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“My Car does not start when I buy Vanilla Ice Cream” (2015)

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Re: “My Car does not start when I buy Vanilla Ice Cream” (2015)

#41

Post by dsfyu404ed »

spuz wrote: post #33
lwansbrough wrote: post #16

Not the point of the story, but I wonder if engineers would reach the solution faster than non-engineers due to their practice debugging. As soon as I read the guy was driving to the store to pick it up I knew it had to be timing due to store layout.

If the story is to be believed then a smart engineer took several days to figure it out while it only took you a minute. I suspect there are other factors than simply being an 'engineer' that will help you arrive at the solution. I personally would never have guessed that store layout would be a factor. However, one question I had immediately was "how do you get home if your car doesn't start?" and if the reply was "…

The situation described is basically a textbook perfect example of heat soak.

If you tell someone with experience repairing vehicles that your car starts fine when cold and find when you shut it off for a short while (e.g. buying gas they are going to nearly instantly hone in on "something is hot that shouldn't be".

Re: “My Car does not start when I buy Vanilla Ice Cream” (2015)

#42

Post by dsfyu404ed »

crististm wrote: post #12
guessmyname wrote: post #10

Maybe not important, but I would have put (2010) in the title. The article was posted on May 10, 2015 but the story is from 2010.

more like ~1978

That's why it took the engineer so long to figure it out. He wasn't expecting a "solved" problem like heat soak.

Re: “My Car does not start when I buy Vanilla Ice Cream” (2015)

#43

Post by notacoward »

lwansbrough wrote: post #16

Not the point of the story, but I wonder if engineers would reach the solution faster than non-engineers due to their practice debugging. As soon as I read the guy was driving to the store to pick it up I knew it had to be timing due to store layout.

I knew it immediately too, but only because I'd heard this story or something very like it before. For the same reason, I might quickly figure out a problem related to janitors and vacuums, or light sensors on the inside of cabinet doors. That's probably the only correlation with being an engineer - not any systematic skill, but exposure to a certain kind of folklore.

Re: “My Car does not start when I buy Vanilla Ice Cream” (2015)

#44

Post by andreasley »

My first car (bought used) had a weird bug: When it had been parked overnight on a steep slope facing downwards, the driver's electric window sometimes wouldn't go back up. Rain would increase the chance of the bug occurring.

All other windows were fine and the problem would go away after a few hours of driving. The bug never occurred if the car was parked on a flat surface.

The mechanics were clueless. I've found that there's a so-called "convenience comfort module" located under a front seat. This electronic module was responsible for controlling the electric windows (amongst other things) and was insufficiently sealed. Water could enter and disrupt certain functions. My dealer wouldn't even believe me that this module exists. :)

Turns out other people had the water problem, too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9z7iEbg3qY

Re: “My Car does not start when I buy Vanilla Ice Cream” (2015)

#46

Post by cafard »

danaliv wrote: post #19
crististm wrote: post #11

Vapor lock was a thing in the time of carburetors. This story is from the 70s, when "internet virality" was not yet on people's minds.

Interesting. Fuel-injected aircraft engines get vapor lock—shutting down to refuel and then restarting can be a serious pain—but I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a carbureted one doing it.

In Jefferson County, Colorado, the stretch of US 40 up into the foothills from the plains used have a lot of cars stalled by vapor lock along the shoulders. But I don't think I've seen a car stalled by vapor lock in forty years.

Re: “My Car does not start when I buy Vanilla Ice Cream” (2015)

#48

Post by nottorp »

andreasley wrote: post #44

My first car (bought used) had a weird bug: When it had been parked overnight on a steep slope facing downwards, the driver's electric window sometimes wouldn't go back up. Rain would increase the chance of the bug occurring. All other windows were fine and the problem would go away after a few hours of driving. The bug never occurred if the car was parked on a flat surface. The mechanics were clueless. I've found th…

You parked your car and left the windows open?

Re: “My Car does not start when I buy Vanilla Ice Cream” (2015)

#49

Post by OrangeMango »

andreasley wrote: post #44

My first car (bought used) had a weird bug: When it had been parked overnight on a steep slope facing downwards, the driver's electric window sometimes wouldn't go back up. Rain would increase the chance of the bug occurring. All other windows were fine and the problem would go away after a few hours of driving. The bug never occurred if the car was parked on a flat surface. The mechanics were clueless. I've found th…

> parked overnight on a steep slope facing downwards

I had a car which couldn't be parked that way either! Turned out, the reverse gear on a 1985 Honda Civic with a 4-speed manual was too low - the tiny engine simply didn't have the power to back up uphill. Unless I could guarantee that nobody would parallel park close to my front bumper, the car would be stuck in the parking spot!

Re: “My Car does not start when I buy Vanilla Ice Cream” (2015)

#50

Post by jack_codes »

lgeorget wrote: post #6

I had a similar problem on my previous car. It would start again without issue after stopping if the pause was shorter than 15min or longer than half an hour but there was a spot in between where the car had cooled down too much and not enough at the same time to start. It's nice to see it was not just a fancy from an old car and to know the reason.

I had this same issue as a teen in the late 90s with an old 1984 Pontiac Phoenix. If it sat longer than 2 hours it would start just fine or if I started the car within 15 minutes of last using it. In that ~2hr gap if I needed to use the car I would have to spray some carb cleaner into the engine to get it started.
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