WTF Did You Do To My Car?
Aug. 13th, 2007 11:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tanarillSo, remember that Thing where there was something very Odd with my fuel gage? Where it would read fine until the tank was about three-quarters empty, then read randomly until there was a quarter left before deciding to work again?
Yes, well. Apparently it isn't just me and my paranoia. Dad took it in and got the brights switch replaced (yay I can turn the brights on and off instead of turning the lights on and off and hoping the brights do too) and I told him to have them look at my fuel system. What they found was their first captured fleet vehicle with a problem that they already knew they had.
Most car companies offer employee discounts for a very good reason, and while some of it has to do with company loyalty, it also creates what's known as a "captive fleet." The idea is basically that any issue that isn't a one-time fluke will happen in a certain number of cars, and by creating captive fleets car companies have a better chance of any problems that do occur happening on at least one car they have access to. Then they can poke it and prod it and try to fix it.
They knew about this problem. It has to do with the physics of the gas tank, which would be a long flatish rectangle except that a drive shaft has to run through it so instead it's kind of saddlebag-shaped. This means that when the tank isn't completely full, you can actually have two separate pools of gas, one on either side of the drive shaft. Because of the way the fuel pump works, interesting things happen involving the location of the gas and the relative heights of the two gas reservoirs when the car is between three-quarters and one-quarter full. There's only one gage, though, and it reads whatever the gas height on its side of the drive shaft is, assumes that the height of the other reservoir is the same and doubles that number, and then reports it to me. This is great assuming the two reservoirs are at equal heights, which as it turns out they only are when there's less than a quarter tank left. Otherwise it can read between nearly twice to almost one-half the actual amount of gas I have. Thus, randomly changing fuel gages.
They put an experimental piece of software in my car, which may or may not actually fix the issue, and told me to report back on what my gage says. I haven't driven far enough yet to know if it works. I'll know in two days.
What else they did to my car:
-Screwed up my mirrors
-Moved my seat
-Lowered the steering wheel
-Drove eighty miles (although they did refill the tank)
-Lowered my fuel economy
And yes, I am one of those crazy drivers who slips the car into neutral while at red lights. When I gave it to Dad on Thursday night, I was at 28.2 mpg and rising. When I got back in yesterday, I was barely at 24 mpg and falling. It took me the trip to the movie theater yesterday to get it stop falling and my commute in today to make it start rising again. I am now at 24.8 mpg and it will probably take me the rest of the week to bring it back up. My goal is 30 mpg, which the website says I can get. In fact, I've hit over 35 instantaneously on the highway but have not (yet) hit 30 as an overall average.
I shall have to write a complaint to the Department of Complaints. I don't expect it to do anything, but it's still probably more useful than a letter to the Department of Redundancy Department.
Yes, well. Apparently it isn't just me and my paranoia. Dad took it in and got the brights switch replaced (yay I can turn the brights on and off instead of turning the lights on and off and hoping the brights do too) and I told him to have them look at my fuel system. What they found was their first captured fleet vehicle with a problem that they already knew they had.
Most car companies offer employee discounts for a very good reason, and while some of it has to do with company loyalty, it also creates what's known as a "captive fleet." The idea is basically that any issue that isn't a one-time fluke will happen in a certain number of cars, and by creating captive fleets car companies have a better chance of any problems that do occur happening on at least one car they have access to. Then they can poke it and prod it and try to fix it.
They knew about this problem. It has to do with the physics of the gas tank, which would be a long flatish rectangle except that a drive shaft has to run through it so instead it's kind of saddlebag-shaped. This means that when the tank isn't completely full, you can actually have two separate pools of gas, one on either side of the drive shaft. Because of the way the fuel pump works, interesting things happen involving the location of the gas and the relative heights of the two gas reservoirs when the car is between three-quarters and one-quarter full. There's only one gage, though, and it reads whatever the gas height on its side of the drive shaft is, assumes that the height of the other reservoir is the same and doubles that number, and then reports it to me. This is great assuming the two reservoirs are at equal heights, which as it turns out they only are when there's less than a quarter tank left. Otherwise it can read between nearly twice to almost one-half the actual amount of gas I have. Thus, randomly changing fuel gages.
They put an experimental piece of software in my car, which may or may not actually fix the issue, and told me to report back on what my gage says. I haven't driven far enough yet to know if it works. I'll know in two days.
What else they did to my car:
-Screwed up my mirrors
-Moved my seat
-Lowered the steering wheel
-Drove eighty miles (although they did refill the tank)
-Lowered my fuel economy
And yes, I am one of those crazy drivers who slips the car into neutral while at red lights. When I gave it to Dad on Thursday night, I was at 28.2 mpg and rising. When I got back in yesterday, I was barely at 24 mpg and falling. It took me the trip to the movie theater yesterday to get it stop falling and my commute in today to make it start rising again. I am now at 24.8 mpg and it will probably take me the rest of the week to bring it back up. My goal is 30 mpg, which the website says I can get. In fact, I've hit over 35 instantaneously on the highway but have not (yet) hit 30 as an overall average.
I shall have to write a complaint to the Department of Complaints. I don't expect it to do anything, but it's still probably more useful than a letter to the Department of Redundancy Department.
