Rick*, are you old enough to remember before OBD-II became a standard, and every manufacturer had their own loony way of getting diagnostics from a fuel injected engine? If so, would you say that diagnosing them is better or worse now? Use any metric you like to judge better or worse, but explain why if you think it’s worse. I’ve only had one pre-OBD-II fuel injected car, and it’s problems were all easily diagnosed without consulting OBD.
One thing makes me think the MA law may be a stinker: I haven’t seen any mention of a specification or guidelines provided by MA for the “standard protocol”, and I doubt I’d be able to recognize it if I read the law itself. One of the things that OBD-II fixed was that CARB didn’t provide a spec that OBD was supposed to follow. Under OBD every manufacturer had at least one way of interfacing with their computer, and interfaces weren’t standard across a manufacturer’s line, either. OBD-II did provide a single spec. Are they thinking that the automotive industry is supposed to develop and adopt this protocol over the next two years? CAN bus doesn’t qualify, because it’s proprietary and only available to other manufacturers under paid license. Using that as the spec would just be giving Bosch a monopoly. If anyone can provide any info on a spec provided by MA for the interface, I’d still be open to thinking it’s a good proposition. Without it, it’s a good idea implemented badly.
*apropos of nothing, I’ve nodded at that signature for years
Exactly, any code-sharing issue is really unrelated to the MA proposal. I still think it’d probably be cheaper in the end for them to share at least engine management code. Their engines aren’t usually doing anything revolutionary when it comes to software, the mechanical engineering side is where the magic happens.
You move into a new house. Next door on one side is a guy from China who speaks no English. Next door on the other side is a guy from Iran that speaks no English.
You need to discuss things with them so you tell them they have to learn English. Let me know how that goes.
Every car maker uses its own language. Now Mass wants them all to become bilingual. Furthermore then everyone gets to use a vapor ware interface tool to talk to these newly bilingual modules.
Like I said this is NOT going to be cheap to implement.
It will drive the cost of new cars up.
I heard on the news today that both sides are now urging voters to just ignore this question on election day. The legislature passed a bill that both sides support, but it was too late to get the measure taken off the ballot.
The new law apparently specifies the tech, and gives more time for compliance. It sounds like a good solution. If so, let’s hope it becomes like CARB’s recommendations and is adopted nationwide. I can’t see why it wouldn’t be, as I said, it’s almost certain to lower everyone’s cost in the end to maintain standard interfaces.
Rick, just about everything that makes cars better makes the price of cars go up in the short term. After the costs of adopting the standard have been incurred, the manufacturer’s long term cost will most likely go down. They don’t have to design their own interfaces from scratch, they just have to comply with one of the current standards, which they already roughly know how to do after doing it once. This also has the advantage of making cars less expensive to own after you buy it, so it has the potential to be a wash for the owners of even the first generation of cars. If you’re an independent shop or do your own repairs, this is in your interest. It lowers the cost you have to incur to begin working on a line of cars. If you’re working at a dealer, I can see why you’re against it.
This would make perfect sense if they were referring to a diagnostic tool.
I don’t see this as requiring all automanufacturers to use a common language. I see this as requiring them to provide the languages to other manufacturers who will build universal interface diagnostic tools – presumably machines that speak to any vehicle in whatever language is needed.
You know, like a sci-fi-ish universal translating machine.
I’m not a mechanic and I’m not a lawyer, and I certainly may be wrong. But I don’t see that these claims, as stated, necessarily mean exactly what you think the mean, Rick.