Son in Laws parents recently got a new VW T Roc on lease. From day 1 it has thrown up multiple fault codes. An "engineer came out" and suggested that VW changed a control module, but the dealer still has the car, and can't find a problem.

The VW dealer lent them Corsa. It's been going on over two weeks.

Interestingly, a Nissan was in the news recently for the same problems.


https://metro.co.uk/2022/11/16/kent-couples-new-33000-nissan-has-mind-of-its-own-17771863/

well Dave, my brother bought a new Kia Nero but it has eighteen fault codes and he doesn't know when he will see it again.

I think I'll stick with cars that have the KISS principle for as long as I can, sadly tech is just too complex in new spec cars, lots of it we don't need but it's a fashion arms race between manufacturers nowadays so we're stuffed

Would it be too conspiracy theory to suggest the chip makers are supplying a few rogue chips?

More likely to be fall-out from cheap connectors failing to make reliable contact at the low currents used for many signals in cars.

Motor manufacturers are unlikely to add the cost required for better quality connectors or for electronic solutions.

Wikipedia has a reasonable explanation of the concept.

Yep no doubt that's the reason, not helped by British weather either.

The phenomena was highlighted on my narrowboat when I swapped out halogen ceiling lighting for LED. The household switches coped fine with the current draw from halogens but after fitting LED's and particularly after leaving boat for several weeks unused, many of the switches had to be operated several times to clear contact oxidisation and so have the lights come on reliably given the very low current draw.

When we used relays, we used to use 50V DC for point detection to ensure the points were in the correct position. When it was changed to electronic equipment, we use 6V pseudo random binary and quite often the contacts in the points wouldn't pass the current.

Part of the "leaves on the line" failure scenario Bob?

No, a completely different fault. BtW - leaves on the line is a real fault, they can prevent the train from dropping the track circuit and the train disappears on the signaller's panel. They can also cause slipping when braking.

Thanks.