On or around Tue, 17 Oct 2006 11:23:05 +0100, "Oily"
<martinhill100@nospambtconnect.com> enlightened us thusly:
> A case of vehicle complexity costing them sales because they are too tight
>fisted to supply local dealers with essential free software, in other words,
>no backup. And don't get me wrong, I wouldn't have a car, I only use
>Landrover products.
But it also highlights quite clearly that the diagnostics need to be on the
vehicle. It's no use selling things as being capable of going anywhere if a
simple problem immobilises it and can't be identified. Like EMB says about
the toyota, only more so - it should be able to give a specific fault code
that says "throttle pot out of spec" - the ECU *MUST* "know" this to be able
to flag up a fault in the first place, how difficult is it, these days, to
have it put it up on a simple little LCD display on the dash, either as a
code (but in that case the list of fault codes MUST be freely available) or
a simple message. CF the thing in another fred about the LPG vauxhall,
which put a message on the display saying "stop the car and evacuate the
cabin" because of a fault leading to an LPG tank venting. It can be done
and it bloody should be done, and not to do it makes a mockery of the
go-anywhere image.
ISTR that a disco 3 on test in Africa had to be shipped back to europe for
similar reasons - no testbook avilable.
FFS, LR, build the diagnostics into the vehicle and make it a selling point:
"In the unlikely event of a system failure, the on-board diagnostics will
identify the failed component", for example. But that means that
first-world dealers can't then charge 250 bucks a time to "diagnose" it and
repair it, of course...
--
Austin Shackles.
www.ddol-las.net my opinions are just that
Beyond the horizon of the place we lived when we were young / In a world
of magnets and miracles / Our thoughts strayed constantly and without
boundary / The ringing of the Division bell had begun. Pink Floyd (1994)
