World conspiracy of automakers. A little about the electrician

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Periodically there are publications about the poor quality of modern cars. I will supplement this topic with my own impressions. I'll tell you about the "unique" engineering solutions in the field of auto electrics.

Anticipating the Petrosyan stupid jokes about the domestic auto industry, I will take out the electronic unit of a famous automaker as the title photo. Although this "miracle" is put on Russian cars. Namely on Vesta …

But, let's plunge a little into history. Once VAZ was a Soviet, and then a Russian plant. He's French now. The plant was sold, the money was cut, well done! And all the trends in the global automotive industry in terms of quality and marketing apply to it. Therefore, I took two examples from VAZ products, which are still native (remnants) to us. I have been doing auto electrician for quite a long time. And the last Russian Kalinas and Priors were distinguished by very reliable electrics and reasonable engineering solutions. But then Renault came …

Now let's go directly to the topic.

A very "original" solution was made on luxury Vesta. There is an additional body electronics unit used on some other Renault models. So, all the size bulbs, the illumination of the instrument panel and buttons go through this tiny microcircuit, circled in a circle. Organized three channels to provide side lights on the left and right sides, license plate illumination and illumination of buttons and knobs. The total current passing through the microcircuit is not sickly. And there is one fuse for all three channels - 25A. In fact, the outputs of the microcircuit are not protected by anything (unlike the cheaper configurations). Maybe it all worked for the bourgeoisie, but we have different realities.

And now, the happy owner of this car, after a certain period of time, begins to believe that, in fact, happiness is not complete. And until you are completely happy, you need to replace incandescent bulbs in size and room lighting with Chinese LEDs. And so he takes an LED with curved contacts (which are the majority) and shoves it into the cartridge. CLICK! And a fan of collective farm tuning gets at least 16,000 rubles. This is how much this block costs. And it still needs to be ordered and delivered …

And if on Vesty people suffer with an irrepressible thirst to break something, on Kalina-2 in a luxury version, it threatens any decent car owner.

French perverts here too instilled a thirst for microelectronics in places where it is not needed. In the photo there is a "stripped" body electronics unit, which is responsible for so many functions that it seems the only thing that it can not, is to conceive a child. According to the great French tradition, it is also installed in such a way that the first time I picked it out for two and a half hours.

But this small circuit controls the turn signals. 4 bulbs of 21 W + 2 x 5 W. That's about 8A! How she "lives" can be seen on the blackened board and the adjacent connector. From a technical point of view, there is absolutely no need for such a connection.

So this microcircuit could not stand it, one channel shorted to power and the turn signals froze tightly in the on state. The price of the issue is about 7,000 rubles. for the block and work on replacement (about 3,000 rubles at some car services)

To summarize, I cannot justify such technical solutions with reasonable arguments. This is an obvious attempt to reduce the reliability of the car, to increase the profitability of "court" car services and auto parts manufacturers.

Until all is lost

Let's remember what the former citizens of the Soviet Union were always famous for? That's right, resourcefulness. These two examples I gave not just to groan, but to show how to deal with it.

On the Kalinovskiy block, the automaker put a bold cross during installation. Hastened. A burnt-out microcircuit can be replaced by ordering from China. But I did not wait and supplemented the block with such a box from the signaling.

The resource is not technical, very few people are interested in the details. In short: I cut some connections and made a simple circuit on relyushki with old signaling and turn signal relays. The costs were about 250 rubles. Of these, turn relays 200.

The entire system is fully functional. The biggest challenge is pulling the block out and pushing it back into place.

It's even easier with Vesta. Tore the track from the burned-out channel output connector and hung a relay from the same old signaling on one of the remaining two. There are practically no material costs in general, and the block can be easily removed. In addition, it all fit inside.