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Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)

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Re: Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)

#91

Post by s28l »

LanceH wrote: post #67
pphysch wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there anything notable about the terrain at that point? A sharp turn, bumpy road, etc.

Long slow bend on completely flat road, 40mph. No braking or acceleration for a quarter mile each direction. The road is like that for miles with some lights, traffic circles, etc... Only warnings in one spot. I really didn't believe my wife, or thought maybe it was happening a few times when she made a regular trip like getting drive thru coffee and coming right back. But then we ran a bunch of errands all afternoon…

Maybe it's a combination of the "bend" and the "long slow" part.

If you are making a turn the centrifugal force will push the fluid away from the axis of rotation. There is likely a level sensor only on one side of the tank, so the turn might push the fluid away from the sensor enough to trigger a warning.

The sensor likely has a time component to avoid triggering every time you make a turn, but if this bend is long enough, maybe the fluid is displaced long enough that it overcomes that minimum time.

Re: Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)

#92

Post by thecosas »

LanceH wrote: post #67
pphysch wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there anything notable about the terrain at that point? A sharp turn, bumpy road, etc.

Long slow bend on completely flat road, 40mph. No braking or acceleration for a quarter mile each direction. The road is like that for miles with some lights, traffic circles, etc... Only warnings in one spot. I really didn't believe my wife, or thought maybe it was happening a few times when she made a regular trip like getting drive thru coffee and coming right back. But then we ran a bunch of errands all afternoon…

Perhaps it's long and slow enough to make the fluid move to a certain point and stay there long enough for the light/alarm to come on. If it's electronic vs solely mechanical, I'm sure they've got some smarts so that certain changes are ignored for a period of time (incline/decline, sharp turns, short stops).

Maybe you found the sweet spot at a certain point in that long, slow bend?

Re: Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)

#93

Post by vGPU »

Filligree wrote: post #37
SkyPuncher wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to armchair and guess that your brother needed a new battery. My (GM) car gets really funky startup behavior when the battery gets old. It will often turn the starter fine, but the electronics can get stuck in weird states until I disconnect the battery (essentially a hard reset).

If it was surrounded by a crowd of engineers, surely someone would have tested the battery?

The problem with having a bunch of experts is that experts usually forget to check the basics.

I’m sure we’ve all been caught trying to troubleshoot a problem where the actual issue was a loose cable.

Re: Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)

#95

Post by barryrandall »

yosser wrote: post #52

So this guy never ever restarted his car after a short interval except for when he bought vanilla ice cream? Additionally, he never varied the time intervals in the shop when he was buying aforementioned ice cream? Is it is an understatement to suggest this is a highly unlikely circumstance?

The customer's location would have been helpful information. That kind of determinism seems impossible in Los Angeles, but very likely in Solon, IA.

Re: Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)

#96

Post by vGPU »

NamTaf wrote: post #61

My parents have an early '50s MG, which they rarely drive. For most of my adult life, I've lived about an hour away from them so I'd sometimes take it out if I was there. Needless to say, it had a never-ending list of quirks due to being so old and also rarely being driven, but it's a lovely old car all the same. One day, I dropped by to say hi, but they were both out. I decided instead to take the car for a spin aro…

Percussive maintenance is the second step to take for a car that has been sitting for a while, right after the Italian tuneup.

Re: Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)

#97

Post by kijin »

yosser wrote: post #52

So this guy never ever restarted his car after a short interval except for when he bought vanilla ice cream? Additionally, he never varied the time intervals in the shop when he was buying aforementioned ice cream? Is it is an understatement to suggest this is a highly unlikely circumstance?

A lot of men are extremely efficient shoppers. They know what they want and where it is. They don't browse around at all. They have the cash or card ready. Walk in, pick up the ice cream, pay, walk out. Could be done in 30 seconds if there are no other customers.

Re: Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)

#98

Post by fernandotakai »

iforgotpassword wrote: post #85
dumbfounder wrote: post #66

This is a secondhand anecdote, but it’s pretty funny. Back in the days of server rooms, a friend’s server for his company would reboot every day around 5pm. They checked everything they possibly could with the OS, they would be logged in and running checks on it and it would spontaneously go offline for about 5 minutes and reboot every day. Finally they decided to go stand in the presence of the server around the tim…

Man I've heard this story so many times, this guy must have a million friends in a hundred countries he's told this story to. :-)

funny thing, something like this happened to me. we were on site doing some implementation and went back to the hotel at about 3am.

less than an hour later, we get an email from nagios (i think it was nagios? it was a GOOD while back) complaining the server was offline. we got into a cab and went back straight up (this server was not supposed to be offline ever).

guess what? a maintenance guy turned the server off by mistake while cleaning up the server room -- even worse, he was not even supposed to be there!

this triggered a bunch of security checks and the company found out that most employees had access to any room in the building.

Re: Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)

#99

Post by wildzzz »

LanceH wrote: post #67
pphysch wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there anything notable about the terrain at that point? A sharp turn, bumpy road, etc.

Long slow bend on completely flat road, 40mph. No braking or acceleration for a quarter mile each direction. The road is like that for miles with some lights, traffic circles, etc... Only warnings in one spot. I really didn't believe my wife, or thought maybe it was happening a few times when she made a regular trip like getting drive thru coffee and coming right back. But then we ran a bunch of errands all afternoon…

Could be related to terrain a certain distance/time before that spot in the road. The car may only trigger the warning after the fluid level has stabilized which a flat road would contribute to.

Re: Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)

#100

Post by PaulHoule »

westmeal wrote: post #13
PaulHoule wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GM cars are notorious for (sometimes) developing strange problems that would have you think they are possessed with the devil. (Despite post-1990 GM cars being near peers to Japanese cars for reliability overall)

What are you talking about the 90s was the worst era for GM they cheaped out on everything possible.

I dunno. When my son needed a car to get to work we found a 1996 Buick Park Avenue in almost perfect condition at 100,000 miles. He didn't like the look of modern cars, didn't want a touchscreen, besides a 2010 Japanese car can cost almost new prices and they wanted $9k for a Chevy Sonic with 180,000 miles (didn't know they went that far!)

Granted the traction control and anti-lock brakes occasionally fail to boot up, but it seems to be a pretty good car, but it was close to the top of the line. Gets 27 mpg which is not bad for a big ass car. I like how it has a lot of the feel of a 1970s boat but it has airbags, OBD II and most of the good features of a modern car... And we didn't need to get a loan to afford it. Driving home though I was looking in the mirror and seeing it dwarfed by today's XXL trucks and SUVs.

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