Hey Car Guys

[CMRivdogs]

We had something happen a bit weird this evening. Our vehicle is a 2025 Tuscan Hybrid, just shy of 12 thousand miles.

Heading out to dinner this evening, the speed,tach, gas, etc display started “flickering” basically turning off then on. The screen would occasionally go black then come back on. After about 7 miles or so we received a big NO SIGNAL message on the screen. 

Evidently there is a way to set the map/other “electronics” on the other display screen, but not the “important” one.

What was weird, after dinner when we went back to the car, it looked like the main display was working. No problem on our 15 minute ride home.  I’ll be checking in with the dealer in the morning to try to schedule an appointment since I saw some mentions of a possible recall while researching during our meal.

Anyone have any idea what may be happening?

[romad1]

1. love the thread idea. 

2. with electronics, often the best answer is just restart the gizmo.  Which seems like a dumb tech support type answer but yeah, often the reset is the answer.  

 

Now, to the real stuff:  when i retire back to Michigan and get a pole barn with space... who wants to come help me retromod a Triumph TR6? 

Before I do that though, I will want to completely solar power the pole barn so that's the project after building or buying the pole barn. 

Edited April 9 by romad1

[gehringer_2]

21 minutes ago, romad1 said:

with electronics, often the best answer is just restart the gizmo.  Which seems like a dumb tech support type answer but yeah, often the reset is the answer.  

I had a Subaru that did a similar thing maybe twice in 10 yrs  - all the electronics crashed. Just had to restart the car. Of course today, if your car is sitting at your house connected to your wifi, or if it has its own cellular modem, it might be updating SW and either introducing new bugs or squashing old ones on any given day and you might never know. 

[CMRivdogs]

Restarting the vehicle was my first thought, a bit like a soft reboot. Maybe I didn’t wait long enough on my first attempts.

We were in the restaurant about 45 minutes. When we restarted the car all systems were back on. Will be contacting the dealership for an appointment today.

[Screwball]

This fits here.

A buddy of mine told me today he took his car to the dealer for routine maintenance. Oil change, tire rotation, inspection, the normal X you pay for the checkup. They couldn't get his tires off without ruining the lugnuts so they had to replace them. $322 for those fine little puppies - all 20 of them I think - if it has 5 nuts per wheel. That's a quick $16 buck a nut. 

That's ****ing NUTS! Pun intended. 🙂

An automotive lugnut is made by cold forming a round piece of steel by force and spit them out by the hundreds or thousands per hour. Probably cost the car companies pennies each. They ship in bins by truck from satellite suppliers to the automakers. And sometimes they do a secondary operation.

What is happening here; marketing decided they need really nice chrome lugnuts to look pretty, so they stamped a chrome plated cover over the cold formed nut since it's grey and ugly. Over time, the cover expands, and the guy in the dealership can't get a socket and air wrench on the lugnuts to get them off.

Really dumb idea, but they did it anyway.

Another case where marketing overruled sound design and engineering and the customer eats the cost of their greed, stupidity, or both.

 

Edited yesterday at 02:22 AM by Screwball

[Tigeraholic1]

16 hours ago, Screwball said:

This fits here.

A buddy of mine told me today he took his car to the dealer for routine maintenance. Oil change, tire rotation, inspection, the normal X you pay for the checkup. They couldn't get his tires off without ruining the lugnuts so they had to replace them. $322 for those fine little puppies - all 20 of them I think - if it has 5 nuts per wheel. That's a quick $16 buck a nut. 

That's ****ing NUTS! Pun intended. 🙂

An automotive lugnut is made by cold forming a round piece of steel by force and spit them out by the hundreds or thousands per hour. Probably cost the car companies pennies each. They ship in bins by truck from satellite suppliers to the automakers. And sometimes they do a secondary operation.

What is happening here; marketing decided they need really nice chrome lugnuts to look pretty, so they stamped a chrome plated cover over the cold formed nut since it's grey and ugly. Over time, the cover expands, and the guy in the dealership can't get a socket and air wrench on the lugnuts to get them off.

Really dumb idea, but they did it anyway.

Another case where marketing overruled sound design and engineering and the customer eats the cost of their greed, stupidity, or both.

 

They call that the ultimate "upsell". He probably had one bad lugnut. The advisor is paid moslty on commission and said to himself "The worst the customer can say is no." He made $20 and the tech pulled $100 and the dealer gets the rest. COG was probably $10

[gehringer_2]

>. He probably had one bad lugnut
I’m sure they can quote you a ‘spec’ that says they all have to match. 🙄

[Screwball]

7 hours ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

They call that the ultimate "upsell". He probably had one bad lugnut. The advisor is paid moslty on commission and said to himself "The worst the customer can say is no." He made $20 and the tech pulled $100 and the dealer gets the rest. COG was probably $10

This is really nothing new as far as problems with the designs, but the one lugnut theory is probably sound. Another way to rip you off, especially those who don't know what the car parts do. Sounds scary - I have bad wheel nuts - fix them. Not really, just how they look. Not as pretty, but they do what they are suppose to do - keep the wheels on. Kind of important.

$322 dollars later... That's just nuts. The dealer (maybe a local decision) is just ripping this guy off.

 

Edited 1 hour ago by Screwball

[Screwball]

5 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

>. He probably had one bad lugnut
I’m sure they can quote you a ‘spec’ that says they all have to match. 🙄

Yea, that would be on the engineering drawing with a bunch of what they call GD&T (geometric dimensioning and tolerancing) to spec that part. They are all suppose to match withing a particular tolerance.

These things are a bad design to start. You will never crimp a pretty looking thin gauge chromed part (which is why they do this - pretty - marketing) around a lugnut. The thin metal can't go smaller because of the size of the nut, but will eventuality try to revert to the mean, and expand. But we must satisfy marketing; chrome wheels, chrome nuts, look pretty, sell cars.

Their entire function is to keep the wheels from falling off the car.