what we get is a side note.. the military banned sodium reactors back in 1954.. the 2ww, never ended. the u.s. just continued it, with 3rd party excuses, like 911, terrorists.. bs..
I long for the old days when I drove a 1969 GMC 1/2 ton regular cab with a 250 cubic inch 6 cylinder engine with wing windows, bench seat, three on the tree!
You still can drive a 69 model if you want to.....they are available for sale. I have 9 vehicles, all of them very old. They hardly ever break and when they do they are easy to fix.
@@russellayton6408 , I remember them when I was a kid. '60's Mustang Coupe, '56 Chevy Bel Air and Dad's '63 Chrysler Newport with the push-button transmission. He also had a '68 Buick Electra 225 with the ~430ci engine. He drove it conservatively but at times he'd "blow it out", lol.
I have a nice 72 F100 short bed in my garage. My day driver is a 92 Chev WT with crank windows. My out of town rd car is a 2022 Forester, one of the safest in the world. Had to change my tail light bulb on my 92 chevy in 5 mins. Had to replace the alternator, 20 mins and 54 dollars. Paid $3,500 for my F100, $7500 for my Chev WT and $36,000 for my Forester Touring. I hope that teleportation is coming soon!
You put a smile on my face with this one. I couldn't agree more. I really miss the late 1980's where the PCU was the only computer in the vehicle, and wired switches enabled you to customize things. Your situation demonstrates the Achilles heel (design flaw) of the basic CAN bus concept, where multiple devices are daisy chained on a single physical connection, and the devices at each end must provide termination resistors. Alternative networks like Ethernet support only point-to-point connections but require a switch to pass signals around, and therefore cost more. That design would have really saved the world from problems like this one, but it's too late now. CAN is too standardized...
I have a 200 KPH speedo on an 87 land rover ninety. The only way it goes that fast if it gets pushed off a cliff. I think they call it "wishful thinking."
While I'm all for having less computers on cars in general, the real bigger issue is that the diagnostic tools don't function better. By that I mean years ago redundancies should have been built in such that rather then loosing communication with every module when simple issues happen, instead it can isolate and tell you for example you camera is bad. If that were the case, so much of this stuff would be less of a problem. In a sense "who cares" if the camera breaks, so long as it doesn't take out the driveabiity of the car.
Oh, man, that brings back bad memories. My grandparents were broken down at a truck stop while driving back from Myrtle Beach and had to have their Kia towed to a dealership, while they checked into the worst Motel 6 in the U.S.
My parents Kia (mom's choice, not dad's) decided at 4am when they had to get to the airport that it wanted to be in 4 Low... FOREVER!!!... . He just drove to the airport at 6k rpms.. It was under warranty and he HATED IT, he was hoping it blew up!!!!! The dealer was pretty good though, they actually went to the car park place and got it, and returned it fixed before my parents got back.. . The stupid issues with that car, and parts were EXPENSIVE!! I was not sorry to see it go. I hated working on it too.
Back in the mid-80s I learned to drive on my parents' 1969 VW bug. Didn't even have a passenger side mirror! To this day I never even look at a backup camera screen if I'm in a car that has one, I ALWAYS ALWAYS look back over my shoulder when backing up or changing lanes. Probably has saved my a$$ at least a couple dozen times.
I’m 64 my son is 19. Driving the other day he says “you don’t use the camera in reverse?” I say nope, I always turn my head around and look. He’s says “I want to start doing it that way. It looks cool!” 😂
Backup cameras are sweet, especially for parallel parking into tight spots. With that said, they should not be able to immobilize the vehicle. They should be on a low priority isolated network with all the other non essential stuff.
Working on vehicles as a mechanic in a shop, I can count on once evey couple of weeks blowing up and hating my job for a few hours. Everyone has to have power everything, auto ass wipers.etc.
I have been watching your videos for 5 years now you have taught me so much more then I have learned in 20 years. My son who is 18 now has been watching your videos for about three years and when someone has a car issue he always go back to your videos of working on certain cars and let's them know how to fix it or fixes it on the fly for them to get them off the side of the road til they can get it to a mechanic. Thank you for all your help. Happy new years to you
Try getting that plastic off in your driveway when its 400 below zero outside and you'll have a bunch of broke plastic eh. Can't even work on crap when its cold---it all breaks. Merry Christmas to you and the family Eric. Thanks for all the great videos- you have no idea how much we viewers have learned from you.
Inconvenience my ass! If that happens to someone on the road, a dealership will have them $4-5K in repairs replacing all the computers, wire harness, sensors, you name it! Oh and by the way, when/if they did find out it was just the camera they would never own up to it. These cars are turning out to be a diagnostic nightmare. I give huge kudos to you for not completely losing your mind on a daily basis! 🤣 Love your videos and your approach. Happy Holidays!
Well said. Don't trust the stealership as far as you can throw them. Like bad doctors they will never admit fault. The stealership is only concerned with their bottom-line. They can fix nearly anything if under warranty, a gasket is all you need if you have an exhaust leak, etc. Once the warranty expires, or they know the customer or insurance company is footing the bill the whole system must be replaced and we're going to round everything up a few hours labor at $250./hr...
You know you have the best vehicle ever when its OBD2 Japanese with a green lit cluster & dash. The sweet spot of auto design was late 90s early 00s toyota, honda, subaru
I drive a 1998 toyota celica. 230,000 on the dash. I bought it for work since i get covered in oil, grease, and mud 6 days a week. Only issue its ever given me was a fouled out spark plug boot arcing to the engine. Love that car.
There are already some such laws. They have not kept pace with technology. Used to be you could buy the factory shop manuals... which were often split into at least four volumes as vehicles and their systems became more complicated (Mintenance/service, mechanical, electrical, and body.) I still have a set of Porsche 928 manuals from when I worked on those kinds of cars. There are nine(9) volumes! and they cost me $500 back in the mid 1980s. Most are less expensive. Often a good public library would have most domestic vehicles in the reference section. Those days are long gone. They are all online now at places like Alldata. They have inexpensive subscriptions for DIY. Many manufacturers are moving towards proprietary systems for diagnostic hardware. Volkswagen and Bosch kinda started that trend way back in the late 1960s-70s with the special Bosch diagnostic system for their fuel injection and VW had a system (mostly for marketing. You can even find old ads for it on youtube with Buzz Aldrin as a promoter.) Fast forward to OBDI and OBDII which is (more or less) the "standard" now. On top of all that is often layered a system which is largely proprietary and unique to each manufacturer. Modern cars (past 10 years) have as many as 70-100 ECUs and 1400-3000 semiconductor "logic" units in them. Damn... sorry that was a long ramble. TLDR: it will be very difficult to change the current trend. Hopefully the engineers will get some feedback on this and re-design it so that one simple system (the backup camera circuit) will not bring down the rest of the system.
I truly wish techs like you had a say in what truly needs to be on a car.I was a tech for 45 years and saw the transition from no computers to a mass of them on cars and I hated the direction the industry was going because I saw it dispose of the mom and pop shops that existed back then .the technology and the knowledge needed to repair went beyond the limits of many .My Dad was also a mechanic for 50 plus years and he said one day the only one that will be able to repair cars in the future will be the makers themselves another way to monopolize the industry and today at the age of 70 I am seeing first hand this being done by All the manufacturers .one small unneeded device shutting down the whole vehicle…Damn sad …..I understand your frustration Eric truly do ..Merry Christmas to you and your family,and thank you so much for doing what you do !…..
Thanks to the numb nuts in Congress that mandates all this garbage, these systems aren't mature enough to be 99.9999% reliable. I remember when the GM HEI distributors with the ignition coil in the distributor cap would arc through the cap and shut the vehicle down. The shop I worked at part time, we had the advance weights in stock already teflon coated so they didn't sling iron oxide inside the cap to kill the ignition. Just imagine one of the new whizzbang EV's? Might be time to sell the repair shop and invest in a fleet of rollback trucks, well except you'll be the one out in the weather picking up the whizzbang from the side of the road.
@@gungadinn Except your rollback truck has a NIGHTMARE diesel engine with even MORE pollution crap on it than gas cars do. 1/2 of them will be in the shop being 'fixed'.
@@hotpuppy1 I'll keep my truck on the road for another million miles after my grandpa added the first. Maintenance and care plus simple wear parts got it this far. You won't see anything new get even close to that. So 5 vehicles throwing a rod or burning oil? Or just one truck?
I was a mechanic for 30+ years, got out in 2019 the last 10 years were misery last gig was an FCA dealership what total pieces of garbage! SO glad I got out!
usually, I did run into a little problem with those though. it took a good road trip to figure it out. O ring at the top disintegrated, leaving the dip stick pushed in a little too far. now the "full" line is a quart too low.
Eric, this is why I own three different scanners young man. My big Autel is the primary source of Solutions. I'm a retired Mechanic, life has forced this retired guy to become a Technician now. Thank God I was born with a technical mind, and an understanding of electronics. I remember when all I needed were a few hand tools and feeler gauges to tune up a car, oh and a timing light. Curse the EPA and lazy folks who wouldn't keep a vehicle tuned up to prevent smog crap. Love ya Brother and how you have compassion for the technically unwashed.
As a Master tech for 14 years I can agree that we are only seeing more and more communication issues that cause more and more complete vehicle failures. It used to be that you used to just have communication codes in the background but the cars would mostly work. Sadly not anymore.
And you know this is by design to force you to take it to a manufacturer affiliated shop for ever single repair. I know how bad it is after seeing a recent report of some Ram trucks being recalled with a stop sell order due to malfunctioning headlights that is 'software related'. Why should headlight operation have any dependence on software? And apparently BMW had the same issue recently on some of their vehicles. Then there are the sudden rash ofvFord F150 taillights being stolen that have a $2700 replacement cost - something that should cost 10 times less in a sane world!!!
@@zentex8877 Yes some people in the know are recommending people obtain older pre 2010 vehicles cheap and fix/clean them up then sell for a profit in the near future.....
I own a 1998 VW Jetta TDI and a 1988 Lincoln town car for both the cars the broken things are the electronics. I cannot describe as a mechanic and an old school engineer how much modern cars specifically after 2010 the quality and complexity of all cars got worse.
I hear ya. I work in a factory. Recently, the machine I routinely operate stopped working. It took our maintenance techs 3 days of conversations with the machine techs to help troubleshoot and isolate the problem. Turns out a LAN connection had been damaged & finally failed. I immediately thought of you & the process you follow. Thank you for everything you do.
I quit being a mechanic many years ago, fortunately I had an opportunity to do something different in tech and make a solid career out of it. I still have to be a mechanic for family and friends and sometimes I just want to pay someone else to deal with it. I still have to keep my skills and tools up to date as a lot of what I have to deal with are electronic issues and diag. I have so much repect for people that still do this for a living. It's a struggle, and the tool expense is far more than most other trades. Oh and people never want to pay, everyone feels like they're gettig ripped off, they don't understand what it takes. I salute you Mr. O
Eric, many years ago my landlord asked me to look at his old truck. I was doing a valve job on a Jensen Healy at the time. His truck was a 1932 Ford with the Flathead V8 . Broken wire to the distributor ? magneto ? I think the barn mice chewed it . I think there was a total of two or three wires under the hood for the engine. Gee, it ran like a fine Swiss watch after a quick splice . I only service vintage vacuum tube based stereo equipment now. NO computers ! Dude, I feel your pain. I got quite good fixing electronics ( just two modules , and a few sensors ) on my A body GM wagons ( 3.3 engine ) , simple stuff. Not any more ! You are the best.
@@sferg9582 I can show you any late model GM that will crash the network with the headlight out of it or a Ford that will not move with a shorted taillight. It is not KIA it is all these modern POS. I can make a list a mile long that renders these shitbox's DOA from something as simple as a door handle.
@@SouthMainAutoa friend of mine has a ‘21 Silverado LTZ 6.6 gas sitting in the stealer parking lot waiting for his SECOND cam and lifters! 400 some miles from home. Been there since the Tuesday before thanksgiving. ALL fluid changes done and documented by the stealership on time or early… and they complained if he was early.
At 50 (10 yr ago) I stopped buying new and started buying old. Newest car is my wives last new car purchase 2006 fusion. 4 cyl manual trans. Then our 2000 lasabre w/3800 (3.8) 1998 camry and a 1993 f150 w/300 6cyl manual trans. All with roughly 100000 miles on the clocks. I will never buy new again. I cant ever buy new again.....And I want to thank you great mechanics on YT ! Big thanks to you Eric O !!
Ahh the 300 six cyl loved that motor, owed several fords with it had to put timing gears in a couple of them earlier to work on. Currently driving a gmc with 225,000 miles 2007 4.8 8 cylinder 4/4 still doing most of my own repairs
im351; a neighbor kid found one of those older f150 w/300 6cyl manual a few weeks after he (16 yrs old) got his dr lic brought it to the shop/farm where I drive truck. I didn't know much about them but what a sweet truck ! I love it. He found it sitting in a shed a 1/2 mi away. I'd like to have it.
@ I bought a 62 ford with a 235 6 cylinder engine for $200 straight out of a barn off my bus driver years ago loved that old truck. I had drove it there at the last couple years I owned it with a rod clanging around in it. Didn’t find that out till I junked it, or I probably would’ve had just kept on driving it on five cylinders
I follow a guy who does excavation. He has newer equipment with all of the bells and whistles that all of the sudden leave him unable to work . Most of his equipment is from the 80s or older. Not that he couldn't afford new(er) but rather, it always starts when he turns the key and stays running. Whats worse is his dozer stopped working. He paid a guy hundreds of dollars from the dealer to drive hours to come and fix it and the mechanic couldn't find anything wrong with it. No codes. Its not the first time it has done it. He's had it happen to the dozer and an excavator at the same time . The computers on both of them were $4000 each.
I own a 2016 Kia Soul. The rear camera is a SOB to remove! The camera is mounted in exterior trim. So, you get to remove both the interior AND exterior trim; two plastic clips are impossible to release; the metal hardware is rusted in place. Another thing is the cost of an OEM replacement. I happened to look at the camera to see it half-filled with water! Wonderful!
@@leftyo9589 Yeah. I loved my 78 Cutlass with HEI until it broke down twice. Once with a rotor arcing through to the distributor shaft and again with a bad ignition module. My 69 El Camino took more maintenance but was much more reliable.
Agreed way too many simple systems tied together thru a computer that are now over complicated nonsense for what? And there is no chance for Avg person to figure it out without a wall full of diagnostic equipment and info subscription not to mention all the time to learn how to use it .Ugh! Merry Christmas Eric and Mrs "O my"😉 thanks for another year and hope the rest of your holiday season is blessed
One time my little boy did not get in the car with my other kids after a sight seeing stop. He was sitting on the bumper. Fortunately we did a head count just before I put it in gear. No backup camera on car. Backup camera saves a few toddlers perhaps.
I couldn't agree more. I'm sticking with older vehicles for this exact reason, but rust is creeping in and it won't be long until I'm forced to move on.
Wes of the Watch Wes Work You Tube channel - who has mentioned South Main Auto and is clearly a fan - calls modern cars “Disposable iPods with wheels”. This is one of Eric’s best videos, and should be seen by anyone who designs automobile systems. Unfortunately, Eric’s lesson will not be taken to heart.
those people that design stuff are given strict parameters to stay within. most will tell you there's nothing they can do about it if they want to continue eating. blame your government. i am not a designer nor engineer btw. but i've worked with too many
100% agree! Unnecessary tech should never be able to cripple an otherwise functional vehicle. All that crap should be on a secondary accessory network that can not affect the basic operation of the vehicle.
A five year old Kia with 107303 miles on the odometer and this is the first major problem the vehicle has seen. I would consider the vehicle as being very reliable for New York state driven year round. Yes it makes no sense for a failed rear view camera module to take down the entire bus due to poor system design but really the car has performed well over five years.
I feel your pain. It took me 2 weeks to get my truck to run again because of an aftermarket chime module behind the radio. You wanna talk about ready to burn it, theres no way the majority can figure something like that out. But a thorough process of elimination finally won the battle. I lost some sleep over it but thanks to the notes ive taken from this channel, Pine Hollow, and scanner danner i had a good idea on the steps to take. You all are a goldmine of information, especially for those of us like myself that are fairly proficient with diagnostics already.
"It took me 2 weeks to get my truck to run again because of an aftermarket chime module behind the radio." Who installed the aftermarket module and why?
@ the previous owner did. The truck has an aftermarket radio and it was plugged into the adaptor harness. It was a cheap Scosche brand. I found it stuffed back in the dash behind the radio. As soon as i unplugged it everything keyed back up and its been fine since. I had no PRNDL, it would just read jibberish words and symbols, and no comm with a scanner. I knew real quick it was something to do with the computer network. Eric O said something very wise in another vid that has stuck with me and is probably why i was able to solve it. He said when you have a multitude of things that stop working you should “pick something and work backwards”.
@@leejordan2750 I despise most aftermarket electronic junk. My car, which has a manual transmission, had a remote starter installed when I bought it. It was a headache to untangle and remove.
@ ive always heard those are problematic too. In my experience, just about anything aftermarket other than exhaust tips, will eventually bite you. Heres my personal favorites that have left me broke down or spending my Saturday with the hood up for repair… Cold air intakes-they just fall off or suck in dirt and never fit 100% Wheels-they vibrate, take specific sockets that i lose, kill mpg, or wear out the front end in short order. And the tires are always expensive and hard to change. Stereo/audio systems- see original comment. LED lights- always make the whole car act up, theres always a bulb that wont work, or the left blinker is the new right. Brushgaurds- handy reason to give up on checking fluid levels and make parking impossible. I can keep going but you get the idea
I buy and flip auction cars. One of the first things I do if I encounter an issue is remove/unplug aftermarket stuff. 99% of the time I find the issue. Either a bad piece of junk or poor installation. Glad you got your truck going again, as the aftermarket stuff isn't on wiring diagrams so it is a lot of research and guessing that gets you to a solution I always "believe" it will work if I get it back to exactly how it came out of the factory as a base starting point. Then at least the wiring diagrams can help if I need to go farther.
Not car related, but on the same line as the piece of farm equipment you were mentioning. I am a lobsterman in Gloucester, Mass. I have a John Deere 6068 in my boat that's over 20 years old, but it's fully mechanical. Sure, it's not as powerful as some newer engines, but being on the water the last thing I want is to be stranded because of a sensor that goes wonky and the engine shuts down. Fuel, air and a starter and I'm good to go!!!
I don't know if you ever had it, but back in the 1990s, like 1991ish , a bad rear wiper motor on Caravans and Voyagers would take out the ABS system and set a bunch of codes. Nothing related to the problem of course. Manufacturers have been F-ing with us for decades! 😂
I've been a mechanic 33 years. I've seen things get worse and worse. I work on cars on the side now. My regular job is equipment. It too now has can- bus. Especially ultra booms. If you don't understand electrical, God help you these days. I agree...too many features we don't even need. The driver has been taken out of the picture! Thanks for the tip on checking the camera. I've learned alot what trends are out there from this channel. It's helped me diagnose things faster! Great content! Your appreciated my friend! Let's be frustrated together in all this technology!!!
The car companies are "smart enough" to add these data networks, they should be smart enough to create a more resilient network that deactivates modules that are not functioning within spec! Great videos!
@@mattlane2282 : I know what a plane costs, and I know its a lot more than even a new pickup truck (but the gap is closing).. . I know a plane has essentially triple redundancy on everything, and I'm not saying to put 3 ECU's and 3 brake systems into a car.. I'm just saying that the things learned can be transferred.. . One computer in a plane being mad is not going to take down the entire plane, why does take down a vehicle??? . Say instead of running the data lines in a big loop where 1 useless module can take the entire thing down, put the useless modules on their own loop. All the stupid stuff in the back and underneath (except the fuel pump).. Backup camera (which I don't even understand why its part of the data loop), evap stuff, hatch control module(that's a real thing), if that loop goes down, ignore it, its not essential to basic function of GET OFF THE HIGHWAY!!! . Essential functions on their own loop, maybe even add a few extra wires to the modules for redundancy. I'm not proposing anything crazy, maybe an extra wire or 2 and some time from an unpaid intern to do some more programming.. . I think it probably boils down to each team working on their own little piece, and that's fine, but it seems they miss the big picture when it comes to integrating it all.. A backup camera should not put a vehicle into limp mode, that is just piss poor engineering and planning.
Over the last 26 years my 98 4Runner has never once not started when I've touched the key and for that reason I will never EVER retire that unit. It will outlive us all 💯
I remember in 1996 when i was a young 21 years old my 1977 Impala always started during the Arctic Blast when all of the computer cars in my family were dead. Gotta love the heaters working in less than 3 minutes of those old GM's
This is unreal. The 1990's and early 2000 cars go for hundreds of thousands of miles with no issues. Now the newer cars with super light weight metal to meet EPA mileage requirements and the multiple electronics wont last 10 years. Just sad
Pattern of One! That should make you feel special Eric. At least you had a clue. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Stay warm...at least the lawnmower guy is quiet. Cheers from Texas.
I miss the high tech wind down windows and an AM/FM radio and that’s it. You never had to go to a mechanic unless it was a real engine issue. I remember turning your head to back up.
I am a retire4d mechanic of 37 years as well. I am building my home shop as I speak. Because I am gonna build my next vehicle. I can go out and purchase a new vehicle without an issue except they no longer build a vehicle I want. Your video is spot on about thje industry. Every day you work on the modern stuff, the same question appears every time. Why why why. Its like a purposeful complication and expensive way these days just to turn on a stupid light bulb. So I am gonna build my own simple vehicle, the one No Body Makes anymore. I am waiting for someone to start rebuilding older cars and selling them on lots lol. The price of all the new garbage they produce these days might be making that profitable lol. Great video Eric.
So true....Not sure what new truck I'd buy right now if i was in the market. It's all over priced over engineered garbage... Ill stick with my 98 1500 with 200k on the odometer .. Yes its computerized but antiquated by todays standards.....
I felt your pain since early 2k . A retired tech that unfortunately was stuck trying to find the issue from rodents , bad components or crappy data junction blocks . Nothing supprises me anymore especially since the pins are so small and various venders being used. Love your content and patience. Hope you and your family had a great Christmas.
Modern cars are a marvel of electronics. A trained technician with proper tools and a detective’s ability is a must. This channel is by such a technician. The weak points line wire bundles, improper repairs after a crash, DYI efforts by owners, less than stellar OEM components (yes Ford, that’s you) etc. are challengers.
Twas the Night before Christmas when all through the car,
Not a single Mod was talking, not even the BSD-R.
The gauges were hung with lights on everywhere,
In hopes that Eric O’ soon would be there.
The signals were all nestled down around ground,
As noise and garbage was all that was found.
The rear Camera was the educated guess,
Rear panels with clips and screws, what a mess.
When off comes the connector with a mighty pull,
CAN-L and CAN-H no longer at null.
Cars with bad cameras will not go in drive,
Eric rants about Cars, Techs, and all that Jive.
Merry Christmas to all and a Happy New Year,
Kick back and relax with a cocktail or beer.
Well done 👏
Bravo!
Nice! That took some thought!
Great job, are you ai?
@@7viewerlogic670 Accomplished Intellect?
As a mechanic for 37 years I would like to say this is the best video you have ever done.i couldn't agree more.
I'm so glad that I'm a retired mechanic.
@@donmunro144 Got that right
Im glad all i do is tow them now
It’s the same story in the industrial/manufacturing world. Over engineered and too much technology in a machine that just makes a box!
We don't care about the ranting and raving. We like to watch the videos because you teach us. Ain't that right people but anyways you guys have good holidays❤
Back in August, my sister and I were driving along in a rental Nissan with a CVT. Out of nowhere, the car went into limp-home mode at highway speeds and threw some CVT warning message on the dash. We pulled-off the road and tried the stop engine, open driver door, close driver door attempt at a reset.
The car then would not start. After a few minutes of panic, I remembered my SMA training and looked up "Nissan won't start" on Google, and found directions on how to reset the CVT. 17 minute later after following the directions, I was able to start the car which ran fine for the rest of the trip. The solution: Wait 15 minutes with the key off (this was easy because the car was already off), turn on the ignition to the ON position and wait for all the dashboard lights to go off, press the accelerator all the way to the floor for 10 seconds, turn off the key and release the accelerator, wait three minutes, and then try to start the car. It actually worked.
Had I not been a SMA viewer, I would not have thought to search for and try such a solution, and my sister and I would have missed a wake for my aunt.
Thanks Eric O!
Was it a Rogue? I advised a close friend not to buy one due to the poor reliability of the Nissan CVT. Eric is a great resource.
I think you forgot the “do jump n jacks, spin around 3x”!
Certainly all the newer vehicle creature comforts (such as that camera) are nice but being designed (I guess intentionally) to take down the whole operating ability of that car when it developes a problem is ridiculous.
@@greggdpa Don't forget to touch your nose on the right side with your index finger!👍🏻😂
You're lucky the CVT belt didn't break!
I asked my mechanic what car to buy. He said an old Camry. So I bought 2. All time top 5 best advice anyone has ever given me.
Still driving my 2010 Civic and 2013 Highlander. No car payments and cheap to fix.
What should we do when even old cars have all this stuff soon? I drive a '99 in the rustbelt and it's reaching end of life with 300K miles on it. All older cars are just as old/rusty. Import from south west? buy new car and lean on the warranty? I'm afraid to buy a 10 year old used car because it will likely be less reliable than what I have now. Cars seem to be throw away and breaking down by 100K. The 90s and early '00s reliability has been engineered out.
@@icqme8586 toyota or honda
Yup, always. VW/Audi, Lexus/Toyota, Acura/Honda or I won’t drive it. Extensive personal experience has drawn me to these conclusions.
@@icqme8586 You'll own nothing and be happy. ;)
The number of non-essential features that can fail and cause your car to be undrivable is an engineering crime, and a big screw you to the owner.
Totally agree
I wonder how long it will be until somebody offers a service that strips down modern vehicles and returns them to a primitive but more reliable state.
Saw a video where a man had a Toyota truck sitting in his parking lot because it was “dead”. No mechanic could find what was wrong. The guy from the video showed up simply plugged a windshield connector to the head of the car and bam truck started right up.
Absolutely bs that a switch would kill the entire car.
Nailed it
Making things that used to work fine in older cars today have to be incredibly complex and expensive to do the same thing. Done on purpose - capitalisms end game.
We used to say about Marine Corp air craft and helicopters. It takes a PhD to design them a college grad to break them and a high school drop out to fix them.
Facts right there! Oorah!
i remember a saying, if that helo ain't leaking and making weird noises, don't get in it
@@manuelsalvatierra2940 same thing applies to old detroit diesels like the 6v92 if its not leaving a puddle on the ground its outa fluids
@@SouthMainAuto Simper Fi as an aircraft mechanic simple S%&$ causes all the problems.
@@manuelsalvatierra2940 Exactly, if it ain't leaking it's because she's out of fluids.
I know it's miserable to have to work on any car let alone your own on Christmas, but thanks for turning on the camera for all of us. Hope you and your family still had a great Christmas. We all appreciate you, Eric!!
Love the positive energy❤❤
If if were a Toyota instead of a Kia, he coulda kicked The CAN down the road to Skottie to call it a POS. Just thank the Lord it wasn't a Jeep and you had to renew your expired Autoauth subscription or use the 12 +8 SGW bypass in the nether regions of your dash😂
He is making some bucks from TH-cam.
I have worked Christmas Eve most of my life.
I much rather work on my own than someone elses neglected junk.
EVERYTHING has been cheapened and compromised today! I'm 63, and have noticed this through the decades. Whether you are talking cars, home electronics, Boeing jets, or even men's underwear (they used to last years and had good 'family jewels' support... now they last a few months at most, and the material is thin, cheap, and flimsy), we are living through some harrowing times. This is a WAR ON QUALITY, and the consumer is losing bigtime! Something needs to be done!
The best part is it’s made for Pennie’s on the dollar on the other side of the world and we pay 100x more for it once it hits your doorstep
I remember the 1970s when my sneakers used to last 1 year.
Yup, corporate greed and planned obsolescence. They figured out how to make things cheaper and last just long enough to fail after the warranty expires so they can sell you a new one. I had a dehumidifier for 15 years without a problem. I’ve had to buy 4 new ones in the last 15 years.
Make underwear great again
Wouldn't it be great if sombody started to manufacture kitchen ranges, refrigerators, wash machines, dish washers, etc. exactly as they were from the mid to late 1970's. Like you indicated the drop in quality is a contrived war or somebody would have picked up the old designs and materials. This last summer while travelling rural farmland of the canadian prairies I came across two places that were still using functioning refrigerators from the '60's (green). I have two small deep freezes that have been in continuous use since purchased in the mid 1970's .
A wise man told me a long time ago if it got tits or tires it’s going to cost you money!
lol!!!
And the bigger they are, the more they cost.
Lipstick or turbos....
I like it. lol
My goat is deeply offended!
@@MrDesalex 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
As an electrical engineer, it absolutely baffles me that engineers are designing systems in a way where the entire network is tied together. Thats just idiotic. It’s going to break either way, tow truck operator’s are the only ones making extra money by designing it that way.
But they save 8 cents per car by not having redundant wires to critical systems.. And they saved an unpaid intern 3 hours of programming time by not having him program in when to ignore certain data lines.
New field have to relearn all the lessons from last time. Segregated and dual redundant networks date from 1960.
Your not thinking then. They have hated you can go to independent mechanics, and they can't stop you. By killing off the mechanics you will be stuck going to them again.
That they can't fix it, is your problem. Buy a new one.
At least their still using different modules for separate functions. Wait until they go to one computer to run the entire car; Apples M2 Ultra has enough computing power to do it.
Fellow engineer here, I agree. They should have individual and isolated circuits instead of a parallel bus. Just one module failure and you're screwed the way it's currently designed.
We've perfected the art of overcomplicating the simplest of things. Its fascinating.
Making things that used to work fine in older cars today have to be incredibly complex and expensive to do the same thing. Done on purpose - capitalisms end game.
I agree, Most cars are rolling computers today and a recipe for disaster=JUNK!
computer software has gotten systematically WORSE since 2000, and now they are putting that garbage software into cars
@Anthony-qj7qe, and much of that "computer" is designed around "emissions" garbage, the rest is "OMG you've got 47 way adjustable, heated/cooled seats and Facebook on your console display!!" -_- I remember a time when heat/AC controls used simple levers and cables, then vacuum actuators and now electric actuators that sometimes "require a professional scan tool to recalibrate." Engines with "wet drive belts" turning the oil pump and a component of it tends to fail, starving your engine of oil destroying a "$4K-$8K engine". There are also "water pumps behind the timing cover" which if you don't notice the "weeping of coolant indicating failure", then coolant is dumped right into the oil pan below like a catch-can, likely ruining the engine.
So they turned a ~2 hour job that most DIY's could do at home, into a "8+ hour book time" job for dealer techs and for what?! Profit and maybe "driving" people away from "ICE" vehicles to all-electrics which are not only more expensive overall but are more "disposable".... Imagine what it's like buying a new A-EV for "$40K" give or take, then after months, a year or so, the wiring/battery tray becomes damaged and the insurance company says, "Due to risk of FIRE, the vehicle is totaled despite the fact it seems perfectly fine and drivable...." Imagine if a "fender dent" suddenly totaled a new "ICE" vehicle. Beyond stupid.
I bought a 2020 4 years ago. Before that my newest was an ‘06. I have 4 vehicles and 2 motorcycles so don’t drive everything a lot. If I let my 2020 sit for about 2 weeks it won’t start. Dead battery. And I have a 2 battery system..! Computers suck the juice out. I can leave my 73 Mach 1 sit for 8 months and it starts..!!
The more I see and hear about these modern cars, the more I appreciate my old slow truck.
I want to find something with a carburetor….
@Scottie8740 I swapped a carbed engine in my other car. The one in my profile picture.
Same 😂 getting my old Corvette presentable again and selling my Nissan....got stranded in it one time at the post office...it was a simple clutch switch that was actuated by a weird plastic bump stop in the clutch pedal arm ...it disintegrated/crumbled from age 😂 fortunately something in my head said hey , the brake pedal switch did the same thing so I reached down and actuated the clutch switch with my hand so the car would crank over...got home put a bolt 🔩 in that hole no issues since 👍
@@MarcusSandoval-kx2th all that to get stranded by vapor lock. lol
@@MiamiZombie2012 yep !
I've spent 40 years as a tech. Cool vid, bro ! I hate new cars too lol
In case anyone wonders about the high prices of new vehicles, here is a fact. Over half the cost of a new IC vehicle is from the ever tightening EPA & CAFE standards. All the wiring, computers, and additional systems for emission controls. In the attempt to be green, the EPA has manufacturer to build these high tech cars that will be non-repairable junk in less than a decade. All in the name of "less emissions & greater efficiency" . Never mind the mining to get all the copper, iron, aluminum, rare earth minerals, refining of said minerals, and manufacturing it takes to create a vehicle. How much extra pollution is left out of the EPA's equation ?
You know those shutters on the front of the radiators on new trucks ? That allows them to aerodynamically get an extra 300 feet per gallon of gas. This is where we are.
Pure stupidity.
Couldn't agree more, you nailed it.
I believe that it takes around 80-100 barrels of oil to produce a normal vehicle, if you do a soup to nuts analysis. From the mining, refining, transportation of raw goods, foundries, machining, stamping, welding, plastics, electronics, and delivery to POS, it takes a Brobdingnagian amount of energy and carbon to produce a car and deliver it to a consumer.
I was certified as a mechanic in 1985 in Alberta Canada. Your post is 100% correct. I only work on my own vehicles now and they are older.
@@SweatLaserXP Fer more for an EV. You have to mine 250 tons of rock then grind it down to a powder just to get the lithium.
@@markseehawer3762 Not to mention that lithium mining operations are notorious for employing child labor (kids are good at mining because they're small and can get into tight spots).
I hope that you post this video every Christmas Eve forever. "The backup camera that stole Christmas.". It could go viral and lead to an industry wide awakening to the issues involved. Now THAT would be a Christmas miracle
Alice’s Restaurant of SMA Channel. Every Christmas fan favorite!!!
I think the fact that the vehicles' internal data network being as poorly designed as it is where a single point of failure can cascade and bring the entire thing down is a bigger problem. Really speaks volumes of the whole 'enshittification' of products these days.
Capitalism baby. "Minimum viable product".
Lol. Eric is fired up today. Love it!
Me too
With very good reasons to be. The fact the camera can still function normally well destroying the data network is just nuts.
You like when people are frustrated?
@1Corinthians151-4 Yes! What kind of dumb*** question is that. Read the room dude
I'm 72 and I still drive the magnificent old 1986 Toyota 4X4 truck I bought new in '86. Carbureted, simple, designed to be repaired without computers. When the ignitor died and the industry hadn't yet started making inexpensive replacements I did some research and bought a used MSD 6AL and it has been faithfully working for a quarter million miles. If it quits out somewhere there is a very high likelihood I can fix it right out in the field with common hand tools I carry with me. It is common when I am out driving it for someone to pull up next to me and ask if I will sell it. The quality and simplicity of these old rigs is nowadays recognized and appreciated.
Ohh MSD 👍
I had a 1986 Toyota 4x4, it was basic as all get out. Manual brakes, manual steering, no radio (unti I put one in). I added a sun roof. I loved that truck, it was magnificent. It was totaled in 1991 when I got hit by two motorists, neither of which had insurance. I really loved that truck, it did everything I asked it to do.
Do you want to sell it!😊
Is the truck still for sale?😊
I have a 1988 Toyota pickup bought in 1997. Had to replace the engine due to ignoring a blown head gasket that ended up ruining the engine. Jasper remanufactured replacement going strong for about 20 years now. If no accidents, it will outlive me. Simple computer that just lights up a dash light with coded blinks. Checked the capacitors in the computer recently trying to figure out an erratic engine light that never threw a code. Capacitors checked out like new and narrowed down the problem to water in the gas tank. Marvel Mystery Oil in the gas tank to the rescue.
Eric , I hear you. I work on the network/ security team for a steel company. The critical network stuff is totally isolated from the fluff people try to put on the network. Stupid cameras, bar code readers etc. Contractors trying to put their junk on our network for internet access. The list is endless. If it wasn’t isolated the entire network would go down constantly. I hope they start doing that with cars. Don’t put silly unnecessary devices on the network that can easily fail and cause the car to not drive. Maybe two networks. One for critical systems to make the car run and one for the junk that people think they need. For a camera or like you said a door handle to fail and put you on the side of the road is craziness.
Yes, the "Infotainment" system and the back up camera should be stand alone systems. Along with lighting, should also be stand alone.
Those sensors and cameras have purpose, several purposes actually.
All that tech is sneaked in because one day, someone could have all gizmos for driving your car away (already demonstrated and quite possibly in use in rental cars). Remotely, from china or india or whatever far away place. Or leave one stranded in the middle of nowhere (remote shutdown, lock doors etc). Expect no privacy in or around new cars, it is not hard to deduce - they come with cameras, microphones, computers and internet. Its wonderful, isn't it? Spyware on wheels.
I've read articles about insurance companies using remote telemetry (the same gizmos all over the car) and asses driving habits, ergo, insurance costs. I guess, the data may be used for car crash investigation too.
Well the government and car companies say you need those things to drive
When I secured a friend’s business network, I used a few simple techniques. The wifi is powered by the cheapest carrier and is not connected to any device that runs the business. The business network is not connected to the Internet in any way. If a device needs a software update, it is disconnected from the biz network and connected to the wifi for a short time. If they decide they need remote access, it would be with a different carrier.
@@SeersantLoomMy insurance company said I could install their app on my phone. Which tracks if you use your phone to text while driving. And I could save $4.00 a month. I asked her what’s the purpose of that. She said it prevents accidents by making customers aware it will be flagged. But it wouldn’t count against you. Just a deterrent. I told her if your tracking by phone. How accurate could it be. And I think they are doing it for a benefit. Like not paying claims. Anyway. I told her I don’t trust anything doing surveillance on me. I’m a good driver. My record shows that.
FWIW, I worked as a departmental IT support tech. More to the point, this back up camera issue seems akin to a corrupted printer driver causing your computer to brick itself completely.
That is, a seemingly trivial hiccup/malfunction of an auxiliary feature totally pooching your entire system.
Ain't technology grand? 🤔
The worst part about being a mechanic is that I can't afford to make my personal car problems someone elses job, even if i wanted them to be. The lack of trust in others might be half the problem, too. Good intuition, Mr. O, even if it's just a pattern of 1.
Now 2.
Good call
I’m going to disagree with the camera not being needed. The rear view and the side view mirror don’t allow you to see right behind your car. Kids and pets have been saved thanks to the back up cam. Now have you seen Chryslers with the camera flipped left to right? What’s up with that? I’ve encountered it a few times but never repaired the issue as it was not a concern.
@@certautotechI'm going to AGREE with the camera not being needed because of the existence of the GOAL method and proper adjustments of all mirrors.
@@TwisteeTheDefiant1I don’t care how much you adjust your mirrors you will not be able to see a toddler, cat, dog or a child sitting directly in back of the car. It also helps some people that aren’t good at parallel parking park but to each their own. Moreover most people don’t take the time to go around the vehicle and look. There are those that use a remote starter to avoid sitting in a cold car and the minute they’re ready they just get in the car and go.
The day has come that a vehicle will not start BECAUSE OF A BROKEN TAIL LIGHT. And the tail light still works, but the blind spot monitoring module within it got wet and shorted the data bus so the start button cannot talk to the PCM to tell it to run.
The federal government has made most of that frustrating stuff mandatory, and they have now made auto emergency braking mandatory.
Trump is our only hope of getting this insanity rescinded.
ford?
I tune german cars. Had a fuel pump frozen at 70% duty because the ambient air temp sensor wasn't plugged in.
@@briangreen430 Lol, what a clown. You think Trump is somehow going to reverse 2 decades of auto engineering?
The sad fact is that the way visibility is on the newer vehicles, a backup camera is actually a necessity; not to make the vehicle operate but because of the blind spots!
When you said the camera was causing the issue I didn't believe you. lol Merry Christmas and thanks for making this video which I will gladly share.
In the US cars are required to have a camera in the back as of 2015 I believe
Enacted by Congress in 2008, announced by DoT in 2014, mandated in 2018
42 years mechanic here in Ireland. Last 20 the hardest with changes in technology. Bad enough if problems are wiring or components, but now software , in some cases can be the issue! Tired! Great channel. Happy holidays
What Eric said.
I'm 77 started driving at 14. Grew up in cars from the 1950's to ''70's. Give me a carburetor, points ignition, cable operated heater / ac, hand crank windows. We survived quite nicely without all the "convenience " features now considered essential. Been there, done that. Tool box in those days consisted of a pliers, screw driver and crescent wrench. (Most significant gain in modern vehicles is that they are much safer in the event of an accident.)
Problems are not just the plethora of electronically controlled everything but the way it's all incorporated into the can buss operating systems. A backup camera should be as simple as the cheap stand alone add on units that can be purchased online. There is no reason that it needs to be tied to everything else through a can buss network and absolutely no reason why it should have any influence on any other operating system.
I used to avoid buying cars with unnecessary features!
Now even the lowest priced vehicles are cramed full of extras.
You aren't allowed to import low complexity transportation into the USA.
Now a new car costs more than most people can afford to pay!
Car loans were 36 months, but now you're going to be lucky to pay it off before the warranty expires!
@@randymack2222 I'm buying a brand new car this spring and all I want is something reliable to get me from point A to B. I'm just glad that one manufacturer still makes a base model with a manual transmission. (nissan versa) But I'm annoyed that even the base model isn't so base anymore. It still has everything controlled by electronics that nobody asked for. And I am praying I can find a way to disable the automatic braking safety shit they put in there because I don't want my car randomly hitting the brakes on me and causing a crash.
I’ll be 70 next year and I still have my ‘51 International pickup. I’m happiest when I’m working on it.
Agree for the most part but could do without the points ignition…Hall effect sensors are significantly less mechanically complex than points and very simple electronically.
1990s to early 2000 is the sweet spot for me.
I like fuel injection, electronic ignition, and anti lock disk breaks.
Cars from that era had all that but where still pretty easy to diagnose and fix.
Things really fell off the deep end around 2010 and up......
In my day we had points and condenser, it got us everywhere we wanted to go. If there was a camera in the car it was a Kodak instamatic. And we liked it that way.
Dag nabbit! 😊
Totally agree!
And ya carried a $3 spare set of points, a match book and screwdriver just in case.
And we got 40 rods to the hogshead!
@@lukem7203 Ooh! Ooh! Pick me, Daddy. I've got a tach/dwell meter, and I know how to use it!
When I was going onto large open cut mine sites in Australia, that run the really big dump trucks, Cat 24M graders and D-11's.........the workshop managers are struggling to deal with the "electronic crap" on those machines, to keep them working. So its across a broad spectrum of manufacturers and applications.
My daily is 15 years old and my pickup is 25 years old. I will keep them running as long as I can, including replacing the inevitable rusted body panels and rotten structural frame members. I live in the salt belt too but my backup camera will NEVER leave me stranded because I don't have one! Merry Christmas!
My Calif International pickup was bought new by dad in 61. I have a 62 C-10 and a 4wd 64 international. The other 3 vehicles are older Camrys...one has 500k miles. Gimmy the old stuff.
I never use a backup camera even in cars that have one
My pickup is 35 years old, and I feel the same way
Since I am a retired GM tech, it is nice to see someone else get twisted over this stuff. As I watched vehicles develop into today's cars and trucks I decided to retire. The low amperage circuits can use smaller wires to run them, but the slightest resistance causes the whole system to crash. Down in Oklahoma I got talked into putting trailer wiring on truck, cars, and of course mini vans. The small wiring could and would not handle trailer lights. New trailer lights was coming out called 'trailer-lite' that was system sensitive and would not put a load on the vehicles wiring. It is all new. Have and Happy New Year.
Control, Control control.
low amp circuits care less about resistance than high amp circuit, you've got it wrong
@@donaldross1077 34 year gm tech…six years to go. I can’t wait
@@rvdboston9568 These circuits have a set resistance value. When voltages and resistances change even slightly computer circuits do not know how to 'read' signals. This is the reason low battery voltages set many codes in dozens of systems. Do not listen to me. I just worked on them for 50 years as a Master GM Certified tech.
@@donaldross1077 watch the video - it is not about high wire resistance. It is about low resistance. Camera died and pulled signal wires to the ground.
I'm glad I got out 20 years ago. Being a shop owner in NYS and trying to fix these garbage cars will make you nuts. Merry Christmas Eric and family!
Super well timed video! Son's KIA went down and my cheap little code reader had nothing. With his kids and work, he had no time for the shop. This video and now a broken screw later (Lol Oops) it's running regular again. I'm so glad that I've been subscribed for years now! Thanks Man
That "one screw" in the panel is a "PRI".......previous repair indicator. When you attempt to remove the panel, it will be missing and let you know that you're not the first one to go down this path. There's thousands of them rolling around some mechanic's tool box. Been there, done that.
A coworker of mine had a similar issue. His year old Jeep started to switch the radio on and off every second or two. The dealer diagnosed it as the backup camera crashing every time the computer tried to reboot it, which would cause the infotainment to crash, and reboot in a loop. Modern cars are far too tightly coupled in their design if the backup camera can affect the infotainment system when it fails.
@Dartht33bagger Company vehicle is a 2019 Silverado. I never use the backup camera. You have mirrors and eyeballs. Only use I can think of is maybe a trailer. None of my cars has a backup camera.
@@bryangillis1839 im a truck driver. drive a milk truck (tractor trailer, tanker). i dont need a damn backup camera. i use mirrors all day, and when i drive my crosstrek i dont even look at the backup camera. i wished i could have ordered the car with a infotainment delete and just got a normal din sized radio, that i could replace with an aftermarket pioneer head unit
@@Jelsick I agree. All of my cars are old enough that none of them have backup cameras and I prefer that. However, a federal law passed in 2008 mandates that all cars starting with model year 2018 must have a backup camera. Which also means an infotainment screen is required; something else I'm not interested in.
@Dartht33bagger Funny, the screen on the Silverado goes black periodically and doesn't come back until you shut the truck off for a few minutes. Of course the backup camera won't work because the screen is dead. It's been doing this since it was new. Go figure 🤔
To the people in the replies complaining about back up cams they aren't the problem. The problem is manufacturers putting them on the network.
Rainman Ray said the other day one of your talents is you don't get frustrated and deal
with problems maturely and effectively which you do. However your grief is felt and understood
when accountants build cars. Happy new year and thanks for the tuition.
Dealing with cars all day takes a lot of patience. And I know how it can be when the repair starts going not as planned. I am willing to bet a good amount that Eric’s true frustrations are handled off camera. Or at least edited out. For the sake of the viewers 😂
I use to love working on cars! Most days now I dont!
I like both of Rainman and SMA
This is why i love the quality and durability of my 2001 Subaru Outback. I never have any issues with this car and it's still beautiful after 23 years on the road.
Wow, my wife owns a 2004 Subaru Outback, with the H6-3.0 engine. We bought it used back in 2014 and it's still running strong! It's a pleasure to drive, and you can feel the quality. I do all my own work on it (except alignments and tire replacement), and would rather keep this going than buy a new(er) Subaru.
We had a problem with my wife's 2024 Subaru, the radio in it went bad, we couldn't drive the car, because the radio also had the shifter screen and several other functions integrated. An added bit of fun was that when the radio went, it fried my phone that was plugged in charging. Hope you had a good Christmas.
good grief. what model subaru is it? i have a 2022 crosstrek but it is a manual, almost the last of it's breed. 2023 is the last year for manual crosstreks. i do NOT want a CVT nor a laptop mounted in the dashboard. it has a small screen and that's more then i want. how about no screen, just a normal radio?
@@andrewdonohue1853 any Subaru from the 2017 Impreza global platform is fully integrated unfortunately.
Don't buy a Subaru.
@@marblox9300 Unless it's an older one
I'm a forklift mechanic in a large factory. One area of the plant in particular is rough on equipment because of a wet and oily environment and glass particles. We tried several brands of newer forklifts but they all are ecm controlled now and throttle by wire. Not to mention switches instead of levers to raise/lower and tilt. It was nothing short of a nightmare keeping those machines running. We went back to the 1980's Cats we had and although we have to have some parts custom made for them they just keep going! 12volts to the coil and a simple impco propane system rules all. Things just don't need to be this way. We are going backwards with this new stuff at an alarming rate!
That's exactly it. I am surprised cars still come with a steering wheel at this point.
Here we come Joysticks! oh boy.
if we didnt have meglomaniacs, & religion, stopping us for the last 10k.... star trek would be a bed time story.. & thats a fact.. i go back in history 50k. find what was ''deleted'', like inventors now that end up dead.. cancer was cured centuries ago.. its not just cars.. its the whole frigin system.. ausie.. boiler maker.. oh, & we only have nuke power for the military, what we get is a side note.. the military banned sodium reactors back in 1954.. the 2ww, never ended. the u.s. just continued it, with 3rd party excuses, like 911, terrorists.. bs..
I long for the old days when I drove a 1969 GMC 1/2 ton regular cab with a 250 cubic inch 6 cylinder engine with wing windows, bench seat, three on the tree!
Yup I had the same truck and miss it and I can fix it that is if it ever breaks
You still can drive a 69 model if you want to.....they are available for sale. I have 9 vehicles, all of them very old. They hardly ever break and when they do they are easy to fix.
Wing windows bring back such strong memories. Even what the vehicle smelled like!
@@russellayton6408 , I remember them when I was a kid. '60's Mustang Coupe, '56 Chevy Bel Air and Dad's '63 Chrysler Newport with the push-button transmission. He also had a '68 Buick Electra 225 with the ~430ci engine. He drove it conservatively but at times he'd "blow it out", lol.
I have a nice 72 F100 short bed in my garage. My day driver is a 92 Chev WT with crank windows. My out of town rd car is a 2022 Forester, one of the safest in the world. Had to change my tail light bulb on my 92 chevy in 5 mins. Had to replace the alternator, 20 mins and 54 dollars. Paid $3,500 for my F100, $7500 for my Chev WT and $36,000 for my Forester Touring. I hope that teleportation is coming soon!
You put a smile on my face with this one. I couldn't agree more. I really miss the late 1980's where the PCU was the only computer in the vehicle, and wired switches enabled you to customize things. Your situation demonstrates the Achilles heel (design flaw) of the basic CAN bus concept, where multiple devices are daisy chained on a single physical connection, and the devices at each end must provide termination resistors. Alternative networks like Ethernet support only point-to-point connections but require a switch to pass signals around, and therefore cost more. That design would have really saved the world from problems like this one, but it's too late now. CAN is too standardized...
It's a 'feature', not a 'bug'.
160mph speedometer on a KIA minivan. What an amazing time to be alive.
Unrealistic speeds on the speedometer is more about oogleing than anything else. Best you get is 100+ mph not even close to 160.
That for when you flip it over to metric.
I have a 200 KPH speedo on an 87 land rover ninety. The only way it goes that fast if it gets pushed off a cliff. I think they call it "wishful thinking."
wierd it has that but is missing the flux capacitor option
While I'm all for having less computers on cars in general, the real bigger issue is that the diagnostic tools don't function better. By that I mean years ago redundancies should have been built in such that rather then loosing communication with every module when simple issues happen, instead it can isolate and tell you for example you camera is bad. If that were the case, so much of this stuff would be less of a problem. In a sense "who cares" if the camera breaks, so long as it doesn't take out the driveabiity of the car.
Oh, man, that brings back bad memories. My grandparents were broken down at a truck stop while driving back from Myrtle Beach and had to have their Kia towed to a dealership, while they checked into the worst Motel 6 in the U.S.
My parents Kia (mom's choice, not dad's) decided at 4am when they had to get to the airport that it wanted to be in 4 Low... FOREVER!!!...
.
He just drove to the airport at 6k rpms.. It was under warranty and he HATED IT, he was hoping it blew up!!!!! The dealer was pretty good though, they actually went to the car park place and got it, and returned it fixed before my parents got back..
.
The stupid issues with that car, and parts were EXPENSIVE!! I was not sorry to see it go. I hated working on it too.
Back in the mid-80s I learned to drive on my parents' 1969 VW bug. Didn't even have a passenger side mirror! To this day I never even look at a backup camera screen if I'm in a car that has one, I ALWAYS ALWAYS look back over my shoulder when backing up or changing lanes. Probably has saved my a$$ at least a couple dozen times.
I’m 64 my son is 19. Driving the other day he says “you don’t use the camera in reverse?” I say nope, I always turn my head around and look. He’s says “I want to start doing it that way. It looks cool!” 😂
Backup cameras are sweet, especially for parallel parking into tight spots. With that said, they should not be able to immobilize the vehicle. They should be on a low priority isolated network with all the other non essential stuff.
@@NotAnonymousNo80014 Someone should tell the computer hacks that are designing automotive networks that!
Thanks for the info. I never would’ve thought that could happen It is so stupid.
Great video , most would see it as a rant but others could see that passion you have for helping people.
Working on vehicles as a mechanic in a shop, I can count on once evey couple of weeks blowing up and hating my job for a few hours. Everyone has to have power everything, auto ass wipers.etc.
So it's our fault they put all that stuff in that we didn't ask for?
I'd like an "auto ass wiper". that would be cool, as long as I don't have to ever fix it though!
@@terrykohlman7355 I have one it's called a Toto. It's very expensive and worth every damn penny.
It's impossible to work on modern vehicles without blowing a gasket, they're not designed to be serviced beyond the most basic things.
This is why I left the auto industry over a decade ago. The stupidity of engineers now a days is crazy. I applaud you for sticking with it Eric.👍👍👍
🎶🎶"Oh, the weather outside is frightful, Kia Cars are not delightful..." 🎶🎶
😂😂😂😂
It’s starting to look like Christmas 🎵
🤣🤣
@@udrtydog1 this one has me LMAO
Our 2017 Sedona has 95K miles with not a single problem. Plus it's driven by a woman every day (my wife). I'm impressed!
I have been watching your videos for 5 years now you have taught me so much more then I have learned in 20 years. My son who is 18 now has been watching your videos for about three years and when someone has a car issue he always go back to your videos of working on certain cars and let's them know how to fix it or fixes it on the fly for them to get them off the side of the road til they can get it to a mechanic. Thank you for all your help. Happy new years to you
Try getting that plastic off in your driveway when its 400 below zero outside and you'll have a bunch of broke plastic eh. Can't even work on crap when its cold---it all breaks. Merry Christmas to you and the family Eric. Thanks for all the great videos- you have no idea how much we viewers have learned from you.
Yeah. Plastic tends to easily crack when its cold, old and tired or just that one clip/screw you couldn't find.
@@tsl7881 I hate plastic car crap anymore !!! Then you have to hope Doorman makes a aluminum version !
Inconvenience my ass! If that happens to someone on the road, a dealership will have them $4-5K in repairs replacing all the computers, wire harness, sensors, you name it! Oh and by the way, when/if they did find out it was just the camera they would never own up to it. These cars are turning out to be a diagnostic nightmare. I give huge kudos to you for not completely losing your mind on a daily basis! 🤣 Love your videos and your approach. Happy Holidays!
They make them like this on purpose so the dealerships can charge you out the ass to fix them!
Well said. Don't trust the stealership as far as you can throw them. Like bad doctors they will never admit fault. The stealership is only concerned with their bottom-line. They can fix nearly anything if under warranty, a gasket is all you need if you have an exhaust leak, etc. Once the warranty expires, or they know the customer or insurance company is footing the bill the whole system must be replaced and we're going to round everything up a few hours labor at $250./hr...
@@Neamerjell Wouldn't charge that if we people stop taking them in to the dealer in the first place right supply and demand?
@@cardo1111 Just bring them the gasket for exhaust leak tell him, replace it, problem solved no need for a whole new system.
I love spending an hour removing vanity covers before I can get started diagnosing the problem
You know you have the best vehicle ever when its OBD2 Japanese with a green lit cluster & dash. The sweet spot of auto design was late 90s early 00s toyota, honda, subaru
I drive a 1998 toyota celica. 230,000 on the dash. I bought it for work since i get covered in oil, grease, and mud 6 days a week. Only issue its ever given me was a fouled out spark plug boot arcing to the engine. Love that car.
I am a datacom tech, and fully agree, spend so much of my time hunting down failures caused by nonsense add-ons.
Right to repair laws need to be made and strengthened.
@@VanillaWahlberg ☝️THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!
But the right to repair is for naught if you need an oscilliscope, sonic screwdriver, and a shop manual to even start troubleshooting.
There are already some such laws. They have not kept pace with technology. Used to be you could buy the factory shop manuals... which were often split into at least four volumes as vehicles and their systems became more complicated (Mintenance/service, mechanical, electrical, and body.) I still have a set of Porsche 928 manuals from when I worked on those kinds of cars. There are nine(9) volumes! and they cost me $500 back in the mid 1980s. Most are less expensive. Often a good public library would have most domestic vehicles in the reference section. Those days are long gone. They are all online now at places like Alldata. They have inexpensive subscriptions for DIY. Many manufacturers are moving towards proprietary systems for diagnostic hardware. Volkswagen and Bosch kinda started that trend way back in the late 1960s-70s with the special Bosch diagnostic system for their fuel injection and VW had a system (mostly for marketing. You can even find old ads for it on youtube with Buzz Aldrin as a promoter.) Fast forward to OBDI and OBDII which is (more or less) the "standard" now. On top of all that is often layered a system which is largely proprietary and unique to each manufacturer.
Modern cars (past 10 years) have as many as 70-100 ECUs and 1400-3000 semiconductor "logic" units in them.
Damn... sorry that was a long ramble.
TLDR: it will be very difficult to change the current trend. Hopefully the engineers will get some feedback on this and re-design it so that one simple system (the backup camera circuit) will not bring down the rest of the system.
But the right to repair is for naught if You have to have an electrical engineering degree to work on it
How about letting the govt NOT mandate unnecessary crap like back up cameras in the 1st place? Govt regulations got us here to begin with.
I truly wish techs like you had a say in what truly needs to be on a car.I was a tech for 45 years and saw the transition from no computers to a mass of them on cars and I hated the direction the industry was going because I saw it dispose of the mom and pop shops that existed back then .the technology and the knowledge needed to repair went beyond the limits of many .My Dad was also a mechanic for 50 plus years and he said one day the only one that will be able to repair cars in the future will be the makers themselves another way to monopolize the industry and today at the age of 70 I am seeing first hand this being done by All the manufacturers .one small unneeded device shutting down the whole vehicle…Damn sad …..I understand your frustration Eric truly do ..Merry Christmas to you and your family,and thank you so much for doing what you do !…..
Thanks to the numb nuts in Congress that mandates all this garbage, these systems aren't mature enough to be 99.9999% reliable.
I remember when the GM HEI distributors with the ignition coil in the distributor cap would arc through the cap and shut the vehicle down. The shop I worked at part time, we had the advance weights in stock already teflon coated so they didn't sling iron oxide inside the cap to kill the ignition.
Just imagine one of the new whizzbang EV's? Might be time to sell the repair shop and invest in a fleet of rollback trucks, well except you'll be the one out in the weather picking up the whizzbang from the side of the road.
Make engineers work as a mechanic for a solid year before they get to design something for production...
@@gungadinn Except your rollback truck has a NIGHTMARE diesel engine with even MORE pollution crap on it than gas cars do. 1/2 of them will be in the shop being 'fixed'.
@@hotpuppy1 I'll keep my truck on the road for another million miles after my grandpa added the first. Maintenance and care plus simple wear parts got it this far. You won't see anything new get even close to that. So 5 vehicles throwing a rod or burning oil? Or just one truck?
I was a mechanic for 30+ years, got out in 2019 the last 10 years were misery last gig was an FCA dealership what total pieces of garbage! SO glad I got out!
❤
I so agree.
Look at the oil dip stick. Perfectly functional analog device being replaced by electronic sensors that will fail.
True, or some automakers not putting even a drain plug in, suck it out and fill it up.😊
Fiat did that to their motors too. Customers revolted and now they are going back the trusted dip stick....
usually, I did run into a little problem with those though. it took a good road trip to figure it out. O ring at the top disintegrated, leaving the dip stick pushed in a little too far. now the "full" line is a quart too low.
@@jimgoff1170 Enclosed transmission look at 2016 muscle cars etc.
@@davidconner-shover51O-rings are cheap and easy to fix…don’t need a dealer’s mechanic.
Eric, this is why I own three different scanners young man. My big Autel is the primary source of Solutions. I'm a retired Mechanic, life has forced this retired guy to become a Technician now. Thank God I was born with a technical mind, and an understanding of electronics. I remember when all I needed were a few hand tools and feeler gauges to tune up a car, oh and a timing light. Curse the EPA and lazy folks who wouldn't keep a vehicle tuned up to prevent smog crap. Love ya Brother and how you have compassion for the technically unwashed.
As a Master tech for 14 years I can agree that we are only seeing more and more communication issues that cause more and more complete vehicle failures. It used to be that you used to just have communication codes in the background but the cars would mostly work. Sadly not anymore.
And you know this is by design to force you to take it to a manufacturer affiliated shop for ever single repair. I know how bad it is after seeing a recent report of some Ram trucks being recalled with a stop sell order due to malfunctioning headlights that is 'software related'. Why should headlight operation have any dependence on software? And apparently BMW had the same issue recently on some of their vehicles. Then there are the sudden rash ofvFord F150 taillights being stolen that have a $2700 replacement cost - something that should cost 10 times less in a sane world!!!
@@waynek805 how do you think they're robbing you? No replacement besides the entire vehicle or half its sticker price.
Well cared for older cars should be commanding premium prices if this highway robbery continues.
@@zentex8877 Yes some people in the know are recommending people obtain older pre 2010 vehicles cheap and fix/clean them up then sell for a profit in the near future.....
I own a 1998 VW Jetta TDI and a 1988 Lincoln town car for both the cars the broken things are the electronics. I cannot describe as a mechanic and an old school engineer how much modern cars specifically after 2010 the quality and complexity of all cars got worse.
“Money light”… I like that. Instead of “Check Engine Light”/CEL it’s now the “CML”… Check Money Light…
Light should just be a green dollar sign at this point
@@SSJStrongBad It should become a triple green dollar sign with how expensive it's getting.
I hear ya. I work in a factory. Recently, the machine I routinely operate stopped working. It took our maintenance techs 3 days of conversations with the machine techs to help troubleshoot and isolate the problem. Turns out a LAN connection had been damaged & finally failed. I immediately thought of you & the process you follow. Thank you for everything you do.
I quit being a mechanic many years ago, fortunately I had an opportunity to do something different in tech and make a solid career out of it. I still have to be a mechanic for family and friends and sometimes I just want to pay someone else to deal with it. I still have to keep my skills and tools up to date as a lot of what I have to deal with are electronic issues and diag. I have so much repect for people that still do this for a living. It's a struggle, and the tool expense is far more than most other trades. Oh and people never want to pay, everyone feels like they're gettig ripped off, they don't understand what it takes. I salute you Mr. O
Eric, many years ago my landlord asked me to look at his old truck. I was doing a valve job on a Jensen Healy at the time. His truck was a 1932 Ford with the Flathead V8 . Broken wire to the distributor ? magneto ? I think the barn mice chewed it . I think there was a total of two or three wires under the hood for the engine. Gee, it ran like a fine Swiss watch after a quick splice . I only service vintage vacuum tube based stereo equipment now. NO computers ! Dude, I feel your pain. I got quite good fixing electronics ( just two modules , and a few sensors ) on my A body GM wagons ( 3.3 engine ) , simple stuff. Not any more ! You are the best.
It really doesn’t make sense for accessory networks being able to bring down the vital systems that actually make the equipment run and drive
It's a KIA, so there ya go. They make it incredibly easy to steal these cars, but when you have the key in your hand, you're walkin'.
@@sferg9582 I can show you any late model GM that will crash the network with the headlight out of it or a Ford that will not move with a shorted taillight. It is not KIA it is all these modern POS. I can make a list a mile long that renders these shitbox's DOA from something as simple as a door handle.
@@SouthMainAuto I've been waiting like 10 years to witness you say "shit box".. best Christmas ever
@@SouthMainAutoa friend of mine has a ‘21 Silverado LTZ 6.6 gas sitting in the stealer parking lot waiting for his SECOND cam and lifters! 400 some miles from home. Been there since the Tuesday before thanksgiving. ALL fluid changes done and documented by the stealership on time or early… and they complained if he was early.
At 50 (10 yr ago) I stopped buying new and started buying old. Newest car is my wives last new car purchase 2006 fusion. 4 cyl manual trans. Then our 2000 lasabre w/3800 (3.8) 1998 camry and a 1993 f150 w/300 6cyl manual trans. All with roughly 100000 miles on the clocks. I will never buy new again. I cant ever buy new again.....And I want to thank you great mechanics on YT ! Big thanks to you Eric O !!
Ahh the 300 six cyl loved that motor, owed several fords with it had to put timing gears in a couple of them earlier to work on. Currently driving a gmc with 225,000 miles 2007 4.8 8 cylinder 4/4 still doing most of my own repairs
I bought an 010 Fusion, 4 cyl, manual trans while working at Ford back in 012. Had 30k, now at 130k. NO issues. I'll never get rid of it.
im351; a neighbor kid found one of those older f150 w/300 6cyl manual a few weeks after he (16 yrs old) got his dr lic brought it to the shop/farm where I drive truck. I didn't know much about them but what a sweet truck ! I love it. He found it sitting in a shed a 1/2 mi away. I'd like to have it.
@ I bought a 62 ford with a 235 6 cylinder engine for $200 straight out of a barn off my bus driver years ago loved that old truck. I had drove it there at the last couple years I owned it with a rod clanging around in it. Didn’t find that out till I junked it, or I probably would’ve had just kept on driving it on five cylinders
I follow a guy who does excavation. He has newer equipment with all of the bells and whistles that all of the sudden leave him unable to work . Most of his equipment is from the 80s or older. Not that he couldn't afford new(er) but rather, it always starts when he turns the key and stays running. Whats worse is his dozer stopped working. He paid a guy hundreds of dollars from the dealer to drive hours to come and fix it and the mechanic couldn't find anything wrong with it. No codes. Its not the first time it has done it. He's had it happen to the dozer and an excavator at the same time . The computers on both of them were $4000 each.
I imagine your friend is pretty steamed about that. The nonsense of it all is incredible.
Is this an excavator with a TH-cam channel? Andrew Camarata, or LetsDig18, by any chance?
My parents 2017 Arcadia is in for a full new transmission. They have had nothing but electrical gremlins. Literly left her stranded multiple times.
I own a 2016 Kia Soul. The rear camera is a SOB to remove! The camera is mounted in exterior trim. So, you get to remove both the interior AND exterior trim; two plastic clips are impossible to release; the metal hardware is rusted in place. Another thing is the cost of an OEM replacement. I happened to look at the camera to see it half-filled with water! Wonderful!
2000-2010 designed cars were the peak
Hold on to them and make sure to protect against rust!
id say 1970. not a single thing on them that the average person cant fix.
@@leftyo9589 No non airbag and crush zones cars for me, my life means something
Pre 2005 you can even avoid tpm sensors, suck.
@@leftyo9589 Yeah. I loved my 78 Cutlass with HEI until it broke down twice. Once with a rotor arcing through to the distributor shaft and again with a bad ignition module. My 69 El Camino took more maintenance but was much more reliable.
Well, they certainly are better than today's cars but if you can get an old car that doesn't have a computer, that's even better.
Agreed way too many simple systems tied together thru a computer that are now over complicated nonsense for what? And there is no chance for Avg person to figure it out without a wall full of diagnostic equipment and info subscription not to mention all the time to learn how to use it .Ugh! Merry Christmas Eric and Mrs "O my"😉 thanks for another year and hope the rest of your holiday season is blessed
One time my little boy did not get in the car with my other kids after a sight seeing stop. He was sitting on the bumper. Fortunately we did a head count just before I put it in gear. No backup camera on car. Backup camera saves a few toddlers perhaps.
I couldn't agree more. I'm sticking with older vehicles for this exact reason, but rust is creeping in and it won't be long until I'm forced to move on.
Wes of the Watch Wes Work You Tube channel - who has mentioned South Main Auto and is clearly a fan - calls modern cars “Disposable iPods with wheels”. This is one of Eric’s best videos, and should be seen by anyone who designs automobile systems. Unfortunately, Eric’s lesson will not be taken to heart.
I really blame apple for their planned obsolescence motto. it feels like from 2007 on everything was designed to fail instead of designed to last
those people that design stuff are given strict parameters to stay within. most will tell you there's nothing they can do about it if they want to continue eating. blame your government. i am not a designer nor engineer btw. but i've worked with too many
As car person who likes older (90’s-2000’s) cars I believe you are doing THE GOOD WORK for the people!
100% agree! Unnecessary tech should never be able to cripple an otherwise functional vehicle. All that crap should be on a secondary accessory network that can not affect the basic operation of the vehicle.
Fortunately, us average Joes have SMA to show us how to fix many of the common problems. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone! 🎉👍🏻 👍🏻
A five year old Kia with 107303 miles on the odometer and this is the first major problem the vehicle has seen. I would consider the vehicle as being very reliable for New York state driven year round. Yes it makes no sense for a failed rear view camera module to take down the entire bus due to poor system design but really the car has performed well over five years.
I feel your pain. It took me 2 weeks to get my truck to run again because of an aftermarket chime module behind the radio. You wanna talk about ready to burn it, theres no way the majority can figure something like that out. But a thorough process of elimination finally won the battle. I lost some sleep over it but thanks to the notes ive taken from this channel, Pine Hollow, and scanner danner i had a good idea on the steps to take. You all are a goldmine of information, especially for those of us like myself that are fairly proficient with diagnostics already.
"It took me 2 weeks to get my truck to run again because of an aftermarket chime module behind the radio."
Who installed the aftermarket module and why?
@ the previous owner did. The truck has an aftermarket radio and it was plugged into the adaptor harness. It was a cheap Scosche brand. I found it stuffed back in the dash behind the radio. As soon as i unplugged it everything keyed back up and its been fine since. I had no PRNDL, it would just read jibberish words and symbols, and no comm with a scanner. I knew real quick it was something to do with the computer network. Eric O said something very wise in another vid that has stuck with me and is probably why i was able to solve it. He said when you have a multitude of things that stop working you should “pick something and work backwards”.
@@leejordan2750 I despise most aftermarket electronic junk. My car, which has a manual transmission, had a remote starter installed when I bought it. It was a headache to untangle and remove.
@ ive always heard those are problematic too. In my experience, just about anything aftermarket other than exhaust tips, will eventually bite you. Heres my personal favorites that have left me broke down or spending my Saturday with the hood up for repair…
Cold air intakes-they just fall off or suck in dirt and never fit 100%
Wheels-they vibrate, take specific sockets that i lose, kill mpg, or wear out the front end in short order. And the tires are always expensive and hard to change.
Stereo/audio systems- see original comment.
LED lights- always make the whole car act up, theres always a bulb that wont work, or the left blinker is the new right.
Brushgaurds- handy reason to give up on checking fluid levels and make parking impossible.
I can keep going but you get the idea
I buy and flip auction cars. One of the first things I do if I encounter an issue is remove/unplug aftermarket stuff. 99% of the time I find the issue. Either a bad piece of junk or poor installation. Glad you got your truck going again, as the aftermarket stuff isn't on wiring diagrams so it is a lot of research and guessing that gets you to a solution I always "believe" it will work if I get it back to exactly how it came out of the factory as a base starting point. Then at least the wiring diagrams can help if I need to go farther.
Not car related, but on the same line as the piece of farm equipment you were mentioning. I am a lobsterman in Gloucester, Mass. I have a John Deere 6068 in my boat that's over 20 years old, but it's fully mechanical. Sure, it's not as powerful as some newer engines, but being on the water the last thing I want is to be stranded because of a sensor that goes wonky and the engine shuts down. Fuel, air and a starter and I'm good to go!!!
Starting? Pffff.... amateur, I have hated cars since I started working on them! Happy New Year, Eric and family!
I don't know if you ever had it, but back in the 1990s, like 1991ish , a bad rear wiper motor on Caravans and Voyagers would take out the ABS system and set a bunch of codes. Nothing related to the problem of course. Manufacturers have been F-ing with us for decades! 😂
I'm not entirely sure on years but I know my 97 f350 had transmission shift issues because the 3rd brake light was out 🤦🏻♂️
Eric, I've never watched a video of yours that did not bring bring a smile to my face! Merry Christmas!
You're sayin' the instrument cluster lit-up like a ... tis' the season fella!
I've been a mechanic 33 years. I've seen things get worse and worse. I work on cars on the side now. My regular job is equipment. It too now has can- bus. Especially ultra booms. If you don't understand electrical, God help you these days. I agree...too many features we don't even need. The driver has been taken out of the picture! Thanks for the tip on checking the camera. I've learned alot what trends are out there from this channel. It's helped me diagnose things faster! Great content! Your appreciated my friend! Let's be frustrated together in all this technology!!!
eric sounds like me when I work on cars, except a bit more colorful.
Enjoy your week off (excepting family jobs), sucks about feeling sick, and a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all at SMA. 🎄
The car companies are "smart enough" to add these data networks, they should be smart enough to create a more resilient network that deactivates modules that are not functioning within spec! Great videos!
They've been doing it on aircraft for over 50 years.. Its not rocket science.
@@bobw53jrma yeah, um you know what a plane costs?
Also planes have backs up.. too much tv thinking it can just d/c
@@mattlane2282 : I know what a plane costs, and I know its a lot more than even a new pickup truck (but the gap is closing)..
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I know a plane has essentially triple redundancy on everything, and I'm not saying to put 3 ECU's and 3 brake systems into a car.. I'm just saying that the things learned can be transferred..
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One computer in a plane being mad is not going to take down the entire plane, why does take down a vehicle???
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Say instead of running the data lines in a big loop where 1 useless module can take the entire thing down, put the useless modules on their own loop. All the stupid stuff in the back and underneath (except the fuel pump).. Backup camera (which I don't even understand why its part of the data loop), evap stuff, hatch control module(that's a real thing), if that loop goes down, ignore it, its not essential to basic function of GET OFF THE HIGHWAY!!!
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Essential functions on their own loop, maybe even add a few extra wires to the modules for redundancy. I'm not proposing anything crazy, maybe an extra wire or 2 and some time from an unpaid intern to do some more programming..
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I think it probably boils down to each team working on their own little piece, and that's fine, but it seems they miss the big picture when it comes to integrating it all.. A backup camera should not put a vehicle into limp mode, that is just piss poor engineering and planning.
Over the last 26 years my 98 4Runner has never once not started when I've touched the key and for that reason I will never EVER retire that unit. It will outlive us all 💯
Too funny! I love it. Mr. O keepin’ it real with the open and honest reaction. Merry Christmas, Eric!
I remember in 1996 when i was a young 21 years old my 1977 Impala always started during the Arctic Blast when all of the computer cars in my family were dead. Gotta love the heaters working in less than 3 minutes of those old GM's
Same here except mine was a 79'. Still own the car to this day.
At least we have people like Eric on TH-cam to point us in the right direction. The fix is just one Google search away! Thanks Eric O!
You are so right - a camera should not disable a car.
Thank god all those clips didn't break off like the sliding door panels.
😂😂😂 I was thinking the same thing as he yanked all the panels off!!!
This is unreal. The 1990's and early 2000 cars go for hundreds of thousands of miles with no issues. Now the newer cars with super light weight metal to meet EPA mileage requirements and the multiple electronics wont last 10 years. Just sad
Pattern of One! That should make you feel special Eric. At least you had a clue. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Stay warm...at least the lawnmower guy is quiet.
Cheers from Texas.
I miss the high tech wind down windows and an AM/FM radio and that’s it. You never had to go to a mechanic unless it was a real engine issue. I remember turning your head to back up.
I am a retire4d mechanic of 37 years as well. I am building my home shop as I speak. Because I am gonna build my next vehicle. I can go out and purchase a new vehicle without an issue except they no longer build a vehicle I want. Your video is spot on about thje industry. Every day you work on the modern stuff, the same question appears every time. Why why why. Its like a purposeful complication and expensive way these days just to turn on a stupid light bulb. So I am gonna build my own simple vehicle, the one No Body Makes anymore. I am waiting for someone to start rebuilding older cars and selling them on lots lol. The price of all the new garbage they produce these days might be making that profitable lol. Great video Eric.
So true....Not sure what new truck I'd buy right now if i was in the market. It's all over priced over engineered garbage... Ill stick with my 98 1500 with 200k on the odometer .. Yes its computerized but antiquated by todays standards.....
I felt your pain since early 2k . A retired tech that unfortunately was stuck trying to find the issue from rodents , bad components or crappy data junction blocks . Nothing supprises me anymore especially since the pins are so small and various venders being used. Love your content and patience. Hope you and your family had a great Christmas.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, SMA!🍻
Modern cars are a marvel of electronics. A trained technician with proper tools and a detective’s ability is a must. This channel is by such a technician. The weak points line wire bundles, improper repairs after a crash, DYI efforts by owners, less than stellar OEM components (yes Ford, that’s you) etc. are challengers.