Caroline, my Volvo 850 saloon, has now been in the garage for more than a month. Dave, my trusty mechanic, thinks that we’re near the beginning of the end.
I’m still rather confused by the results of his investigations, and by the sounds of it, so is he. This, then, is by way of an interim report. Think of it as our lab notebook. I apologise if it doesn’t make sense.
I took Caroline to Dave’s garage on 19 June. Now, whereas Caroline is a Lady of a Certain Age (12 years old, 116,000 miles on the clock) she’s in good nick, and Dave says that her engine is in very fine fettle considering her mileage.
Dave’s apprentice, Kayleigh, made short work of servicing the car, and that’s when Dave did the official MOT (Ministry of Transport) roadworthiness test, which is mandatory for all cars more than three years old. Caroline failed because one (1) light wasn’t working (soon fixed) and because her exhaust emissions weren’t clean enough to meet current regulations.
In order to solve the emissions problems, Dave changed various consumable widgets (the air filter, for example) and got the emissions down a bit. He then identified some cracks in an old air hose which could have let more air into of the engine than intended, thus confusing the car’s electronic sensors and making them inject more fuel than they needed, thus producing greater emissions (see below). He fixed the crack and the emissions came down a bit more — but not enough.
We now enter a realm of multiple negative and positive feedback loops. Hold on to your sockets…
Now, I’m always a bit suspicious of warning lights. After all, there are two possible interpretations of a warning light that indicates that there might be an electrical fault, viz:
- If the light is illuminated, there is an electrical fault.
- If the light is not illuminated, there is an electrical fault.
This was OK in the days when cars were unintelligent hunks of glass and steel with neither feelings nor sensitivity, but the world has changed. Microelectronics, you see, have expanded the universe of possibility such that:
- The condition of the illumination of the light might be dependent on whether the electronic sensor is faulty, and/or
- … whether the car’s electronic brain thinks there is a fault, whether there is one or not.
Many years ago, when the world was young, the Gees were travelling between here and there when a mysterious warning light was illuminated, in the form of the greek letter lambda. This was accompanied by a dramatic loss of performance and formidable fuel consumption.
I took Caroline to a Volvo dealer who diagnosed the fault in the engine management system, and fixed it.
I discovered that the lambda light reports a warning from the lambda sensor, or, rather, two sensors — one of which keeps an eye on the fuel-air mixture going into the catalytic converter – the other on the composition of the exhaust gases.
The lambda sensor is a remarkable device based on the wholly amazing properties of rare-earth-based ceramics. It measures the oxygen content of the gases in which it is bathed. Plenty of oxygen in the exhaust gases signals a clean, efficient burn – too little, and the exhaust probably has an excess of of unburned fuel components such as carbon monoxide. Now, here’s the feedback part — the sensor relays its information back to the car’s brain, which then regulates the fuel mix accordingly.
I think this goes on quite happily without the driver being aware of it. Only when there is a failure of some component in the system does the driver need to be alerted by the warning light. I don’t remember what the garage fixed the first time the lambda light went wrong – it could have been a cracked air hose, but I’m not sure.
The problem is that at intervals over the next few years, the lambda light has come on even when there has been no perceptible decrease in the car’s performance, or increase in emissions. Various Volvo garages diagnosed the lambda sensors themselves being faulty, and have replaced them, several times, at considerable cost to me.
This time last year, having moved to Cromer and 23 miles from the nearest Volvo dealer, I took the car to Dave the mechanic. Dave is very, very thorough, and beholden to no main dealer or vested interests other than keeping his customers happy. After he serviced the car, the lambda light went on even when Dave had just tested the emissions and found them acceptable. He counselled me to ignore the light and just get on with it, which I did — and have had another 12 months trouble-free motoring.
This time, though, has been different. Yes, the car failed the emissions tests despite everything Dave could think of. The emissions got better with some tinkering, but in the end Dave couldn’t work out why there should be any excess emissions at all. The state of the engine is, in Dave’s long experience, as clean and coke-free as something with a third its mileage.
One option he tried exposed something rather surprising. Apparently (and I might have got this wrong) Caroline has a pump whose function is to pump more air into the exhaust gases. When emissions regulations were first introduced, manufacturers would add such pumps to reduce the ratio of hydrocarbon emissions in the exhaust gases, even though the absolute amount was the same. Dave disconnected the pump – this had no effect, so he reconnected it. He also found nothing amiss with the connections between the lambda sensors and the car’s brain. But that’s where this investigation was, ultimately, to lead.
At his wits’ end, Dave happened to be chatting with a friend in the trade who told him a trade secret. Now, sit back and listen – I don’t know about you, but I found this rather remarkable.
Apparently, the electronic brains of cars remember old wounds, and, even if the fault had been cured years before, they can raise the spectres of old faults – introducing phantom faults, where none exist. Even if the old, original engine management fault had been cured, my car’s brain would refuse to listen to any human programmer that told it otherwise. It seems my car bears grudges, and is a hypochondriac. Caroline’s brain — not the lambda sensors — insists that there is a problem, even if there isn’t one.
This is the trade secret: remove the car’s brain, and keep it on the bench for an hour or so in a state of sensory deprivation, allowing all its old memories to trickle away.
Dave followed this advice.
He didn’t say whether Caroline talked to him during this process. I imagine her saying something like “What are you doing, Dave?” reprising a famous scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey where astronaut Dave Bowman disconnects the computer HAL9000, which, like Caroline’s computer, was obsessively trying to fix faults that didn’t exist.
Dave then reconnected Caroline’s brain and — as of yesterday evening — the emissions came out clear. Caroline goes in for (another) official test today, and, hopefully, she’ll finally get her MOT.
Dave represents the spirit of empiricism at the sharp end. But even he is not so pragmatic that he didn’t say, as he put the phone down – “fingers crossed”.
Henry
before you take the old girl in, a blast along the bypass at 90 in 4th should clear out any residual emission worries. My friendly mechanic near Cambridge swore by it.
Aren’t you a little bit worried that the sensory deprivation may have sent Caroline mad?
Let’s hope Caroline gets a ping from Dave’s “ping” machine.
@ Richard: before you take the old girl in, a blast along the bypass at 90 in 4th should clear out any residual emission worries
Yes, well Dave’s been doing that, too (inasmuch as one can go anywhere fast in Norfolk) because, as he says, you need to run the engine hot to get a credible emissions reading.
@ Bob – well Caroline already has her idiosyncrasies. The man-eating glove box is her favourite.
@ Graham – thank you! I’ll let you know what happens.
that’s what they all say.
Of course, you can’t go that fast in a Volvo, so…
(ducks)
Of course, you can’t go that fast in a Volvo, so…
Cars and their drivers gradually grow to look like one another. Like me, Caroline is built for comfort rather than speed. By this logic, anyone who drives a bright red sports car is obviously a spiv with deep insecurities about the size of their appurtenances (I have to be coy here — Matt has been telling me off about the full-frontality of my comments of late).
On a separate note, please clock the utter vacuity of this article in which the author fells good about herself for having lived without a car for some weeks — and then admits she lives in London a convenient distance from a tube station. Doh!
Hi Richard, Henry never goes fast in a Volvo or any other car, what you would call a very cautious driver. I once made him put his foot down and do 33mph in Wales to get to a holiday park but this resulted in a speeding ticket(it took some time to work out what it was as it was all written in Welsh except the number plate). But in defence of Volvos, Caroline has never let us down and is a part of the family. She is named after a car in Thomas the Tank Engine and her owner is the Fat Controller. The pace is a little slow in Norfolk but I guess Dave will get there in the end (such a nice man).
I once made him put his foot down and do 33mph in Wales to get to a holiday park but this resulted in a speeding ticket(it took some time to work out what it was as it was all written in Welsh except the number plate).
I remember it well. The penalty notice said
Fwrch chaddwchch ghhwrarraw charlotte church llanfwr £200 fwwr yndhh. Ynharchans sloe black sloe black fishing-boat-bobbing sea rhynnlachwchwchwch chtwllych. Hwddhhllu wrwrchchdhhlwr rhys ifans awyyrrhdd gdgdhch nachlwr graham norton.
which I was assured, by a native speaker of Welsh, translated fairly accurately as
Go to jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass GO. Do not collect £200. Send 60 quid to the chief druid, sharpish like, or we’ll feed you to the sheep.
And as we saw recently here, I’m assuming the fine was paid as opposed to a science based challenge !!!
By this logic, anyone who drives a bright red sports car is obviously a spiv with deep insecurities about the size of their appurtenances
touché.
Do you drive a bright red sports car by any chance, Richard….?
Has anyone else noticed that besides Henry’s wife, no other women have commented on this post?
Go on, Penny. Say something. Anything. Oh no — she’s on the adjacent sofa, falling asleep as I write. Heidi is on the floor emitting a powerful Zzz-field.
Do you drive a bright red sports car by any chance, Richard….?
I believe Mitsubishi call it burnt sienna, actually.
Oh all right then, as Penny is down for the count.
I once had a boyfriend who drove a shiny red Mitsubishi Eclipse (which I believe Mitsubishi called shiny red). He treated speeding tickets like a road tax, and I cried when he traded it in for a boringly boxy Alfa Milano.
Hah.
I seem to remember an ad campaign for a boring, boxy people-carrier. The seemingly impossible task was to make it seem sexy to the men who, while still aspirational, were staring middle age in the face — and, more importantly, their wives and gitlfriends (to whom all car ads are really aimed).
The ad showed (left) a couple in a shiny red sports car.
The ad then showed (right) the same couple with their kids in the boring people-carrier.
The slogan went something like ‘Now you have proved your virility, you’ll need the Boring Boxy People-Carrier.
Maybe that’s why Volvo drivers have the reputation for being so smug, and why other drivers hate them so much. We Volvo drivers know we have lead in our pencils without having to call attention to the fact.
On the other hand, Mrs Gee still swoons over the sporty open-topped thing (which was shiny and red) I hired when we had a vacation in Maui. That was in the years BC, or course (BC = ‘Before Children’).
I say, if you’ve got, flaunt it.
Nice looking child but she seems to have done the most enormous poo. Or is that what passes for a shiny red sports car in Australia these days…? :-)
No Stephen, that’s what I had to drive before I came to the land where petrol is cheap and climate change is a far-off dream…
That, Richard, is not a shiny red sports car. That is a perfectly normal family compact. You, Sir, are delusional. And if I were you, I’d be careful of perching a child like that on the roof, in what is obviously moving traffic, especially as you’ve clearly had to leave the driving seat to take the picture.
You, Sir, are delusional
Quite possibly. Now let me get back to eating this ferret.
Don’t forget the appropriate seasoning, and bon appetit.
Aha! I think I’m in the wrong industry, spending many hours at my computer reporting on the excitement of capacity building and strategic whatsits in the voluntary sector (are you all still awake?) Must make note to get exciting science job and spend hours blogging. Meanwhile, I’m thinking of doing a blog about my chickens and all other animals at the Maison des Girrafes. Study currently being invaded by the Gee chooks. Heidi (superstar of the blogosphere) fast asleep, far too hot for a golden retriever who won’t get out of bed for less than £10k a day.
Penny, can you remember the make and model of that nice car we hired in Maui?
Remember it well – it was a Chrysler Le Baron.
Drop big hints for Dr Gee to do whisk Mrs Gee off somewhere romantic in the future…
Ah yes, one of those
Lovely car.
Drop big hints for Dr Gee to do whisk Mrs Gee off somewhere romantic in the future…
Cromer not good enough now, eh?
This evening, Dave met me off the train at Cromer station. He’d brought Caroline with him along with a new MOT certificate and an extremely reasonable bill, considering the voyage of discovery we’d been on. We reflected that cars, now they have electronic brains, really do have personalities, and that as well as being a mechanic he was now a fully qualified Car Psychiatrist.