A darker side of the chip-shortage story...and some good news too

[Ace-Garageguy]

11,000 Ford owners on the waiting list for TCMs, some with cars out of service for over a year, and scalpers offering them for $1000+.

But wait...there's a cost-effective ($300) solution.

STORY HERE  (WARNING: requires reading)...         https://www.sae.org/news/2022/12/tcm-supply-woes

EDIT: The collision repair shop I work with has ongoing "supply chain" issues, and all manner of other industry-wide incompetence that has become commonplace in the last few years.

 

Edited January 12, 2023 by Ace-Garageguy

[cobraman]

Interesting.

[mr moto]

We faced a similar situation recently. The ABS controller in my wife's 2008 Hyundai went out causing the brakes to lock up. Fortunately she was going slowly at the time. This happened while she was visiting her sister in another state making for a very inconvenient situation. AAA towed it to a local shop but repair costs would be over $3,200. That's a lot of money for replacing a module and not a very good investment for a 2008 vehicle with over 170,000 miles.

Fortunately, we were in a situation that we could afford a new vehicle. She loves her new Nissan.

[maxwell48098]

I worked for Chrysler for 35 years in service and parts, and back in the late '80's I worked with our electronic engineers on "flash" reprogramming most modules for vehicles already in the field.  Unless an actual component inside the module failed, the modules could all be reprogrammed in the field b y dealers, as well as aftermarket technicians, using the proper diagnostic tool and software. As I retired, we were working on updating module software via communications software on the vehicles and satellite download as vehicles were parked.

[1972coronet]

2 hours ago, maxwell48098 said:

I worked for Chrysler for 35 years in service and parts, and back in the late '80's I worked with our electronic engineers on "flash" reprogramming most modules for vehicles already in the field.  Unless an actual component inside the module failed, the modules could all be reprogrammed in the field b y dealers, as well as aftermarket technicians, using the proper diagnostic tool and software. As I retired, we were working on updating module software via communications software on the vehicles and satellite download as vehicles were parked.

Whatever became of the planned-then-cancelled performance module for the (ill-fated) Electronic Lean Burn computer? 

[MeatMan]

That's crazy, but its not just electronic parts. On a lesser scale, my wife's Rogue was rear-ended this past summer and it took nearly two months to get all of the parts. We're talking body parts mostly!

[Ace-Garageguy]

12 hours ago, MeatMan said:

That's crazy, but its not just electronic parts. On a lesser scale, my wife's Rogue was rear-ended this past summer and it took nearly two months to get all of the parts. We're talking body parts mostly!

The body shop I work with puts a lot more effort into sourcing repair parts than the average, often locating and shipping in parts from out of state that we were told locally were "unavailable" for whatever reason.

While many of our suppliers are quite content with "I can't", then blaming everything but their own incompetence and laziness, our shop manager operates from "I'll find it, get it, and we'll get it done".

No doubt his extensive Navy experience in military aircraft support, his hot-rodder mentality, and the fact he's from a more self-reliant generation (trigger old man shouting at clouds insult) has something to do with it.   

Edited January 15, 2023 by Ace-Garageguy

[thatz4u]

performance module from the 1960's

[Lownslow]

13 hours ago, thatz4u said:

performance module from the 1960's

Not anymore 

[Draggon]

The girlfriend has one of the 2011 Fiestas that is waiting for a TCM. In March it will be a year. I hold no hope it will be fixed by then. She's going to buy a new Kia Rio 5-door. Only problem with that is the one she wants is unavailable in Northern California. I think the state as a whole has 9 of them. I told her I'd lay out the extra cash to get her into a Soul, but so far she's not accepted my offer. 

[peteski]

I currently drive 2019 Soul.  Nice little vehicle. My previous car was 2006 Scion xB (the "Box").  I also drove the current generation Soul for couple of days (rental) and it had even more bells and whistles than my 2019.  One thing I didn't care for was the engine shutting down when the car stopped (to save gas, um, reduce emmisions).  There is a button to disable that "feature", but the setting doesn't persist when the ignition is turned off.

[stinkybritches]

17 hours ago, peteski said:

I currently drive 2019 Soul.  Nice little vehicle. My previous car was 2006 Scion xB (the "Box").  I also drove the current generation Soul for couple of days (rental) and it had even more bells and whistles than my 2019.  One thing I didn't care for was the engine shutting down when the car stopped (to save gas, um, reduce emmisions).  There is a button to disable that "feature", but the setting doesn't persist when the ignition is turned off.

My wife's 2021 Honda CR-V has that 'feature". It doesn't shut off if you only put enough pressure on the brake pedal to keep the car from rolling. I don't know if Kias work like that, though. 

[peteski]

2 minutes ago, stinkybritches said:

My wife's 2021 Honda CR-V has that 'feature". It doesn't shut off if you only put enough pressure on the brake pedal to keep the car from rolling. I don't know if Kias work like that, though. 

Thanks, I don't have to worry about that in my 2019.  There are quite a few of cars with that "feature" out there. And I'm sure it will be getting into more and more new cars. When I have my windows rolled down I often hear the engine shut down in a BMW, Ford, Subaru, or another car sitting next to me while stopped at a red light .

[keyser]

I’ve had auto start/stop on a few cars. I actually use it all the time. Works best on bigger engines, but good system is almost imperceptible. Temps need to be normal range, and if AC on it’ll restart if temps need more compressor. Works great even in stop/go traffic, my AMG has Distronic cruise, so set it to whatever, and it’ll stop/restart as traffic stops and goes. Auxiliary battery too, first one lasted 7y. I drive hard and fast, but it makes big diff in mpg too. Daughter has Benz with bigger 4, works well too. I think torque helps. Never had system in a smaller 4 <2L, but I’d think it wouldn’t be as smooth. 
I pick up 2.5-3mpg from it on my DD in traffic. 

[espo]

My wife drives a '21 Jeep Cherokee Trail Hawk with the stop start system. I don't care for it, but she likes it, and it is her driver after all. She has about 20k miles on it now and has averaged 21 to 22 mpg overall since new. Most of her driving is a hiway commute to work and a couple of miles of free-flowing surface streets once off the hiway. I drive a '19 Dodge Charger GT with the 3.6 V-6 six and Dodge likes to call it the HO model to make them feel good about the lack of performance compared to our old '10 Charger RT. The good thing about this car, without the stop-start system, is that since new, and I have never reset the computer readout on the dash, the car is giving upper 22 mpg to just into the 24-mpg range on a long drive on the open road. So you have a larger and heavier car with the MoPar AWD system getting better gas milage than the lighter Cherokee with the smaller V-6 engine without the stop start system. My thought is that if a vehicle is primarily a city driven vehicle with a lot of stopping and sitting at traffic lights then it may be a worthwhile option.  The good news is that most of the setups I have seen give the driver the option of turning the system off when they feel that it isn't needed. 

[Ace-Garageguy]

31 minutes ago, espo said:

...My thought is that if a vehicle is primarily a city driven vehicle with a lot of stopping and sitting at traffic lights then it may be a worthwhile option.  The good news is that most of the setups I have seen give the driver the option of turning the system off when they feel that it isn't needed. 

Where the stop-start system makes sense is in stop-and-go rush hour driving.

Back when I was a poor student commuting to school, usually running on fumes, I'd routinely shut my engine down when the traffic stopped. It really bites to run out of gas in the center lane of an interstate, with long lines of cars on either side of you. Stopping the engine during prolonged idling can indeed save significant fuel.

Far as normal driving? I'm not convinced. 1) The starter motors in cars so equipped are insanely expensive compared to the old school units; 2) there's just that much more stuff to fail in control circuits etc.; and 3) while driving a rental not too long ago, I would have been smashed flat by a semi had I not disabled the system, allowing me to nail the throttle to get out of the way without having to wait for re-start. 

Hundredths of a second can make the difference between life and death, and I'm not the only one who's experienced similar almost-disasters.

Some cars now do not allow for the system to be disabled, so pay attention.

[espo]

1 minute ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

Where the stop-start system makes sense is in stop-and-go rush hour driving.

Back when I was a poor student commuting to school, usually running on fumes, I'd routinely shut my engine down when the traffic stopped. It really bites to run out of gas in the center lane of an interstate, with long lines of cars on either side of you. Stopping the engine during prolonged idling can indeed save significant fuel.

Far as normal driving? I'm not convinced. 1) The starter motors in cars so equipped are insanely expensive compared to the old school units; 2) there's just that much more stuff to fail in control circuits etc.; and 3) while driving a rental not too long ago, I would have been smashed flat by a semi had I not disabled the system, allowing me to nail the throttle to get out of the way without having to wait for re-start. 

Hundredths of a second can make the difference between life and death, and I'm not the only one who's experienced similar almost-disasters.

Some cars now do not allow for the system to be disabled, so pay attention.

The life span of the starter system has always been in the back of my mind. Many of the features on new cars today, beyond the stop / start thingy, designed to compensate for inept drivers are going to be very expensive to repair in the future.   

[stinkybritches]

Warning: Long, boring story ahead. Read at your own risk.

Since I helped this go off topic, I'm going to try to get this somewhat back on topic. I say somewhat because I'm going to discuss just one type of chip. I worked for a semiconductor producer for 10 1/2 years. The company was Qimonda, which was spun off from Infineon, which was spun off from Siemens. Qimonda made nothing but DRAM on 200mm wafers initially, at least in the US. Infineon made other types of chips. Memory chips are a commodity so the price is set by the market. When the market is flooded, prices are lower than the manufacturing cost. When I first went to work for the company in June 1998 a full boat of 25 wafers was valued at roughly $500K when fully processed. That same boat of wafers was valued at $35K when the plant ended production in Feb. 2009. Because technology marches on, there were many more chips on that wafer in 2009 than in 1998. 

Sometime around 2007 a 300mm wafer fab came online. For those that don't know, a wafer fab is the area where blank silicon wafers are turned into chips. Most manufactures had moved to 300mm from 200mm at this point. The problem with our 300mm fab was that we were many generations behind the other fabs within the company. We were doomed once chip prices hit rock bottom. Qimonda only made memory, so there was no other product to take the pressure off while we waited for the market to turn around. Cue the announcement that our 200mm fab was going to be closed in Jan. 2009. There went the best job I ever had, and will likely ever have. Less than a month later the 300mm fab was shut down with no notice. This facility was only open from Jan. 1998 to Feb. 2009. The company filed for bankruptcy protection 2 days before the unexpected 300mm shutdown. That also happened to be 2 days before my severance was to be paid out. After lawsuits, I ended up with about 5 weeks of the 16 weeks of pay that I was supposed to get. The useless employees that were let go in the first round of layoffs received all of their severance along with the few jobs that were available in the Richmond, VA area. It just doesn't pay to be a good employee anymore. 

I'm telling this long and boring story to say that the current shortages are due more to a loss of manufacturing capacity than the reason that keeps getting repeated. C19 exposed it, but is not the cause of it. Many other facilities closed over the last 20 plus years.  

    

Edited January 20, 2023 by stinkybritches
corrections

[Ace-Garageguy]

1 hour ago, stinkybritches said:

I'm telling this long and boring story to say that the current shortages are due more to a loss of manufacturing capacity than the reason that keeps getting repeated. C19 exposed it, but is not the cause of it. Many other facilities closed over the last 20 plus years.  

   

Excellent...as well as the insane push to add more and more processing power to vehicles for features that are absolutely unnecessary in something that primarily drags a fat butt to work or to the grocery store and back.

Edited January 20, 2023 by Ace-Garageguy
CLARITY

[TarheelRick]

May not fit in with this topic, but I am going to post anyway.  Got a letter from Ford Motor Company telling me of a recall on my 2022 F150. The problem is "the windshield wiper motor may become inoperative, or cause the wipers to operate erratically and/or stop working."  What is the risk? "An inoperative wiper motor has the potential for reduced visibility or loss of visibility in certain conditions, increasing the risk of a crash." What is Ford Motor Company going to do about it? "Will notify by mail to schedule service appointment...for replacement of wiper motor. Parts are anticipated to be available in third quarter of 2023." I am driving down an unfamiliar road in a deluge rainstorm and my wipers decide to quit, sounds like Ford Motor Company really has concern for their customers. This lack of parts to repair or to manufacture automobiles is all a political plot to make us stop driving in order to save the planet. Where did I put my tinfoil hat?