By now the infamous Toyota’s sudden acceleration is well known and much publicized problem. Although Toyota has been consistently deny the electronics controls may be possible causes of the problem, suspicions abound.
Whether Toyota’s electronics may or may not be the source of the problem, the fact is there is too much electronics computer controlling too many aspects of the modern cars, regardless the maker.
Take out 2008 Audi Q7 for example. A few days ago, after driving it during the day, we park it on the curb first and moved it to the drive way. Up to this point, everything is none eventful. It is when we want to park it a little better, things start to happen.
The car would not start. This is not like battery is dying and the starter is attempting to crank. No. It is like the instrument panel gong dark altogether. Normally, for most of the cars and this Audi included, the instrument cluster consists of a number of warning lights that will light up briefly when the ignition key is first turned on. In addition, in the center of the instrument cluster of late model Audi, there is a so call “Driver Information Display” was dark too.
Since we just moved the car no more than five minutes ago when it all the sudden decided to quit on its own and the radio, interior lights and remote door locks etc. works, I did not think it is a battery problem and the only thing to do is to call Audi’s road side assistance. They first want to try jump start to call, although I was pretty sure that would not solve the problem and surely it didn’t work and the car was towed to dealer.
What surprised me next was after I did not hear any thing from the Audi dealer and called them the next day, I was told after they connect the diagnostic computer and reset the Q7’s internal control, the car just came back to life. The dealer did not replace anything and they while said this problem is rare, they have seen it before but not sure the cause of the problem. What is even less settling is of course since they do not known the cause of the problem, it means this problem may happen again and may even happen under unsafe conditions.
In this age, computers have been used to control many things we use daily. The problem is computer has bugs. When a PC or notebook bugs surfaces, most of time one just reboot it without too much a problem. But when a car is controlled by computers it is something else. If the computer all the sudden decided to go crazy, at the very minimum, it is an inconvenient annoyance I just experienced, at worst, well; you can fill in the blanks.
May be we should not let the computers control things that can end very badly.
Speaking of decoding HD audio, many more expensive Blu-Ray players besides adding what I view as less than useless BD live function, they also added HD audio decoding. On the other hand, most if not all the sub $300 players even most of the sub $400 players do not have multi channel analog outputs. If a player does not have multi channel analog output then what is the use to decode the HD audio inside the player? The need to have the player to do in player decoding is for those older receiver is not capable to decode the HD audio, most of which does not even have HDMI input. Without analog output, the decoded HD audio bitstream is of no use for those older receiver, as those greedy studios would not allow HD audio stream be sent over the coaxial or optical digital I/O. While it is true there are some early HDMI days receiver has the HDMI input for PCM stream but does not have ability to decode HD audio, their number are far fewer than receivers either do not have the HDMI connections or the newer ones like the Yamha RX-V665 that is capable to decoding. The question then is why pay for something most people don’t need? Even for someone like me who did not own a HDMI HD audio capable receiver when I got the Blu-Ray player, I would not want to pay the extra to have built-in decoder. I would rather save the money to get a receiver that does. It does not have sense when you have more than one HD audio capable devices each has its own decoder when all is required is one set in the receiver.