Slashdot Mirror
Automakers Try To Keep Repair Codes Secret
An anonymous reader writes "Can't get the trouble codes out of your car's computer? Congress wants to help. I think it's odd that they think it's your God-given right to reverse-engineer your car, but not your XBox. Why aren't the automakers bashing these third-party code readers over the head with the DMCA while they still can?" This debate has been going on for several years.
Excuse me a second. But aren't the diagnostic codes already available if you shell out the money for the aftermarket code readers? And don't just about all of the better auto fixit shops have the code readers? Heck even JCWhitney catalog carries code readers for all but the newest models. So how exactly is congress making the car companies release these codes something that is "new" and something worth wasting my taxpayer money for?
Sig temporarily out of service.
It's easy. How many of them do you think own a car and use it frequently? Okay, now how many of them do you think own an XBox and use it frequently? It's something they're just not familiar with.
They KNOW it's a good thing for people to be able to repair their own cars. How many do you think know what an XBox is, why people would want to mod it, etc? If they have no idea why someone would want to do something, they can't really make an informed decision on it.
Go ahead and write them, comparing the two, inform them a bit and maybe you'll see a difference in their attitudes when they're more informed.
...Because cars have always been, and remain one of the last bastions of the DIY'er. Its expected that most people have at least some small ability to diagnose and repair thier own car. The car makers have been taking that ability away inch by inch the car-codes problem is just the most obvious outward evidense of the problem.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
It's all part of the same racket.
Here in good 'ol New Joisey, any 'newer' car (I believe '96 or newer) gets a computer test instead of the rod-up-the-tailpipe test. If your check-engine light is on, you automatically fail the test -- they won't even plug into the computer.
If it's not on, they read the codes in your engine, and if everything is OK, you pass the smog test.
Now, do you smell a racket here or what?
State inspection: free. Inspection at a "PIF" (Private inspection facility): $75.
Isn't it in your mechanic's interest to conveniently have that irritating-yet-not-telling-you-anything check engine light go on, so you have to bring it back to be inspected for $75?
Grr... just another screw-job.
I know that many cars already come with OBD II compliant ports (http://www.obdii.com/) and there are interfaces out there to hook your laptop to the OBD port and check the engine management software. Indeed there are tools to remap the engine software that use the same OBD port (I've installed this on my BMW)
Given that this type of standardized interface exists, and that tools for "exploiting" it are readily available and fairly cheap, I don't see how it would be possible to keep this information (error codes and the like) secret.
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
People just depend too much on their cars, and there's too much of a tradition of allowing people to have their cars fixed as they'd like them to be, to allow car manufacturers the right to restrict access. It's something people feel strongly about.
The days of the common man being able to modify and repair their own car seem to be coming to a close. Cars are made of too many different metals that are not as easily worked with as steel, and there are too many electronics and computers. But even so, manufacturers trying to put a strangle hold on repair shops to make them be registered and have the proper codes is just wrong.
Why shouldn't you be allowed to use your XBOX how you'd like, and Congres is trying to protect your right to use your car how you choose? Well, I'm not so sure you should be so restricted, maybe Congress should have said something earlier, but if you like the idea of being able to use whatever you buy, this is something to get behind.
It was before the lemon laws. The problem was that the car would just quit, right in the middle of driving down the interstate or wherever. After a few minutes you could restart it. After the third trip to the dealership failed to find the problem, I "revoked my acceptance" of the product, just like it was a bad hair drier I took back to Walmart. The dealer sputtered and argued for a while, but I got my money back and took it down the road and bought a different brand. It didn't take me 12 tries.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
There are still other ways for manufacturers to lock business into their dealerships. My father-in-law drives a Jetta with a horrible radio, and was told by an independent shop that a certain key is required (?) to remove the radio from the dash, and that he'd have to go to the dealer for that.
Not only is he on his own to replace the piece of $hit radio and antenna built into his car, but he gets to pay dealer premium just to take the crap out! Has anybody else heard of this? It was news to me...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
I'm of the opinion that people like Microsoft, the RIAA, and the MPAA are shooting themselves in the foot by trying to "secure" their IP rights by attempting to rewrite laws about fair use. Of course, there are people that will circumvent copy-protection efforts for theft; but aren't there enough honest people out there that could actually benefit from this technology? I've been wondering lately, how many honest people out there are making negative decisions about purchasing these types of things because of the very "anti-consumer" attitude that these companies are taking? For example:
- By attempting to make the modding of XBoxes illegal (I'm not even sure if modding them is illegal, but the DMCA says that reverse-engineering the copy protection is), Microsoft is locking their machine into a single-purpose device, when it is capable of SO much more. Aren't there enough people that aren't interested in games at all, that that would purchase an XBox over a PS2 because it was moddable and came with a hard drive? That way they could use it as a PC that they can connect to their TV without adding any hardware (except the mod chip of course)? Heck, if there weren't any issues regarding modding them at all, I'd be recommending that my company purchase them for desktop PCs! If Microsoft was to sell add-on hardware for them, couldn't they re-coup the loss that they take on the hardware cost and expect to make up with game sales and licenses?
- By making the copying (backup) of DVDs illegal (321 studios isn't allowed to sell the "full version of "DVDXCopy" anymore), isn't the MPAA saying that they are aware that the lifetime of a DVD isn't infinite, and that as a consumer, I'm being forced to buy the same DVD again sometime in the future when my original fails? Aren't there enough people out there that would be MORE willing to purchase DVDs if they could be assured that it was okay to back them up? I wouldn't buy a hard drive and put important data on it unless I had some way of backing it up...
- Same goes for the RIAA and the "backing up" of CDs. I'm more willing to purchase music if I know that I'm purchasing it and the ability to play it ANYWHERE, ANYTIME. If that means being able to copy it 4 zillion times then so be it. I'm also one of those people who doesn't like to purchase whole albums since most of them are fluff, so the iTunes concept is the perfect solution for people like me. My message to the RIAA: "Don't try and squash it, badmouth it, or otherwise derail it - PROMOTE IT! It will have the positive effect of forcing artists to spend more time MAKING QUALITY songs to fill their albums with."
What do you all think?
I was in the park the other day wondering why frisbees get bigger and bigger the closer they get - and then it hit me.
If the light is on constantly, you can probably just take it to Autozone, they have a free check engine light service.
:).
I had a check engine light on, that had been on for months, but never worried about it, but when it came time for emmissions check they refused to pass my car because of the check engine light. So, after calling around and the running rate was $100 or so, I took it to Autozone they jumppered a connection under my dash, turned the ignition and my panel flashed a diagnostic code, and they put it into their computer. The problem: bad O2 sensor, so I open the hood, and there is a cable hanging under the O2 sensor not connected to anything, so I plug it into the sensor, turn the car on, no check engine light and I pass emissions.
I also asked the guy at Autozone if I could keep the tool used to jumpper the connection and he said sure so now I check my own check engine light problems
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
The similarity is that game makers make less money if you pirate a game (instead of buying it). Car dealers/manufacturers make less money if you fix your own car (and down pay for their overpriced service and "genuine rippof parts").
;-)
Bullshit. Most of those who want to reverse engineer their hardware do it to gain flexibility not given by the original manufacturer. Let's take the Xbox example, I know a guy who's made a beuwolf of XBoxes for bioinformatics research.... why XBoxes? Because he found a bunch cheap. Why can't he reverse engineer hardware he owns.
Or the original purpose of DeCSS, to watch them under linux. Reverse engineering is not the evil boogy man, nor should it be illegal. The parallels between a car and your XBox are there.
As for the fellow who commented about the only security on car systems being obscurity... Alright, I here by patent security through obscurity, and will sue anyone who uses it without paying me royalties... as well, being an official security mechanism now, circumventing it is now illegal under the DCMA.
It's called an idiot light. And it's there for the same reason there's no longer gauges on the dash to tell you your oil pressure. Or even your engine temperature, in some cases.
Speed and gas seem to be the only two gauges still gauranteed to be found in any dash. And I wouldn't be surprised if the gas gauge disappeared if it's assumed you'll go to the nearest gas station when the light comes on.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
The logic is simple, the carmaker doesn't rely on software to make their buck.
The business model or car making doesn't include selling you any software, but the hardware. Software is there just to make sure hardware works right.
The Xbox business model on the other side sells the hardware at loss in hope that you will buy a truckload of games.
Ahh, not true, you're confusing the original poster's attempt to make sense of Congress' logic with the reality of both industries....
The reason car manufacturers don't release the cose IS because their business model is based on the revenue stream from "registered mechanics." Why do you think so many warranties require you to have it serviced at a registered facility in order not to void it, to ensure they make more money off you. I this were illegal and the codes were release prices would go up for vehicles, they would have to make up the money lost from knock off parts as the article says, and from you paying half as much for an oil change.
Of course some might call this a form of dumping, or anti-competative behaviour, giving you a discount up front to try and lock you into paying more later. This whole thread reminds me of the earlier article today about Sun saying hardware will be free, and the parallel drawn to cellphone plans in the postings there. It's all the same business model, lock them in for a long term revenue stream, and it's something which must be fought. You have a right to reverse engineer anything you buy, as long as you don't sell it or profit off it, if you want to find creative uses for that old vacuum as a wifi base station - go for it!
The dealership charged $650 to reset the computer and fix the issue - a oil leak onto the coil, which caused problems (we'll ignore the engineering issue; it's a cheap truck, I'm happy with 100k miles trouble free).
That was Friday. Yesterday, on the way back from Baycon, I was climbing a pass when the check engine light came on again and it went into limp mode... I think... as when I pulled over and restarted the engine, it was fine for the rest of the hour and a half trip. It's been fine since, but the check engine light is on. I think it just needs to be reset, but...
$98 to diagnose it from PepBoys, the dealer or the Mom and Pop down the street. Dammit. I'm thinking of disconnecting the battery a day and seeing if that resets it.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Okay, probably a 1 in a billion shot of happening but..
Hypothetical situation here:
Say you own a 2003 Yugo. Yugo goes out of business, or closes down all dealerships in your neck of the woods. Yugo never revealed their diagnostic codes outside the company. Your car breaks down with some weird diagnostic codde you can't decipher. What do you do?
OBDII is standard... only the trouble code references are secret... I have an OBDII scanner... and next year, Pennsylvania is switching over to OBDII-only emissions inspection on newer cars. This pretty much REQUIRES automakers to make the codes known to official inspection stations. Also, I've never had trouble calling my favorite local Nissan dealer to get trouble code references for my Pathfinder. I just don't see what the big deal is..
These auto codes are not protected by any security, besides obscurity.
Just like a number of other things the DMCA has been used with, like Adobe's e-book reader in the Skylyrov incident.
And, after all, a password is just another form of security through obscurity. If you learn the right things to do (type the right letters) you can make the system work for you. If you don't know about the right
string of letters, you can't. *All* forms of computer security are like that, actually.
I don't see what the difference is, in category, between a blinking light that maps to an obscure code and a code that maps things like "65" to "A" and "66" to "B" and "67" to "C" and so on.
The difference between an encryption system and ASCII is not one of type, it's one of degree.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
I have an OBD-II scanner. It's about $100 or so, hooks up to my laptop, and the software is free and the codes in the software are frequently updated. I've never had a code in my car that's undocumented.
The interface is simple, there are now only 5 protocols and interfaces that need to be supported by any given ISO compliant scan tool (ISO9141, PWM, VPW, Keyword, and CAN). These protocols and interfaces are available for a huge fee from ISO and other standards organizations.
There is enough information online and in various electronics magazines to interface without getting the standards, but the real problem is that there are only so many well-defined codes. Every car supports those. But each new model the manufacturers add more codes that are manufacturer, and sometimes even model, specific.
The vast majority of the codes are available, what this legislation does is make it so that when a new code is defined for a specific make/model/year, then it's instantly published. Even now you have to wait a year or 5 before the codes come out because warranties take care of the vast majority of work. Its the heavy use customers, and the shady dealerships that make it necessary to have the codes as soon as the model is available, but the dealerships and manufacturer have every incentive to not provide the information in a timely manner.
This legislation is to codify what, how, and when to release this information, whereas now the auto industry has tried to avoid regulation by volunteering incomplete and late information.
There is one open hardware project to support one of the protocols, and some open software to support the hardware, but it still leaves out 1/2 of the vehicles, and doesn't cover more than one car.
I've been working on making a completely open, compliant hardware and software product to comply with all the current standards and allow easy updating of codes. I have access to the standards, hardware, and only lack time and money. Hopefully within the next two years we'll see $20 code scanners with online code lookup (hardware is actually fairly easy) but assuming we don't, email me about the interest and I may move this from the back burner. I still have two projects in the pipeline that have to be finished, but I could have something before the end of the summer if there is significant interest. It would have to be fully open hardware/firmware/software.
-Adam
The check engine light is basically the "GPF" of the auto world. "Something is wrong, but it would take way to long to explain it to you and there's nothing you can do about it right now anyway..."
I had a jeep once that it turns out was hardwired to have it's "check engine" light turn on at 85,000 miles on the odometer - No Matter What. This was covered in the owner's pamphlet (I refuse to call it a manual, those are those telephone-book sized things). The reason for it? There was an oxygen sensor in the exhaust pipe that they claim they can't tell if it's failing or not since it's *supposed* to be registering zero most of the time. It's used to help calibrate the fuel mixture - the mixture should be just barely rich enough that there is no leftover oxygen in the exhaust, and no richer. Anyway, they claimed that 85,000 miles was the first point at which the oxygen sensor *might* start to fail, so they just automatically put the light on at 85,000 to make you go in to replace the sensor whether it needs it or not. It's a five minute job you should be able to do yourself, except that you need the magic computer codes to tell the car's computer to turn off the damn engine light, and so you *must* take it to a licensed mechanic that has the computer link for that and the super-secret code from the company.
That felt like I was getting ripped off, and it astonished me that it was legal. (Making the light go on at 85,000 because they can't tell when the sensor will go bad - that I can understand and agree with - but forcing you to use an expensive mechanic just to turn the f-ing thing off - that was extortion, plain and simple.
(And you *do* have to get the light to turn off, because of the "boy who cried wolf" problem - you don't want to be in a situation where your check engine light is no longer believable.)
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Gentlemen, there is absolutely nothing to prevent the car ompanies from leasing you the software to run your cars, providing it under license, and requiring a continuing monthly fee to have it updated to the latest, most correct version. It is going to happen in just a couple years, believe me.
... initially.
The Jim Jones Kool-Aid they mix it with will be (1) "safety for soccer moms and soccer kiddies" for soccer mom minivans, (2) "continually improved emission controls" for the tree-huggers. and (3) "hot performance item that only rich guys have" for the young dude crowd.
After all, would you want your wife driving an "unsafe car"? Do you want to pollute when there are easy upgrades to bring teh pollution down? Don't you want the hottest performing Mustang? Why aren't you willing to pay that "little extra" necessary to keep the system software up to date?
When the dealers hear the idea they will love it, since it locks you into their system and guarantees the dealers a continuing income stream.
The warranties will be revised to say "we are only valid as long as you operate your car with the latest vesion of software".
California will require continuing software updates and will not permit you to register your car unless your engine software is up to date. Why? Because the car companies will swear they are constantly refining the pollution controls and can guarantee continually reduced emissions (as long as everyone pays the monthly fee and goes into their dealer every couple months!).
No, guys, its going to happen and happen soon. Don't think that everyone from toaster manufacturers to wristwatch manufacturers to car manufacturers are not slavering at the idea of a continuing income stream for constant upgrades.
All they have to do is wait for the other corporations, like the record business and Microsoft, to mentally turn us all into pay-per-view, pay-per-ride, pay-per-smell, pay-per-look, pay-per-sip, pay-per-breath people.
So let me tell you how it is going to start. First, a new high performance car/engine is going to come out, bought by young guys. They are going to make some special "super-cool" program in which the young guys come in to the shop every couple months to get a revised OS downloaded to their cars. Free coffee, key chains, watches, all the suckie trinkets that young guys fall for who are out hustling women and like to believe they are playas. Hell, it may even be free
Every cool hip young white dude is going to want the latest "performance" versions for his new engine, won't he? After all, he always checks out the latest drivers for his video card, doesn't he? His hot car (like a Harley) is just a big penis extension anyway.
Aw, the car companies will start talking advance curves, valve timings, omega factors, brake horsepower curves, improved shift curves, gamma cutoffs and other hokey nonsense and he will fall right over for it. I can see it now: fancy web site discussing the data, how they gathered it and evaluated it, and how they have revised the softare, all done in black and gun metal colors. Brief bios on the engineers developing the improved software make him feel like some NASA astronaut! Man! he'll feel like some kind of fancy pilot/engineer/astronaut/cool dude at the cutting edge, a regular "early adopter"!
And once the young guy is hooked on new car software as a high ticket, high status performance item (that gets him oodles of babes, of course), everyone else will fall into line.
Selah.
I think the legislation allowing people to go to outside dealers for warranty work will be even better. In my case, I am an Engineer with a love for cars. I bought $700 software to reprogram my car, and another $400 on software to scan and log the data from the On Board Computer (OBD-II). A few years ago, I threw an SES (Service Engine Soon) light, and immediately scanned it with my gear. It read, "Low Flow - EGR Malfunction". I took the car in to the dealer, since emissions are warrantied for 100k miles in California, and I told them it was an EGR malfunction. The dealer serviceman looked incredulous. He replied, "You're not supposed to know that!" Long story short, I threw a code a week later and scanned it again. When I saw a repeat of the same error code, I looked closer at my repair sheet from the dealer. They had replaced my Air Pump, otherwise known as a Smog Pump, which is totally unrelated to Exhaust Gas Recirculation, or EGR valve. I bought an EGR valve off E-bay and just replaced it myself, thinking the issue would be over. After I installed the new EGR valve, the code cleared, never to return.
The story takes a funny twist at this point. I received a notice from California DMV that my car was being held up for registration renewal because of an uncorrected emissions recall. I look at the notice and it's for the EGR replacement. I took the car back to the dealer and they certified they replaced the recalled part. In other words, they certified they replaced a part they were unable to diagnose and that I ultimately had to replace myself. It's for reasons such as this that I sold my Trans Am and stopped racing. I spent thousands of dollars ensuring my '97 Trans Am had nothing but CARB (California Air Resource Board) approved modifications for low emissions, and high performance (427 dyno'd horsepower at the tires), yet $15 an hour greasemonkeys couldn't effectively manage the emissions process. It became too stressful trying to find a smogshop where people had a clue.
John Schubert
Not all are this stupid.
On my 2000 Dodge Ram 1500 (pickup truck), if you cycle the key in the sequence ON - OFF - ON - OFF - ON, the digital odometer will spit out the codes, one after the other, and then read "p done", and switch back to the odometer. (just don't put the key into START).
Disconnect the batter for 5-15 minutes, and all the codes are cleared from memory.
Oh, and a magnetic reed switch could be used in the gas-cap area. Most reeds are sealed inside a small glass tube.
The "three good starts" trick is pretty much a standard for OBDII systems. The mechanic told you to do that because each of those starts causes the car to run a little POST-like check. It keeps track of recent codes and counts how many times the problem hasn't been detected. After the third good start, the problem is assumed to be fixed (or that it was transient) and the light goes out.
The car may or may not store the code in memory until a mechanic or someone with a scan tool clears it, but the indicator lamp on the dash will not light.
i am a soviet space shuttle
Perhaps this is because a car is something tangible. Every Congressman understands the need to work on your own car. Perhaps many Congressmen have worked on their own cars in their 20's. It is simply very widely accepted that people fix their own cars, and for that reason, Congress has no problem protecting your rights to do so.
On the other hand, your XBox, or your computer, or whatever, is relatively new and the need to mess with these things is not very well understood. Why would you want to open that box and mess with the chips inside? Only because you're some pimply faced geek with no life, most likely, and that's just plain stupid. That is probably how Congress sees it.
Maybe in 20 years, we'll have people in Congress who are sick of not being able to boot whatever operating system they want on their computer, and then they'll understand the need to protect your rights in that regard. But the big software and media companies are pushing as strongly as they can to make information rare and expensive, and to make sure that anybody who copies it for whatever reason (legitimate or not) is a pirate and should suffer punishments worse than 1000 murderers, rapists, and kidnappers.
This is what we must fight against. We must make it known that it is retarded to fight against the nature of information. Ooooooooooh well.
This isn't as simple as you seem to think. There is one light, which lights up, and stays lit after any fault condition. The fault conditions can be for something as simple and trivial as a loose gas cap to something which will cause the engine to leap out and land in your lap. You have no way of knowing without going along to your local friendly dealer to have them tell you what the problem is (was) and to re-set the warning light. My Jeep Grand Cherokee had 27,000 miles on it when my warning light lit up. I took it along to the local Jeep shop, who connected the computer and diagnosed --- a loose gas cap. Now living in Oregon, you don't get to play with your own gas cap. In Oregon they really do believe those dire warnings that California churn out, that gasoline is a substance that can cause a multitude of serious health problems, and is a potential terrorist weapon, so you can't fill your own tank if you want to. Anyway, I really thought it was improbable, but took them at their word - they tightened the gas cap and reset the light. The next day, it came back on. Back to the Jeep merchant ... loose gas cap. So I reminded them that they said the same thing yesterday, and tightened the gas cap themselves, and it hadn't been touched since.
The "cleaned" the gas cap and re-set the light.
Two days later the light came on ...
"loose gas-cap" they said.... "Screw that" I said, "its something else - fix it under my bumper to bumper warranty."
They took the car in the next day, and called me late in the afternoon having done all the Jeep tests without any result. But they did mention that there were some tests that were only run by the on-board computer when the engine was cold, and hadn't run for several hours, and it was this one which was tripping the warning. They kept the car overnight.
Next day, it dutifully turned on the warning light for them.
With nothing left to check, they fitted a new gas-cap and sent me home (I am certain I saw them holding their fingers crossed behind their backs as I drove away...).
That fixed it. But it was interesting that there was no apparent way to test the system short of change a component, wait a day and try it. I just shudder to think how much this would have ended up costing me if it had happened out of warranty.
Okay, this is another fine example of /. getting the ignorant all worked up over nothing.
/., they incite the exposure of ignorance by offering up one-sided, hot headed, articles and everyone runs with it like it's an "outrage". The true outrage is when people do not think their options through before going on a tangent about how evil empires are out to drain your pocket books. Of course, they are. That is what a business does. If you want the simplest, 1-step, solution to your problem, it will ALWAYS cost you more than if you did not mind putting a little effort into it.
:)
Here is what I do:
1) Stop by the dealership to get the problem diagnosed by the computer. This costs nothing.
2) Once the official cause of the diagnostic code is determined, request they fax you an explanation of exactly what needs to be done.
3) Call non-dealers and get quotes for the repairs. Use your faxed description so you can express the problem clearly to the other mechanic.
4) Take the vehicle to the lowest bidder.
See? That's not all that hard. The problem with
This whole thing reminds me of a scene where George Jetson presses a button on his food making machine, it doesn't work the first time. He then sprains his index finger on the second push. The end result was him kneeling to the floor crying about how difficult life is. Don't be like that.
Who cares about an Xbox gaming system... It doesn't make me money. But going without a car? I'm out of a job.
I paid $20+ thousand dollars for this hunk of metal and you're telling me that I'm supposed to just kowtow to the almighty dealer every time I want my check-engine light turned off? I don't think so. I should have the option of going to the dealer, to be sure, but if I'm having a drivability problem, I want to go to someone I trust with my car, someone that charges less and I'm happier with.
I've got an older Jeep Grand Cherokee with drivability problems. Thing is that Chrysler (Dodge) keeps pretty close tabs on their trouble codes so every time my car acts up, if I want to plug it into a computer to find out why its running rough I have to go to the dealer, pull into the service bay, talk to some dipshit who tells me to wait in the waiting room. By the time the technician 'calls my number' the car is running fine and I'm charged the minimum $75 fee for plugging the reader into my car. Because its just running rough, no trouble codes are set in the computer, and therefore the only way to catch the problem is when its happening.
Conversely, It started happening again and I called my local mechanic telling him that I'm coming over, "Its acting up again". I pull up and he walks out with his code reader in hand, wiping his hands on a red shop towel. Plugs in the computer and sees immediately that I've got a widget stuck in the maniform valve, giving the ejection seat a prematurely high voltage which was advancing the ignition timing to fire way before tea-time.
I dunno what was wrong that time, but all I know is it was a $110 part and $75 in labor and my Jeep is running like new...
Dealers have their place, but not in every case.
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
This quote from the article sums up almost all future computing legal issues. "The legislation argues that consumers own their vehicles in their entirety and should be able to access their onboard computers." All debates about piracy center around this idea. As we, as a society evolve into computing (just ask any 9 year old how to program your cell phone), we can only hope that the government falls on the side of the consumer as witnessed in legislation pending regarding cars. The future of computers and of programming will depend on one's ability to continually manipulate code to suit one's need. I will be damn proud if my son decides to reverse-engineer anything. Jon Lech Johansen's father must be the proudest father on the planet
Just so you know, I like to start signatures with the phrase, "Just so you know."
I want to give a sincere thanks for that tip. As a guy who loves his car but has never even managed to change his own oil, I'm a big fan of AutoZone, for four reasons:
;)
a) I live in Memphis, their HQ city;
b) AutoZone graciously provides space for many of the Memphis Linux user group meetings;
c) Every time I've gone to AutoZone, the people have been polite and I don't feel like I'm getting screwed;
d) They've been sued by SCO
I own a 2000 Monte Carlo. It has an on-dash LCD style display which pops up any messages in black on an orange background. It was an AutoZone employee who solved my mysterious ongoing "Low Tire Pressure" message problem. I'd bought a digital tire pressure gauge and repeatedly ensured that all the tires were fine. I couldn't figure out what was going on, but the car's out of warranty now, and I was loathe to go to the dealer. So when I went by AutoZone to buy some Rain-X, I asked the guy working the register if he knew anything about this issue.
Not only did he know, he said "let's take a look at it." He came out with his own pressure gauge to inspect my tires, and spent at least 15 minutes talking with me like he was my best friend, no charge. Apparently the newer Chevy models have sensors which determine the "tire pressure" by judging the alignment of the wheels against each other. Assuming that all four tires are properly aligned, if one is rotating out of sync with the others, low tire pressure is a proper diagnosis... But if the alignment is off, the "Low Tire Pressure" warning displays incessantly. The AutoZone guy explained this in detail, I got a rotate/balance the next time I had an oil change, and lo and behold, no more "Low Tire Pressure" light.
Fucking amazing. If I'd gone to one of the local garages, they'd have probably charged me $30+ just to take a look, not to mention a proper diagnosis. The AutoZone guy did it free, and quite happily, after I'd made a whopping $4 purchase of a bottle of Rain-X.
I was once told that AutoZone has a 4 terabyte database hanging around somewhere. Any idea if this is true?
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.