Kate’s car has now been to the local repair shop, a transmission specialist and now has been at the dealership for over a day. We still have no clue what’s wrong with it or how much it is going to cost. Why? Simple reason. Auto Mechanics no longer have the ability to diagnose a problem without a computer. Just about every time we drive the vehicle on the highway for 20 minutes it starts to shake violently. But they can’t find the issue because the “computer” doesn’t show a “code”. I’ve asked them to take the car out multiple times. They claim they put 37 miles on it; but was it on the highway like I asked?
Furthermore, why can they only diagnose a problem based on the computer. The problem happens when the car warms up (after driving for about 20 minutes), only happens at highway speeds and goes away when the car is below highway speeds … How many things can be causing this issue? Twenty years ago a mechanic would have been insulted if he was told to hook the car up to a machine to tell him what is wrong with the car. Granted cars have become more complicated; however the education of those who repair them should have evolved with the vehicles. It’s ridiculous that I have to pay hundreds of dollars for people to hook a car up to a computer that doesn’t show them anything.
Another issue I have with this entire car computer nightmare comes from my background as a geek. Logs people. They record everything; why the hell doesn’t the car have a memory that is recording the “errors”. When I was on the highway the light flashed on, so something should have been recorded and logged. The light shouldn’t have to be on for them to see, it should record everything and they should be able to see the last 25 codes at the very least.
Stop giving me stupid and useless features like automatic headlights if you can’t give me a way to get the cars problems diagnosed without a headache!
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