Our Modern Electronic Cars
I like the wife's relatively new 2013 Hyundai Elantra. I even enjoy some of the electronic stuff on it, like the trip mileage calculator that supposedly tells you how many miles per gallon you get on a specified trip. Fun stuff, but I'm also very leery of the electronics as they have the potential of giving you a whole bunch of new headaches. I got my first taste of that yesterday.
The wife comes in and says a new light is showing on her dashboard. She grabs the owner's manual and finds it's the tire pressure warning light. Of course, she considers it an emergency so I go out and check the pressure on all four tires. They're all the same at around 28psi. I figure either they're all low, or it's a false alarm. On the way back from Winco I stop and add some air, getting them all just over the standard 32psi. I drive off and the light is still on. I guess that means it's a false alert.
I get home and do a search online for this sort of problem. I find one forum that mentions sometimes the tire pressure sensors go bad or are defective. One lady replies that she thought it was a warranty thing but the dealer says no. Oh, great. This is the sort of electronic problem I feared.
I told the wife to take it back to Lithia, describe the problem and see what they say. I guess it's not that big a deal. We've drove cars for how long without automatic tire pressure sensors? We can just leave that warning light on, but it's still rather annoying. And you have to wonder what's next?
posted by Fred Mangels @ 9:02 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
My PT Cruiser, which only has 34K miles on it was showing a false alert for oil pressure. I lived with it for awhile, but ended up spending several hundred $$ to fix it. I find it lessens the pain if you have a whole lot of work done at once- brakes etc. Good luck with that.
Oooh...a PT Cruiser. I know someone that has one and they're happy with it. My sister in law has, or had one. It cost $1600.00 just to replace a fuel pump because they had to remove the engine to do it. Yikes!
I really wish one of these consumer outfits would grade cars on which are easiest and least costly to repair. I know I and some others won't even touch the newer cars whereas we used to do at least some repairs ourselves on cars back in the day.
I would think the auto manufacturers could use low repair costs as a sales point. but I guess nobody ever thinks of that. I know I didn't think about that at all when buying that Hyundai.
I do not know if saw on HLN about two weeks ago they showed how the more electronics they put in cars the easier people can hack into them and take control.
I'm keeping my 83, 84, 85, 86 Ford Pickup truck. The only electronic thing in it is my cellphone.
Post a Comment
<< Home