RE: Daily drivers and computers

[White Anthony <anthony.white@domain.elided>]

(tends towards a rant nearer the end.  Kind Alfisti, forgive me ...) 

> Even if 'all' one was to do was install a quality EFI system, assuming
> everything else on the car is up to snuff, I'm guessing almost any Alfa
> could be made to be darn near as reliable as those from the land of the
> rising sun and sushi.

Biba,

except that this would involve adding a computer, which runs on electricity, and, as you have noted, electricity is a black art.  

Was helping a friend with a car in which all electricity was just disappearing.  He thought is was the computer.  I protested -- why would a computer just stop working?  He put it succinctly -- "Haven't you ever used a computer?  That's just what they do."  

Cars with computers are nightmares as soon as they're out of warranty.  You take them in to get serviced, the service guy plugs in another computer, which tells him that computer x or y needs replacing, so he replaces it.  $3000 later, you ask him what the problem was, he says' "Oh, the computer said it needed to be replaced."  Like that helps!  

I hear these stories all the time.  A $1500 computer in a Honda, a $3000 computer in a Holden (GM).  My grandfather has a BMW, complete with dashboard computer that flashes red when it's time to change the oil.  He can change the oil himself, but he had to buy a $700 workshop computer to make the oil-change warning-light go out.  This is a man who built racing boats from scratch, and then built Ferrari racing engines to power them; who taught me how to build a big valve head on the first engine I rebuilt (single cylinder motorcycle) by welding round the valve and then reshaping it on a lathe (a crude technique with no regards to longevity or contemporary metallurgy, but wonderfully gung-ho).  

The only black box under the hood of my Alfa is the battery.  
If the engine's running rough, I take to it with a screwdriver.  

If you have money and want a reliable older car, get the whole thing re-wired by grown-ups.  Not just Alfas, but anything Italian, British or French.  

(I am entirely in favour of electronic ignition systems that have neither points nor computers, though.  These are definitively a Good Thing.)  

Kind regards,
Anthony. 
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