Talk Morgan Forums Community Vehicle Talk (non-Morgan) BMW April 1st

An unfortunate aspect in terms of evolution in vehicle design seems to be that many modern vehicles especially those rarely used, place demands on their batteries causing all sorts of frustrations which can be off-set by making use of a float charger, oft times permanently connected.. However such seems to be the complexity of vehicle systems that intermittent faults in soft or hardware can cause varying degrees of discharge over time when the vehicle is not in use. Ideally a digitally controlled float charger should be able to compensate for these losses, though being a sophisticated bit of kit it`s self, a charger/conditioner is not immune from possible failings....?

With intermittent faults relative to battery discharge I hesitate to suggest adding another layer of digital technology in an attempt to assist condition monitoring and assessment, But..?

Apologies if it has been mentioned before.

https://youtu.be/AB9YN0DY6Zk

Perhaps also worth noting and has been mentioned previously, is that AGM batteries hove higher fully charged voltages than non-AGM old style batteries and thus require a float charger more suited to their specific requirements.

Never seen the point of tyre sensors, when they fail they can be a pain to replace with constant error messages and once activated can be a pain to deactivate when scrolling thru less used pages of options in the command system, that are never intuitive (well to me they aren't). Once a handbook gets beyond the size of War and Peace you know you are in trouble, I think it was about page 30 before I found how to start the engine!

Even printed handbooks are going away. The instructions for the Sat-Nav built into Mrs F’s Mini Clubman are built into the device. It refuses access to the instructions whilst the vehicle is moving - which means that the passenger has to request a halt in progress in order to understand the tortuous menu system.

John the tyre sensors come in several forms now.

The older ones which were using pressure sensors as fitted to the early Aeros were all you mention. So many now just dis-connected.

The newer ones seem to use the ABS sensors (like every seems to these days) and use the rotation speed to establish the pressure. Amazing that they can deduce it to that accuracy through this. On my Audi before and now on the ML it shows the pressures based on this. It has been very accurate and unlike the older ones no hassle.

I always say that if you need a manual you have not designed the product correctly. Now it seems that the manual is mostly there to carry the warnings and legal dispensation stuff. As Paul comments the access to the on-line manual is also annoying. No doubt it will also become a paid for subscription shortly. Access and updates in line with the software updates the car gets will become chargeable!

I have also often wondered if they employee a specific style of deviant to write these things so that they can be translated to multiple languages with least trouble but then become ineffective in all languages?

As for the ABS tyre sensing ... I guess after you've driven a mile it's had plenty of samples to average out .


K

The wife fancies a change and looking at replacing her Mercedes Cabriolet (nothing wrong with the current one, only done 33k miles and in very nice condition). So we sat in a new E class then the C class, and test drove the E class. The salesman gave me the key, with a few simple instructions and left us to it, a good five minutes later and we still couldn't find how to start the car, let alone put the hood down and I've had 6 Mercedes cabriolets since the early 90's. I gave up and went and got the salesmen. It was not at all obvious, so goodness knows how we would get on with the latest command systems, even with a hard copy manual......................we hardly use any of the current car's options via the command system and we just seemed to allow simple things like electric memory seats start to determine our purchase criteria.

I'm increasingly looking at keeping the current car, we are both comfortable with, well maintain and less to go wrong.

I wonder which bright spark in the software dept thought of that, without testing all eventualities

No different to your computer software when you pay extra to have an extra facility turned on. Or the Sky box for example.Makes a lot of sense since the heating in both seat and wheel is trivial in cost to include on every car.

Sooner or later there will be a hack on line.

More to the point what this confiorms is that there is a linky between your car and the factory. So instead of linking up a lappie at service time your car is plugged directly into the mainframe at the factory who can download all the faults / history etc. Its the same with Merc and other brands.

Admittedly an old data point but the abs tyre pressure sensor system on a 2009 Scrirocco failed to pick up a blown side wall in the 500m or so that it took my wife to get from the fast lane of the M4 to the hard shoulder (they had them in those days...) after she hit something dropped by a truck....