Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2008 18:57:23 -0700
Reply-To: Scott Daniel - Shazam <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Scott Daniel - Shazam <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Subject: Re: Oil Pressure Light on-need help! (dealer cant fix it)
In-Reply-To: <eccfedcc0804041748y44f1e27bve7c34088dec38049@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Michael Sullivan asked me 'so what's your diagnosis? " , and I wrote this
back :
well, not really enough info yet.
But, ifi the oil pressure is truly good, and it should be at 74 K miles,
And wiring checks out, naturally one thinks of the DOPS ,
Or possibly the printed circuit,
But there totally is not enough info for a 'diagnosis' yet.
I'll tell you Michael, thousands of times I have talked to people about a
car problem for hours, and once I see the car, even in 10 minutes sometimes
I've understood and known WAY more about what's going on than from just
talking.
ANYTHING could be going on - some stereo installer ran a drill bit into a
wire somewhere, or burglar alarm installer.
Thousands of things could be going on that are not revealed yet.
And I commonly work on cars AFTER other shops failed to fix them.
I work on Subaru engine conversions after other shops of screwed them up.
I can't tell you how much bad work I see- about 60 % of the time even.
Here's a typical deal - vanagon barely running.
And a shop or two had worked on it already.
I ask about the fuel filter.
The guy says one shop checked it and it's not clogged up.
I ask 'did they empty it out backwards and check for what's in it ?"
No, OF COURSE they did not. I have yet to hear of anyone smart enough to do
this, or learn from me to do this, but there MUST be a few others doing it -
or I sure hope !
So I empty out his semi-restricted fuel filter backwards ( and this is after
we tried a different air flow meter and did a few other tests on the fuel
injection part of this van, and it would only go about 25 mph when it was
having it's problem )
If find shiny metal particles inside the fuel filter.
Those can only come from a fuel pump to me.
The fuel pump sure appears to be original - ( 87 Vanagon btw ) has
undercoating on it, and original type crimp hose clamps.
I put on a new fuel filter and a good used fuel pump I had around.
Problem is totally fixed.
I also identified dead oxygen sensor ( though it ran strongly with that
dead, just got horrible gas mileage ) and put a new one of those on there.
And ..the reason I told this story was to illustrate that there is a lot of
incompetence out there.
And there also isn't enough info given yet to really nail down his problem -
the oil buzzer thing.
In my world, if I thought his DOPS was causing the problem, I'd just pop on
another known-good instrument cluster from one of my other vanagons, for a
first test.
Nothing hard about that, but many car shops don't have several vanagons to
grab parts from for testing purposes.
About this method of 'substitute and bypass' ....when I was in the Air Force
as an avionics tech on a jet interceptor- that's exactly what we did to fix
those things ...which needed CONSTANT attention....first we had a truck full
of known good and tested electronic boxes, or modules, and when the radar
scope didn't look right, we popped in a 'display' module from the truck ,
sometimes with the jet engine screaming and the pilot at the controls....but
that's what we had, dozens and dozens of tested and ready to go known good
units to try on the bird. Got 'em fixed that way most of the time.
In addition, there was a whole system mock up in a building....and we'd
test out our suspected faulty units on that system, to confirm the suspected
unit was the problem. Then people that actually soldered on things and
changed capacitors and what-not would to the actual unit electronic repair.
This method works DAMN GOOD !
It's a shame VW dealerships don't even have access to this method. And in
general, the trend in automotive diagnostics is hook a vag-com to it, or
other diagnostic software interface, and let it tell you where the problem
is, ....which is sure NOT an infallible system. It'll even lead you in the
wrong direction at times.
( and isn't this typical human silly Human Dysfunctionality- the idea was to
make repair diagnostics easier - but I'm not sure that's really what is
actually happening in the automotive world.in newer cars. Cars right around
the mid to late 80's to early 90's are just right - not too crazy complex,
but plenty modern enough. )
And so often good ole plain low tech methods are not used, which is a real
shame.
Could tell 10,000 stories like this one - real briefly, vanagon shop calls
up asking some esoteric way of accessing code info. I ask what the problem
is, they tell me the work they just did. I ask 'did you get the right one in
the right place?' ..right away , cause it's an easy mistake to do. Two weeks
later I hear that it was exactly what I said, and they had their noses down
into the weirdest deepest stuff. And it sounded to me like they spent quite
a few hours on it, but the repair, and the solution were both very basic and
very easy. And the very first words out of my mouth.- they had two devices
swapped from where they each correctly belong, but it took them days ,
evidently, of messing around to find the very simple solution, which was
even offered to them when they called ! . Low tech is very often good
tech !
So I know I could fix this van. Sometimes it takes me a long time to get
the weird ones. And there have been cars that have defined being fixed even
by special technicians that factories send out to fix the problems that the
dealer techs can't fix. There is such a thing as an absolutely unsolvable
car problem....very rare though , mostly the solution is just very illusive
in a difficult case. And the more ways you have to utilize basic
'substitute and bypass' as a diagnostic strategy, the easier it is.
Pretty sure I mentioned some vanagon 'rescues' recently : two
days, two limping vanagons, two semi-emergency while-you-wait situations,
two successful ' diagnosis and repairs.' Two happy vans and two happy van
owners. A win-win all around.
Scott
www.turbovans.com <http://www.turbovans.com/>
-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Sullivan [mailto:sandwichhead@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, April 04, 2008 5:48 PM
To: Scott Daniel - Shazam
Subject: Re: Oil Pressure Light on-need help! (dealer cant fix it)
Scott...so what's YOUR diagnosis?
On Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 7:29 PM, Scott Daniel - Shazam
<scottdaniel@turbovans.com> wrote:
This is amazing, and tragic too.
It's not that they 'can't' well maybe they are that incompetent, but it's
probably more that newer cars in their bays are more profitable for them to
work on, and they're afraid they'll have 20 hours into it and they would
hate to actually charge someone that much.
And how on earth can a VW Dealer not know how to get a VW part ??????
Is this in the East Coast ?
I was paid to consult for a customer where his vw dealer told him to find a
used ECU to install. I'll tell you, in the normal world, if the new part is
$ 3,000 dollars, and they diagnose that's what you need, they won't care,
they'll just tell you, you need one. So for a VW dealer to tell someone to
find a used ECU instead of telling them they need say 980 dollar new one,
is ludicrous.
And how is it that they can't look up a VW part ????
It's rally a sad shame that people with good money that own
vanagons........and in this case, a low miles late model one, at the
supposedly 'official and expensive' place and they claim they can't fix it -
what on earth is up with that ???
hell, I can fix it . jeez......maybe they really are just plane ole
incompetent. How do they sleep at night ?
I'm still aghast - they 'think' it's the - I imagine you might mean the
DOPS...dynamic oil pressure system - it's a circuit in the dash, no big
deal.
Did this VW Dealer ever hear of a Bentley manual ???
This is about the biggest WTF I every heard of.
Is this a late April Fools Day joke ?
Maybe that's what the dealer was doing on you.
Sorry to go on. I specialize in what 'REAL SERVICE' is - and I don't mean
service the car, I mean actual S E R V I C E to the customer, like a nun is
in service to god.
And I find the dealers service departments don't really know anything about
this concept at all.
Like telling you 'how are WE gong to get a part' .........you must be
joking.
-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
JR Denton
Sent: Friday, April 04, 2008 4:00 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Oil Pressure Light on-need help! (dealer cant fix it)
Here is my story- I am buying a 91 Westy. The current owner who is very
conscientious and about a week ago after giving it a pre-sale test drive he
noticed that the oil pressure light (and buzzer) came on. While it is
running the oil psi light/buzzer are constantly on. Since he gets
everything done at the dealer, he took it there to get them to fix it prior
to our sale.
Here are the particulars on the van-
- 74K orig miles on engine- dealer check compression/head leaks/oil
pressure- all check out perfect
- The dealer has done the following: replaced oil pressure sending unit,
pulled the dash off and checked the interface wire harness/all connections
to the light/etc, checked the wiring harness
They told him that they think it might be the "Oil pressure dynamic relay"
to be replaced (they think)? If this in the part- where do we get one?
Overall, I think they are at a dead end as far as trying to fix it- since
they probably only see 1 vanagon a year for service. I am looking some
ideas on what to tell the dealer to try. Any input from the experts on the
list would be great!
Thanks very very much,
Jason
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Michael in San Antonio
91GL AT 'Gringo'
