Murphy stopped by for a quick visit, a WTH day yesterday - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: GreyWoolfe
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 30, 2018, 02:53:55 pm
content: I had to share 2 weird Murphy moments yesterday. On the way back from the other side of the state, Mrs GreyWoolfe and I were cruising along and all of a sudden the car started losing power and then the power coming back, sort of. The cruise control stopped working and the traction control light came on and wouldn't go out no matter how many times the button was pressed. This power fluctuation is fairly constant over the next 45 miles but we manage to get home without having to call AAA. So we are home getting ready for bed and she asks me to turn the AC off and the heat up a little because she is cold. I go to the touch screen thermostat and it remains black and I realize the AC isn't working. I tell her and, of course, she does't believe me and has to see for herself. I go and check the breakers and everything is fine. Mrs GreyWoolfe is now in high dudgeon and says that I need to call the AC people first thing in the morning because no AC or heat is unacceptable.Fast forward to this morning. She is suddenly up and trying to get organized as her daughter asked her to take the granddaughter and friend to church as they had something come up. Her daughter lent her a car as she doesn't want to drive ours and the van only has 2 seats. She calls the house back and said there are red lights on the car. I misunderstand what she is saying, I think she is talking about the security system light on the dash--she knows about this. Now that I am out in the front of the house, I am going to swap the van and car as she doesn't want to drive the car until it is checked out. Car starts up fine, no idiot lights on the dash. Just cause I can, I hit the gas hard and quickly get up to almost 50 in a 25 zone in the subdivision and 6K RPM--no problem and also cruise control turns back on and works.As a side note, she was talking about the brake lights being on as she drove past the car. Hopefully that was the angle of the sun ascending, reflecting off of the lenses.I come back in the house and am getting ready to call the AC people. I am cleaning up in the kitchen and am putting things away in the hutch and I realize the AC is blowing on me.I check the thermostat and it is lighting up and I can adjust the AC and heat settings again.So the car runs fine for now but is still going to Hyundai and no call to the AC people because there is nothing wrong this morning. You can't make sh!t like this up. I hope this provides some amusement this morning.

author: edy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 30, 2018, 03:10:19 pm
content: The car I can understand... we were driving the other day in our Honda Pilot when the GPS entertainment system decided to go crazy. I was trying to adjust volume of radio, my wife started using the on-screen touch screen and I was using steering wheel buttons when the system became sluggish, volume started increasing by itself to full (some input was stuck it seems) and then became unresponsive. The on screen buttons were very slow to respond, screen was not refreshing, volume stuck at max with kids in the car on a song we didn't particularly like... while driving... talk about a dangerous annoying situation! We were only a few seconds from home, we parked and I shut off car. Upon reboot the audio/nav system was back to normal, responding as usual. So I am assuming there is a bug in the software that we found.As for the thermostat, I wouldn't be surprised if it was also a bug of some kind that cleared but since it did not reboot overnight I don't know how it would have fixed itself.

author: bsudbrink
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 30, 2018, 03:30:13 pm
content: Wow, that's a little more than a "quick visit". You're still lucky though. Murphy has a reserved parking space in front of my house.

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 30, 2018, 03:32:17 pm
content: Gremlins. It's all Gremlins.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 30, 2018, 06:33:44 pm
content: The reason why I have a dumb thermostat and drive a vehicle with no engine control electronics

author: GreyWoolfe
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 30, 2018, 06:54:19 pm
content: Quote from: amyk on December 30, 2018, 06:33:44 pmWhen we bought the new system, the installers tried to set me up with a WIFI connected thermostat. I said no, just give me a programmable one. He said, but it is a free upgrade. That's nice, but no thank you.

author: rdl
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 31, 2018, 05:31:48 am
content: Years ago I bought a new car. About the third day I had it, I was leaving work at lunch time and hit the down button for the driver's side window. It went about half way down and stopped. No amount of button pushing or wiggling would make it move. Since heavy rain was expected that afternoon, I went back in and told my boss I was taking the vehicle to the dealer to get it fixed and didn't know if I'd be back that day. Of course, after I arrived at the dealer's shop, as soon as the technician pushed the button the window started working...They went ahead and took the door nearly completely apart and inspected everything, but they could not find a problem.