An Interesting Response to an Honest Question

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Just for fun, I called Chevrolet customer service as well as my local dealer to find out their position regarding the Y2K problem and whether my car will continue to function properly. The car will be 11 years old at the rollover and so will be more prone to problems than most.

Both sources told me I was the first person who had asked that question and assured me there would be no problem. I asked for some kind of statement of position or assurance that the processor in my engine would not malfunction, at which point both representatives became angry and defensive, telling me I didn't understand what I was talking about (despite having worked with computers for 18 years.) The customer service clerk said condescendingly, "MA'AM, NOTHING'S going to happen to your car"!!

I am afraid that we are all in for a bad time 18 months from now if this is any indication of how seriously people and corporations are taking the situation. I am one of the old-timers that wrote the code; I know what's going to happen if it isn't fixed.

Thanks.

N. Miller

-- Nancy E. Miller (nmiller@iapc.net), July 14, 1998

Answers

I agree. I had called my dealership today on my comparatively new 1997 Jeep Wrangler. I got hostility, then "there's nothing to worry about" and call Jeep and find out - the number's in your owner's manual.

These people haven't a clue.

-- Chana Campos (chana@campos.org), July 14, 1998.


Over a month ago, I too called the Service Manager at my local Chevy dealership. He assured me his mechanics know how to fix any and all car computers. When I mentioned Y2K, and what I had learned about car computers and microprocessors from reading Ed's book, he replied, "He's blowing it out of his ear!" He insisted there will be no problem. I Emailed Ed about this, and he replied. Ed, if you're reading this, and have time, it would be great if you would add a post here about this!

-- Holly Allen (Holly3325@juno.com), July 14, 1998.

Surely you can't believe that your car will fail in y2k, yes the banks will go west, insurance companies will go bust, but your car will still run. By the way my Honda was made in the year of the Emperor 7 (in Japan), so thats ok, yes I know it probably has western chips, a real time date/clock that will switch off when zeros are encountered. The Motor Trade in the US sounds as bad at PR as ours in the UK.

-- Richard Dale (rdale@figrop.co.uk), July 15, 1998.

Why are you worrying about your car? If things are bad enough that the chips in your car cause it to fail, you can kiss shipments of gasoline to your local service station goodbye.

I asked my mechanic about my pickup having Y2K problems. He laughed and said I was one of the few people who would probably be ok since my truck is 20 years old and doesn't have any chips. Now I just need gas...

-- Melinda Gierisch (gieriscm@hotmail.com), July 15, 1998.


I don't think 1/1/2000 is the problem for cars. Some date is, but nobody knows when.

The embedded controllers generally don't use the actual date. They used "elapsed time". The problem comes in, because the "elapsed time" is computed using general-purpose embedded chips which actually do store "actual time". But their "actual time" is generally not the "correct" date. It might be the date of manufacture. Or the designer's birthday. Or random.

At some point the chips fail, but the embedded controllers which are _used_ for elapsed time don't necessarily fail on 1/1/2000. They fail at some unknown date.

Now, as for those fancy dash-boards which DO contain the date - they can (and do in some cases) have problems. That does not apply to most cars, though.

BTW, I am not an Electrical Engineer (nor do I play one on TV), but I am a hardware/software geek (programmer) and I ran across a very good article on embedded controllers that explained the above.

-- Anonymous (Anonymous@Anonymous.com), July 15, 1998.



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