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I just found out newer BMW’s and Mercedes do not have an oil dipstick. How can you make a car without an oil dipstick? Even Yugos have oil dipsticks and they are a fraction of the price. I know a sensor is supposed to tell me when to put oil in my car but I am not going to trust a stupid sensor. Those Germans have officially gone off the deep end…
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This is the exact point, that some things were good and do not need to be improved. B)
The one bit of technology that I am anxious to see is electronic solenoids to open and close the valves, then we could eliminate all of the valve-train that would lose a lot of weight and moving parts.
I wouldn’t mind going back to the cars from the 20s and 30s then these kids would have to pay attention when driving instead of talking on the phone. We have things like no dipsticks and TPMS sensors because people are too stupid to do basic maintenance on their cars, Then expect us to just fix it and demand we do as cheap as possible so that they can go on and ruin our hard work again. I had a lot of times where I worked real hard to get an alignment to turn out good and then the customer was mad at how long they were waiting.
[quote=”brokemechanic3000″ post=64350]This is the exact point, that some things were good and do not need to be improved. B) [/quote]
Those features were good, but they were only good for the time in which they were used. The consumer has changed and so the technology has to adapt. People don’t check their engine oil so manufacturers had to intervene. The result is oil level sensors. Even that isn’t enough. I constantly see cars with a huge warning on the dash stating ‘stop engine and add oil immediately’. I ask them how long they have been driving like that and the answer is ‘two or three weeks’. How is a dipstick going to help this situation? At least a sensor and a plain-english display will get some of these people to come into the shop to have the oil topped off.
A similar thing happened to transmissions a long time ago. Not many people cared and only because they don’t feel transmission fluid is as important. Now, people don’t feel car maintenance in general is a priority. Why install something that won’t be used by the vast majority of drivers?
As a tech, i love these sensors. It gives the driver a way of monitoring the oil level without ever opening the hood.
[quote=”brokemechanic3000″ post=64350]
The one bit of technology that I am anxious to see is electronic solenoids to open and close the valves, then we could eliminate all of the valve-train that would lose a lot of weight and moving parts.[/quote]Caterpillar messed around with this idea and came up with their HEUI system which fires the injectors on Ford & IHC diesels. The system uses a high pressure pump that drives the plunger to assist the electric solenoid. It seems to be a reliable system but the pilot injection does not work on the Ford ECM.
Someday everything will drive by wire
[quote=”dollman0″ post=64388][quote=”brokemechanic3000″ post=64350]
The one bit of technology that I am anxious to see is electronic solenoids to open and close the valves, then we could eliminate all of the valve-train that would lose a lot of weight and moving parts.[/quote]Caterpillar messed around with this idea and came up with their HEUI system which fires the injectors on Ford & IHC diesels. The system uses a high pressure pump that drives the plunger to assist the electric solenoid. It seems to be a reliable system but the pilot injection does not work on the Ford ECM.
Someday everything will drive by wire[/quote]
It doesn’t really assist the solenoid, the solenoid controls oil flow to the plunger. The plunger acts as an intensifier pushing the fuel into the firing chamber past a check valve.[quote=”FourRings” post=64383][quote=”brokemechanic3000″ post=64350]This is the exact point, that some things were good and do not need to be improved. B) [/quote]
Those features were good, but they were only good for the time in which they were used. The consumer has changed and so the technology has to adapt. People don’t check their engine oil so manufacturers had to intervene. The result is oil level sensors. Even that isn’t enough. I constantly see cars with a huge warning on the dash stating ‘stop engine and add oil immediately’.
Yeah.4rings has a good point.
[quote=”eliud712″ post=64292]At least with Chrysler, the scan tool is only used to see the temp of the transmission oil while you use a special dipstick that is used to see the level of the fluid in the transmission. With the difference of the temp and level you can tell what level the fluid should be at.[/quote]
Yeah, but is the temp sensor calibrated :silly:
Still scares me, my neighbor’s 2012/13 Hyundai Accent’s crankcase was overfilled – the Hyundai dealership somehow managed to put 5 quarts of oil in that small engine.New owner of a 2013 Chrysler 200… my transmission doesn’t come with a dipstick :side:
I wanna say this much about technology and progress. I remember I had a friend who worked at SCC Smart when they first came out in the late 90ies. I think he quit around 2006 or so, don’t remember.
In any case, SCC had economized the oil drain plug in their 3 cyl engines for a few years. You had to apply a suction based tool to do your oil change ever year or so (we do oil changes every 10.000 miles / annually on most petrol engines and every 20.000 miles / every two years on a lot of diesel engines here in Germany). The downside of this technology was simply that the bits and shavings from the oil well usually were really hard to get out this way, so in essence, only the oil filter replacement actually removed a fraction of them when being exchanged.
The simple result was, according to him, that you had very frequent piston ring failures in those vehicles, usually around 100.000 miles or slightly below.
As a usability and sound designer, I can’t see any benefit in removing such basic maintenance and control tools as dip sticks other than planned obsolescence, for which Mercedes and Opel are quite renowned over here.
Um can I make a statement on TBI that was brought up earlier? A properly tuned carb can spank the pants off of early tbi systems. Just saying.
Killgore-I agree with you about the carb/TBI statement. Progress is not perfect. I could usually fix my carb equipped engines of the past on the road and get to my destination when things went wrong. Not so with the electronics, yet the reliability and consistency of the electronic systems for fuel management is hard to dispute. I still tinker with carbs when I can just to stay in pratice. In todays world ya just never know…… 😛
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