You know you're in trouble when your car crashes...

[missroserose]

...or more specifically, when the computer in your car crashes and causes the transmission to quit working.

Seriously. That's what they told me happened. The computer that tells the automatic transmission when to shift "hiccuped" (the mechanic's word), and when he rebooted it the problem went away. While he was at it he found out that Mazda had a firmware update to correct some hard-shift issues, so he installed that too. So it's apparently fairly unlikely to happen again, but if it does he'll see about replacing the shift sensor.

Something about this really cracks me up...quite possibly because fixing a problem by rebooting and updating the firmware is something I see the Brians do all the time at work, not something I expect to hear from a car mechanic...

...my car must be running Windows XP. D'oh. =D

Comments

[jamesd.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on your discovery! It's an interestiing phenomenon. Now, a bluetooth car with remote updateable firmware... and we can have the first virus-caused mass collision in history. :)

[tempest-x.livejournal.com]

Actually, with the lack of meaningful error reporting (the console is usually a small LCD diagnostic device with a hexidecimal code of some kind), it's more like early Mac OS.

:p

(Sorry Brian, I know how much you adore your new Mac, I wasn't really trying to cast doubts on your shiny new system, more like a comment on the older ones...)

[errant-variable.livejournal.com]

actually the comparison is very relevant. You can equate the Check Engine light with the "bomb" icon.

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

*laughs* "Something's gone wrong, but we're not going to tell you what it is because we like seeing you bang your head on the table in frustration!" =D

[tempest-x.livejournal.com]

Pretty much exactly what I was thinking...