Check engine light just came on after 2k miles.

[soconfoozed]

Originally Posted by brufleth

A number of reasons. First they don't want to overwhelm a driver with too much info. If they had half a dozen lights come on while you're on the highway it could distract to a dangerous degree. This is something that's actually pretty carefully considered by various agencies and the car makers themselves.

Then they also don't want to give just enough information to be dangerous. An engine code may or may not have an obvious sounding cause but even given an obvious name it might be caused by something else. Would you be more or less pissed if you replaced a sensor yourself that an indication seemed to point to and it didn't fix anything?

Another reason is that manufacturers don't want to give away all the information about what's going on in the ECU. If you start getting into the nuts and bolts of what sets a specific code (which would be the next step) they have to tell you more and more about their software. This gets dicey concerning intellectual property and international exports. This is all commercial (non military) so that's not as bad but still can be a pain.

Source: I design and support ECU software for engines.

Thanks for your reply. I'm an engineer as well.

Your mistake in this is to assume the two options for design are "idiot light" and "information overload."

You are likewise mistaken to assume the use case is diagnostic in nature. Although I do feel it would be beneficial to expose this without a scan tool in some way, what I'm supporting here is just greater granularity. For instance, how should I know whether the car can be driven, or whether it should be towed? As it turns out, the CEL will blink if the car should be towed, and if it's solid, it's "okay" to drive. But that's based on a call with Subaru customer service this AM, not good user interface design. Maybe it's buried in the manual; I haven't checked yet.

Your final point is a common misunderstanding that I would say sets up another false dilemma. I understand what you mean -- I'm no stranger to the USPTO -- but when I've worked on large projects where reverse engineering is a concern, the assumption has always been that the competition will do a full teardown such that their documentation is just as good as ours as soon as we go to market. What you describe is really a trade secret, not patentable subject matter. So, if you have anything truly novel and worthy of protection, you file a patent application. But otherwise, you're no more entitled to the use of the idea than anybody else, and when they reverse engineer it, they're free to do the same as you've done as long as they've truly reverse engineered it as opposed to some more nefarious means.

tl;dr idiot lights are an improvement over no idiot lights, but it's time to make an improvement over idiot lights.

I've often wondered why the ECU or some other diagnostic computer doesn't aggregate ALL sensor data and look at the spectral signature as a means of monitoring machine health and suggesting preventative maintenance, but that's another subject...Seems like a great way to pile up reams and reams of data. To a large degree, automakers still don't know what the hell a given design might be doing over the course of its life. I think I once read about Ford going out and buying 10+ year old cars on used lots to do longterm use evaluations. I would guess others do similarly.

[oxygen]

Picked my car up from dealer after they appeared to temporarily resolve the CEL issue. I was told they swapped the intake and exhaust manifold sensors dealing the the variable valve timing and Camshaft and that this was first step in trouble shooting. I should come back as soon as I see the CEL so they can determine if i am having an electrical versus mechanical issue. Sounded a bit odd but car is running fine so cant complain.

[Yruyur]

Originally Posted by oxygen

Picked my car up from dealer after they appeared to temporarily resolve the CEL issue. I was told they swapped the intake and exhaust manifold sensors dealing the the variable valve timing and Camshaft and that this was first step in trouble shooting. I should come back as soon as I see the CEL so they can determine if i am having an electrical versus mechanical issue. Sounded a bit odd but car is running fine so cant complain.

They did that with mine, light came on right away

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[Shizzaw]

Originally Posted by alrashwa

So I called Corporate again, and by now I have a case number. They attempted to get in touch with the service tech working on my car to no avail.

I then called the dealership directly. They never received the parts needed for the repair. Their best estimate puts them in on Thursday, with another day required for the install at the least. So I probably won't see my car until next Monday.

Looks like I'll be a total of 18 days without the car, a dirty Hyundai Elantra as my replacement, and no firm idea as to when my car will be fixed or if it will even work right when I get it back. Only had the damn thing for 24 hours since I purchased it. Extremely frustrating experience so far.

I called corporate today as well and was assigned a case number. I hope at the very least that this lights a fire under their a$$es and gets me my car back sooner. I've been without it for 4 days already and I'm already going crazy. At least they gave me a really nice 2012 Dodge Ram to drive in the meantime. Not looking forward to putting gas in her though.

[alrashwa]

Originally Posted by Shizzaw

I called corporate today as well and was assigned a case number. I hope at the very least that this lights a fire under their a$$es and gets me my car back sooner. I've been without it for 4 days already and I'm already going crazy. At least they gave me a really nice 2012 Dodge Ram to drive in the meantime. Not looking forward to putting gas in her though.

I'd be interested to know who you are talking to. I've been talking to a guy named Darren, who I'm told is a manager of some kind. He seems nice enough but I definitely feel like they are stalling me out as long as possible for some reason. I'm starting to feel like our cars are the beta tests for this manufacturing defect, and they don't want to admit their mistake.

[siXXtoes]

Originally Posted by Yruyur

So you had the 811 and not the 810?

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correct

[brufleth]

Originally Posted by soconfoozed

Thanks for your reply. I'm an engineer as well...

You don’t sound like you’re a software engineering or at least not an integrated systems software engineer. We don’t patent software because it means giving our competitors details on what and how we are doing stuff. We patent novel hardware designs. Software is protected by avoiding stuff like overly detailed descriptions of faults and an over abundance of obvious outputs. Hell, we had a scare earlier this year because the config files for our data readers use plain text parameter names which legal was flipping out about.


As far as collecting long term data, we actually do this. The engines I work with have a customer that collects data on every mission from every vehicle in their fleet. It isn’t that many vehicles and the quantity of data is enormous. We did some nuisance fault reduction work and it took ages to trim it all down. It is valuable though and definitely helpful when diagnosing problems and suggesting corrective action. Cars aren’t usually hooked up to a central network though. Even if people did let them connect to their wifi and car companies did swallow the added cost of a wireless data dump system (not cheap because it ends up being another computer [probably wouldn’t do this in the ECU]) I don’t think drivers would be thrilled with details of every drive being recorded. It shows when the drivers do something dumb/dangerous just as much as it shows when something is wrong with the mechanical system. The use of the data isn’t trivial either. It can take several experts looking at some data to figure out what’s really going on and if there’s a problem or not. That’s expensive and car companies are very cost conscious. And finally, since there’s no law making them do it, they don’t want to bother.


I think for cost and cert reasons the alternative to the CEL right now is to simply disable the car whenever a CEL worthy fault is detected. Maybe give drivers a few minutes to get off to the side of the road they’re on. Cars are already on the ground and just shutting them down after a given amount of time (or maybe just preventing you from restarting them) would probably be safe enough. I’m pretty sure the only reason car companies don’t do that is because customers would be so pissed.

[tintumz22]

Update # 2

So, this is the second day of my car being in the dealer for the CEL issue fix. I dropped by there to check what's going on, see what they are doing,ask some questions and wanna see the car, specifically the engine being disassembled. (Man it is heartbreaking to see a new engine being opened!) but all good as long as they take care of it (Seeing them really careful on this car man to Toyota!!!) As I said earlier, Toyota corporate is strictly communicating with the local techs on what to do and how to do it. So it came down they replaced 3 parts on mine the ECU, actuator, and the sensor. (Thanks also to the other tech that gave me some idea on what the replaced part is doing and how it is related to the issue. Man! i want to learn these stuff!! hopefully.??)

All that said, the best estimate they can give me, when the car is ready to go is by late afternoon tomorrow or earliest of Thursday. Cuz I still want the clutch clunk sound when you release be addressed cuz it is something for me to be concerned. (In my experience of other manual cars, they don't make that sound)

So yeah, I'll update as soon as I get her then test drive it and see if the issue comes back.(Praying it would never come back!! Let me enjoy the car!!) Ask techs questions and all that.

[brianbot5000]

Originally Posted by tintumz22

Thanks also to the other tech that gave me some idea on what the replaced part is doing and how it is related to the issue.

Do you recall what they said here? Curious on this as well, or if they're just replacing stuff blindly.

[tintumz22]

Originally Posted by brianbot5000

Do you recall what they said here? Curious on this as well, or if they're just replacing stuff blindly.

(Not really a machanic but kinda understand what they want to explain so correct me if I'm wrong here. it will be a good help)

He explained about the replaced part (image atatched) that there is a like push button on the center of it where the sensor is on top and the amount of pressure (not really get the machanic language but on my comprehension) that part is releasing w/c being monitored by the sensor, in this case, is that wait this is not right, there is something wrong with the amount of something where the ECU should be communicating to do the right thing or compensate BUT it is not doing its job making the parts not on timing with the rest of the motor. It's like there is a miscommunication between those parts that it throws the code they are getting (w/c is the issue I'm getting) So most likely that it could be an engineering or manufacturing or QC defect of those certain parts mentioned. Toyota is on the phone while doing these replacements that gave me a peace of mind.

[20valvewynn83]

To me this sounds like you have a bad vvt cam gear. Most likely they didnt time it right when it was installed.

[alrashwa]

I'm just waiting to see the VIN range for this issue. Definitely not an uncommon defect from the threads I've seen.

[tintumz22]

Originally Posted by alrashwa

I'm just waiting to see the VIN range for this issue. Definitely not an uncommon defect from the threads I've seen.

Yeah. there are variety of VIN #s it ranges not just in a single batch. hopefully everything will be alright tomorrow for the testing. and looking forward getting mine tomorrow.

[fistpoint]

What exactly is the thought process behind replacing a part that failed so quickly with the identical part? The only thought that comes to mind for a comparison might be a hard drive for a PC. While I've never gotten one that didn't works for years on end, it does happen. It seems they either work or they don't eh?

Would it be safe to apply the same logic to these parts being replaced?