Wow, 270k and strong beside the odd repair here and there it would seem. I remember when you got the truck, though I can’t say I remember how many miles it started out with.
I think the Keykeeper was probably right that nothing would have happened (as that bolt head doesn't turn in normal operation). It's not a chance I'd take -- even at idle, the engine could fling something with sufficient force to cause serious and sudden injury. Vibration could certainly have made that tool fall off and get caught up or thrown.
I have had two alternators die on me. One made a noise, then the amp gauge spiked a bit and I got an engine light. It went back to normal but these are cheap enough so I went ahead and replaced it. The other just seemed to flat out die. No spike in current and no engine light. I found out because my headlights gradually got dimmer and while I was heading home I began to realize that the vehicle was proceeding forward without my foot being on the gas. The battery running low must have given the idle control sensor a false reading and bumped it up. I did not know I was driving a vehicle with a dead alternator until that moment as the dim lights and that started at about the same time but based off that experience I would say you should avoid knowingly doing that unless you have absolutely no sensors on your vehicle.... so prettymuch anything of the 6 volt vintage. Glad to see the pickup is back to being a reliable asset for you Bill.
Last time I had a GM alternator quit with that many miles on it, it just used up its brushes. The parts guy was so taken aback that I actually looked at the brushes, he gave me a new set for free!
My only experience with reman alternators was many years ago when I bought a used 1989 Mazda MX6. I bought it from a used car dealer and when I took it for a test drive the alternator light was on. I told them about it and they assured me it would be fixed prior to my taking delivery. Well they replaced it with a Bosch Reman and it worked great for about two days then the light came back on. I took it back and they swapped it out again and once again it worked for a couple days and died. I took it back again and they replaced it again but told me if this one dies there has to be something else going on that's causing them to fail. Well the third one was the charm and it worked for as long as I owned the car, 5 or 6 years, but having to replace it three times to get a good one doesn't say much for the quality of reman alternators even when done by a company with a good reputation like Bosch. I actually feel more confident buying one from a junkyard as no car is in the junkyard simply due to a failed alternator.
The alternator on my 1999 Subaru Legacy once failed about 20 miles from home. I switched off every load and drove back home. On the last couple of miles the engine started stalling when braking because of the current the brake lights needed. But I made it home.
I had a 2002 GMC Envoy with wacky electrical gremlins... If it was dry out, regardless of temperature, the battery would die. But, if it was raining, the battery would stay up. It also loved to run the instrument cluster with the key off, usually several hours after I was done driving it for the day. I never did figure it out, but if I had to guess it was either a faulty body ground or a bad ignition switch. I had heard those caused issues in the early years... When my alternator went out, it made it about an hour and a half, roughly 80 miles before it gave up. It was equipped with a GM Vortec 4200.
I remember hubnut did a video where he tried getting home in a rover 75 diesel with a dead alternator. All kinds of nonsensical errors were popping up on the dashboard along the way due to low battery levels, wipers slowed down to a crawl, horn stopped working, ABS conked out etc. ... he made a short stop at a friends place and charged the battery in that time, but that only helped so much. By the time he finally made it home (at night) he didn't even have working headlights anymore, and the engine barely ran lol
I believe newer GM vehicles have load shedding capabilities and most even have a DC current sensor attached to the main battery terminal to monitor battery charging and alternator performance. There is a separate cluster message "battery saver active" for when the vehicle is in that mode in addition to the "service charging system" message when it detects and issue. Also for the airbag a used side impact sensor will likely be ok, the ones that fail most often are the front as the corrosion gets to them. It could also be an issue with the wires where they run in the door flex, often they break and make things in the door stop working
My mother's 2002 Buick Park Avenue had the battery saver features per its owner's manual. I suppose the Plebeians in the crowd who bought a Chevrolet had to wait a while longer for the feature to trickle down. There are no side airbags or sensors for such on this truck, only front. It is one of the front sensors that failed.
Had a 98 town car where I had to replace the alternator 3 times after having bad aftermarket rebuilds after the OEM failed. I went roughly 15 minutes on battery power before the guage cluster went out. Still had power to the coils and plugs though, and it got me home. Battery was 10.9 volts when I got home. The alternator went out on my 90 civic hatch and I was able to go 30 minutes on battery (from where I worked at the time all the way home) and when I got home, the battery was at around 12.2 volts. So I reckon I could've gone about an hour on battery power before it gave up completely. I ended up rebuilding the original alt on my Honda and it's been great for about 3 years now, 25k miles.
Are the two last characters in the display normally not used, and thus less dimmed with age? It looks like it says "CHARGING SYS FAILU *RE* " (I had to add a space to get RU-vid to show it in bold)
The first and last characters are definitely not used in normal operation. I'm less sure about the second from last. Without the charging system working, the display exhibited particularly uneven brightness from left (dim) to right (brighter). It also seemed slow to "warm up".
I agree with you on newer vehicles. My 2007 GMC Canyon had all sorts of electrical gremlins but I would still take that truck over the modern vehicles available today as I too prefer buttons, knobs and gauges over touchscreens.
Dejavu, Bill the last time the key keeper replaced the alternator on naughty truck it was at your home when you still had the Roach Palec, I think if memory serves me the Key Keeper used the same jar of never seize.
From looking, the old alternator is a Delco copy, I can't explain the humidity issue though and I work for a starter, alternator and motor specialist in the UK.
I once changed the accessory belts on my 85 Oldsmobile and I forgot to connect one important little wire. I traveled about 40 miles with headlights before it chugged and stalled and only then would the amp light come on. As for the living room tv in the dash, I agree it should have never been implemented. While it can be convenient having fewer buttons and everything integrated, it can become a real pain too if the touchscreen fails. Makes the dash in a 92 Oldsmobile 98 Touring Sedan not so "busy." What happened to popping in a casette and just cruising? Now people have "the blue F of doom" or just Doom buried in the dash.
These GMT400 factory alternators last forever. Just changed the factory alternator on my 2000 Sierra 5.3 last year after 280k mi and 23 years. Pretty damn impressive. Still has the original starter and AC compressor as well *knocks on wood* i know im on borrowed time, so even though extremely impressive, i dont like talking about it. GM was using some seriously high quality accesories in the 2000s.
Might want to check all the grounding wires. I've seen corroded ones cause weird electrical problems and other gremlins. Also want to check the health of the battery, I had a bad battery chew up alternators for breakfast on my 1999 ford taurus.
Honestly, when the rust belt inevitably kills Naughty Truck, I think it'd be a worthwhile investment to buy a clean low mileage version of the same truck. Might be somewhat pricey but I can't see a new Silverado 1500 or F150 going past 150k miles easily. It's also a significantly cheaper option than buying a brand new Chevrolet Express van. If you end up going with an Express, there is a way to do an OnStar delete. I believe you only have to cut an antenna of some sort. From what I've heard, the Express vans are relatively reliable. Pretty sure the 6.6L V8 would be your best bet for longevity. However the thing will rust every bit as bad as Naughty Truck.
Where's the fun in owning a vehicle that doesn't break? Good to see another car video from you My guess is that the diode pack or the regulator inside the old alternator was getting contaminated with the humidity and was arcing or shorting inside, causing the erratic behaviour in those conditions. Higher revs and humidity combined. This would explain the cooked windings, too. Generally, a brand new battery fully charged with everything off will do about 20 minutes with no charging system. Some cars go longer some shorter, my Civic managed 48 minutes. I believe the regulator is internal on the Vortec alternators.
Marriage isn't a word, it's a sentence. Also: marriage is like a deck of cards. All you need at first is two hearts and a diamond. By the end, you wish you had a club and a spade. Was there some reason not to post a top level comment?
@@uxwbill I'm a few months older than you and have never been in a relationship with any lady - ever. It's sometimes fairly lonely, far less than when I was in my 20's and mid-30's. Still, when my parents pass away in a couple of decades (more or less) I'm not sure if I will be able to really live alone. I visit them every weekend, I'm pretty sure that is why I can get away living at my own place single. It's sometimes a little depressing seeing pretty ladies in public, especially couples. Then again, I feel more fortunate being single; I can do almost what ever I want and have liberty. I remind myself that when I'm feeling low. It's still tough though. Have you ever had this type of feeling too? Any wise advise for me?
15:04 If you have automatic daytime running lights, one trick I used to do on a completely unrelated vehicle was to pull the emergency brake before starting up. This would override the lights, which was especially handy in the winter when I just needed to warm up my car while finishing breakfast. YMMV.
The DRLs only go on when not in park, and are separate lamps on these trucks, situated at the bottom of the stack. (Most people let them burn out and never replace them.) They can be overridden (on US market models at least) with the headlight control, as I was trying to do.
@@Yousitech only high mileage 4runners are overpriced, but they are definitely not over hyped, best truck I've ever driven, and if you like to speed, not recommended
I know the stepper motors in that gauge cluster like to go bad. Jeffescortlx here on RU-vid has a whole business rebuilding these things and has a RU-vid channel with videos showing his work. As for if it is the gauge would require some diagnostic testing but with a decent scan tool you should be able to see the coolant temperature through the engine management computer on the scan tool.
This cluster was rebuilt a few years ago, at which point I also had the missing transmission temperature gauge added. One would hope it's not already preparing to go south. The rebuilder replaced all the motors, whether broken or not (none were obviously so). Whatever happened with the coolant temperature gauge hasn't happened again. I've watched some of Jeff's videos in the past.
Total agreement on the avoidance of newer vehicles. The deeper I get into my software engineering degree, the more I don't like my vehicles becoming black boxes that I am limited in interaction and understanding of the back end. If I am allowed to change the brakes and do work that could make my vehicle unstable, I should have complete access to all the software, electronics and ability to put in mechanical stand-ins for all the digital controls. Not to mention turning off all the trackers and automation that isn't mission critical to run the vehicle.
The owner's manual for my car suggests a vehicle used predominantly on short trips could need a drive of up to three hours each month to properly charge the battery. Now that's a small car of greater vintage vs "Naughty Truck" here, but I imagine it's all quite relative in spite of differences in the potential electrical load you could create with various modifications.
Pretty good miles out alternator on naughty truck. Id rather buy new anyways as i've never had good luck with reman alternators as I always had replace it again.
When it comes to looking for a newer vehicle, you're totally right, new trucks are overpriced piles of crap. I'd look for another GMT800 truck with lower miles, preferably from down south.
If I came across another GMT800 in good shape and for the right price, I'd have another in a heartbeat. Although there have been stupid nickel-and-dime things happen, Naughty Truck has otherwise been very good to me.
Check your belt tensioner pully they go out on gms frequently. Also inside your alternator there is a diode trio that controls charging output. A rebuild kit was 20.00 the last time I did one. It had the bearings, brushes and diode trio. Good luck.
I took the old alternator apart out of curiosity. There were six diodes. Those I tested were still good. The brushes were quite worn, yet they still had plenty of material left. When turned by hand at least, I can't hear or feel any lack of smoothness in the bearings. There's what looks like some kind of solid state device under a large heatsink. I'd guess it's some kind of regulation, and my thought is that it may be the entire problem. I do plan to put a megohmmeter across the windings and see if they are still good.
@@uxwbill yes, that device you found came in the kits also takes the place of an old fashion regulator and they fail from heat and age. That slipped my mind being old also 😊
I don't mind the touch screen in my F150 but its only driving the entertainment system. The newer trucks have moved a lot of the other controls like HVAC into the touch screen and that seems like a recipe for disaster too me.
My dads car has a screen that’s the size of an iPad and it controls EVERYTHING it’s so dang annoying I hate it, while mine (a 2013 Lexus) has a screen controlled with a weird mouse/joystick thing it still has physical controls for for the climate control etc
No Chevy bashing here, but with about the same mileage, I am still on my first alternator, blower motor and every other electrical component aside from coil packs and one crank shaft position sensor on my 99 Town Car.
@@alexpetree2038 And you're right. I had to replace the alt on my town car 3 times before it hit 150k. In the alternators defense though, it was only technically "one" time. The damn aftermarket ones are just crapshoots.
Every car will be different. I have no animosity toward Ford...while I wish the Panther platform was still in production and think it still had a lot of life left in it, they do deserve a lot of credit for keeping the last V8, RWD, body on frame road sofa car in production for as long as they did. I think the Keykeeper's Mercury Grand Marquis, which has 3,000 fewer miles than Naughty Truck as of this writing, is still going on its original alternator. At least it's similarly easy to replace on the Panthers if one ever had to! I don't know why the truck's MVAC blowers have been such a problem. I run the MVAC blower a lot, though not that much more than I think most people do. The factory blower popped the one-shot fuse in the resistor pack one day...later testing showed the motor nearly dead shorted. The next replacement was from TYC Genera and lasted probably the longest of any of them. I think it just gradually wore out. It started to make strange noises, had a harder and harder time starting up on low speeds and eventually developed a dead spot. Next up was a Unimotor branded part from NAPA and it...kinda sucked. It didn't move anything like as much air. I had two of these. I don't remember now how the first one failed. The second one just gradually stopped running without warning. What's on there now is a Continental branded blower. It's the only one that the auto parts store had which fit, but the electrical plug isn't at all right and so is held together with strong language and a zip tie. The wiring connector is starting to get burnt up and at some point, is probably going to be replaced with insulation displacement connectors. (I already had the burnt blower wiring TSB done, and I think those can only be done once.) The ignition switch was a case of "sometimes you really do need the factory part". I finally broke down and paid the price for GM's original part and have had no more trouble from it.
@@uxwbill I always try to get the best replacement part as I have all parts shipped to Germany and don´t want a crappy part out of the box. TYC seems ok from my experience, but I stick with Motorcraft whenever possible. But even Motorcraft is not the same as the true OEM parts regarding quality. Most of it is made in China nowadays so it is a hit and miss.
I like traditional interfaces and design, out of pure curiosity I looked into it and I seem to recall this being mentioned before, the current Chevy Express and GMC Savannah vans appear to have 2009-era GM radio with no touchscreen, the fleet variant of the WT trim Silverado/Sierra 1500 up until 2020 also had a non-touch variant with a little LCD display and physical controls and U-Haul used these as fleet vehicles, the same was true of several Fords in recent years as well but I believe they are unfortunately making their touchscreens standard in a handful of vehicles.
It's mentioned in the video, its description or maybe both. I suspect both the Chevrolet Express and its GMC counterpart are on heavily borrowed time. Ford still sells a cutaway version of the full size E series van for body upfitters. These have a small (roughly single DIN, I'd guess) radio with "shaft style" knobs and a small color display. Those that I've seen had a backup camera, though I am not sure where the display for it was. I'm sure they won't, but I'd love to see Ford offer that simple no-nonsense radio in other products.
💯% agree with your opinion on touchscreens in cars. Too in your face, bright, glaring, distracting, , menu diving, prone to failure, takes your gaze away from the road. Contrast that with older stereos with chunky tactile controls that you can reach for quickly, reliably and without looking away from the road. More technology always means more problems that need fixing, and often can never be thus causing the premature end of a perfectly good car.
I feel like there's a very good chance it will. The transmission and fuel pump are both original to the truck. Especially with regard to the fuel pump, that's got to be getting near to record-setting territory.
The aftermarket alternators suck. I had to replace mine three times. Hopefully, you got a good one. Mopar doesn't make an alternator for my dinosaur anymore. This last time, it was only a year old. I was on a road trip. Luckily, it drove the entire 6 hours home blinking. By the time I reached my driveway, it was toast.
If it fails again buy a Bosch, Denso, Valeo or Hella one for example and they will work just fine. American parts stores just seem to like to sell junk parts to make a quick buck rather than selling quality. Get one from RockAuto for example.
@tschuuuls486 The reason I kept putting the same on is the lifetime warranty. I didn't have to pay a fortune each time. But if it does go out again, I'll try someone else. Who knows if my car will even be alive. 280,000 miles. And it's 22 years old now. It still runs like a goat though.
Here's your first comment, wherein I'll point out that, in addition to sounding better than a cell phone's speaker, a toilet plunger with a voice coil, wired as a microphone, could undoubtedly cancel out megaphone-equipped asses better than any car's Bluetooth audio system... :P Now to go watch the video before I get even further carried away with the jokes from the video description...
Heat, humidity, worn electrics, and motion of some sort. Either the windings.have lost some of their lacquer or an internal diode,.or possibly brush, has developed a crack. The pervasive addition of the moisture in summer can seep into the tiny crevices and short things out as the heat makes the tolerances get tighter inside.
It's nice to see a vehicle stay on the road for hundreds of thousands of miles without any serious faults. Will you keep driving it until it is no longer economical to do so?
Me and my dad put an alternator a 99 GMC Sierra. The replacement was dead shorted (0 ohms). We very rapidly pulled the battery cable back off initially confused.
Just noticed that this truck has a transmission temp gauge on the cluster when it did not in previous videos. Did you swap a 2500/3500 HD cluster into yours?
the protective coating on the windings with in the alternator probably broke down and on the hot and humid days the break in the protective coating the moisture became conductive with in the alternator and eventually got to the point where it failed because of the heat and further breakdown of the protective coating eventually causing it to heat up and become charred
I agree with you on not buying a new car with the abundance of nanny gadgets.i had a 2001 saturn i drove it had 235k before it got to the point where it wasnt worth fixing.then got a 2012 Toyota.
Automotive electrical systems are not the only low voltage high current application. Fully electric radio controlled model airplanes are another and I can say this one from my own measurements. The motor in one of my airplanes pulls 60 amps of current at its peak and averages about 40 amps at approximately 11 volts but the motor is not getting pure DC and instead is getting controlled using PWM at a frequency of usually 8 KHz but certain motors work best at different frequencies depending on the inductance of the windings.
It depends upon which wheel bearing brand I had when that video was made. The Chinese wheel bearings from AutoZonedOut or wherever were *junk* . They all failed in the same way. When turning at low speeds, you'd hear the bearings starting to lock up momentarily. Soon enough, this would start tripping the ABS. Then the howling and other disconcerting noises would appear. I think these lasted maybe six months or so? They kept handing me replacements under warranty. Eventually, I decided a better part was called for. To my great surprise, SKF bearings as sold by NAPA and made in Korea were little better. These lasted maybe a year or so before doing the same kind of thing. A few years ago, I picked up a pair of Timken wheel bearings at a Parts Plus dealer. These were made in the US and have squarely blown the competition out of the water. They are several years old by now and still going strong.
The voltage regulation is modulated by pulse from the ecu. I scrapped a car (that deserved it) for a recurring alternator failure. If anything serviceable was made presently I'd consider a new car but unfortunately this is as good as it gets!
Oh, that's how we use wrenches for industrial machines, but to be fair, we have a lot more designing engineers involved with our assemblies so a nut driver really would not work (it's absolutely horrible, engineers hate mechanics, I tell ya true, nothing is cost optimized in industry and everything still sucks to work on when you're "rebuild the machine" deep into it).
You can be sure that if the engineers ever had to work on the things they designed (assuming the best here, namely that the accountants didn't ruin their design), things would change overnight.
That’s a fair assessment. Engineers are smart people (I mean, they made a machine on paper that works and they even made it continue to “work” when Dave from accounting had a go at the design paperwork). That said, you’d think they’d save more money in the long run by redesigning the turbo encabulator instead of making bolts look funnier and be allergic to wrenches.
Another point when you unhook the alternator your pcm will take a day or two to relearn the system also gm has 6 or 8 grounds that go bad from corrosion and age under hood and frame that will drive you crazy!
honestly there's no point to a touch screen in a dash. if you really cared that much you could just mount your phone to the dash or something, but even then, nothing can beat a nice button.
I don't blame you bill there's a lot of new junk out there I like my 88 town car and 01 grand marquis call my crazy but I don't find any joy or interest walking on a dealer lot to look at all the new plastic junk thats severly overpriced
I don't have a problem with touchscreens on their own - Government regulations now require every car made in 2018 and later to include a backup camera. I use mine heavily on my 2022 Prius. The real problem is automakers moving functions that should go on buttons to the screen. That is just stupid. Even in my Prius I can do things like change the radio station, climate control, and pop the hood without using the screen. By comparison the Rivian R1T has ALL the functions on the screen. To pop the hood you have to use the screen! We'll what happens if the screen breaks!? And don't even get me started about how automakers killed the Double DIN mount form factor. I specifically bought the LE trim of my car because it has a Double DIN mount infotainment system that I can swap at a later date.
Any time you hear someone from the government say "we're here to help", this should strike fear sufficient for a thousand men deep into your being. And I'm at least a little serious when I say that. Other than automakers thinking that a camera somehow compensates for having a useful and usefully large rear window, my ire isn't really focused on the presence of a rear view camera. There's no reason this would have to take the form of a touchscreen display in the "infotainment" (oh lordy do I ever HATE that word) system. The rear view mirror served a dual purpose as a camera display in some vehicles.
GM definitely isn’t as bad as Chrysler electrical problems, Bill. Some Vehicles, get secondhand electrical problems just parking next to a Chrysler product, lol
Nice easy job to do by the looks of it, Unlike the set of alternators I changed on a 2011 Volvo B9R coach. Let's just say a third hand and a ferret would have been helpful as they are right up against the right chassis rail, Horrible vehicles to work on.
Fyi you are probably better off ordering a quality alternator from rock auto and returning the one you've got. I doubt it should ever reach 15V charging voltage as this might fry the battery and ECUs will shut down due to Overvoltage. Buy a bosch, or a Japanese made alternator for the same price you've payed for this one and you are good for the rest of the trucks life. Really interesting how terrible replacement parts are in the us, here in Germany you also have to pay through the nose if you want to buy something of the shelf, but it's usually a quality part at least.
@@uxwbill Probably RockAuto then :D Sorry for challenging your part-selection abilities :D Interesting on the 15V being fine, I haven't personally ever seen this high of an charging voltage ever, but then most European cars have AGM Battery support since the late 90s (and those will be damaged over 14.8V) even if they didn't come with them from the factory.
@@tschuuuls486 Yes, I bought it from RockAuto. Sometimes the local auto parts store can beat them on price for an equivalent or better part. Not this time. They had only a remanufactured "lifetime warranty" option at nearly twice the cost. Fewer options for trucks having the 145 amp alternator, as mine does, were available anywhere. The larger alternator is not directly interchangeable, if at all. The model I selected was made by BBB Industries. I could have gone back with another example from Remy International (formerly and maybe again known as Delco-Remy). Time will tell if I should have. Naughty Truck is from another age in automotive engineering and thus doesn't manage or care much about what the charging system is doing, as long as it is doing something. As most vehicles from an older (dare I say "simpler"?) time were, it was designed for and uses a conventional flooded lead acid battery. Those newer vehicles that require doing a special Hokey Pokey to get going again after a battery replacement, and any vehicle where the battery is not placed underhood as is right and proper, are to my view more examples of what's wrong with automotive engineering today.
@@uxwbill the older Euro cars also let the alternator do it's own thing and only have the single wire for the indicator lamp/exciting current voltage. I know Mercedes for example used to use precursors to agm even in the early 2000s and probably speced the regulators for that. But then I haven't really worked on stuff with those high output alternators. And I haven't monitored the voltage extensively, because most cars here don't have a gauge for it and rely on the red battery icon and maybe a LCD display if very fancy.
Your issue at the end is a common occurrence. Ive said this before but ALWAYS charge your battery with an external charger (NOT the alternator) after a replacing an alternator if you drove the vehicle for ANY significant amount of time with the bad alternator. The battery was lower than youd think and the charging system was working overtime to charge it back up, which is just creating unnecessary stress on your brand new alternator. Despite what people think, alternators do not CHARGE batteries, they simply maintain them.
I think that's certainly true in some cases, especially amongst smaller cars. As with everything, it depends. I had a 78 amp Mitsubishi alternator (in a 1984 Plymouth Reliant) that I should have kept for reuse because it was a tank. That thing probably could have charged a short circuit and not broken a sweat. I don't doubt that this alternator would not like outputting its rated 145 amps for any length of time. According to the data sheet that came in the box, the engine would have to be absolutely screaming along to get that out of it. One hopes that the thirty five odd amps it was producing here at higher revs wouldn't be enough to do it in.
Try watching the video, and reading the description. Nothing about a touchscreen in a vehicle is in any way "awesome". They are dangerous, poorly engineered, buggy pieces of crap that need to be done away with.
My touch screen has never given me a problem up here in the north. Im on my second vehicle with a screen.. also think about cell phones... Let go of the touch screen phob my friend.
Many of us would strongly prefer not to have one. Even if it's 100% trouble free for decades at a time, the nuisance is with the display itself. Give me buttons.
Touch screens are not tactile. I do not want to have to pull over to the shoulder of the road and come to a complete stop in order to safely adjust the blower speed of my air conditioner. I want to be able to operate every function by feel at highway speed.
I am glad for you. Really, I am. (No sarcasm.) Go forth and touchscreen in peace. You don't have any introspective to my thoughts on this, and so cannot ascribe it to what I guess you are calling a "phobia". (Those two whole extra letters sure do save a lot of ambiguity.) It's not. I wrote a book here previously , which has now been shortened considerably because I'm sure nobody was going to read all that. Absolutely every control that's used by the driver of a vehicle should be operable without ever having to break one's concentration and focus on actually driving. The driver shouldn't even have to look at a control when operating it. No touch screen of any sort can ever pass this test. There is enough distracted driving out there today. The majority of people are mediocre drivers under the best of conditions. Why would anything that reduces someone's ability to concentrate on a task that can literally mean life or death ever be considered a safety improvement? Driving demands your complete attention. (This also means "put your damn phone down and DON'T TOUCH IT" when you are driving.) Add to this risible software quality, pathetic system on chip processors in an age where there is no excuse given a market full of cheap and powerful CPUs, no thought given to security in design as though well proven firewall code were a pipe dream, marketing of your data to absolutely everyone that may be impossible to opt out of over an always on cellular Internet connection, manufacturers abandoning these things in a short time (even if they want to provide support, the underlying chip designer's board support package may preclude this, as might limits on storage and memory) and you have something I want no part of. It's not just touchscreens that draw my ire about the modern vehicle. I hate everything about their physical design, interior room (height), engineering decisions, repairability and so much more.
You know, you could always look into a Toyota Tundra, as long as it has the V8 engine and no touchscreen or any of that fancy bullcrap. Just offering you a suggestion in case your current driver gets eaten by rust.
I have overhauled numerous generator charging systems, mostly on tractors. There's no way I'd want to go back to those days, and none that I've seen would ever meet the current demands of a "modern" vehicle while still charging the battery. Thirty amps is about the most you're going to get. As to alternators...I think it depends highly upon the vehicle and application. GM, for example, thought a 78 amp alternator was just perfect for a half ton truck with a 6.2 liter diesel engine (two batteries to charge, instead of one), air conditioning, glow plugs, headlights and a radio. Just the headlights and MVAC blower alone could take up more than half of the available output. There's no doubt in my mind that it wouldn't stand putting out the full 78 amps for long, and that's if the single v-belt drive didn't go first (as it often did). On the other side of the field, I had a Mitsubishi alternator in a 1984 Plymouth Reliant that was definitely built well enough to put out its rated 78 amp capacity all day long. I should have kept it around -- it would have been great for a tractor conversion.
@@uxwbill believe it or nor,... I'd rather deal with old point system than the trash they make now HANG ON GOT TO CALL DELL/IBM/HP/LENOVO BEFORE I CAN FIX ROFLMOAO
While I agree that much if not all of today's automotive "engineering" is extremely questionable at best and locking things to the manufacturer is inexcusable, I'd not want to go back to the days of carburetors and points-style ignition for even a moment in a daily driver. There's nothing wrong with electronic ignition and fuel injection. Neither are new ideas at this point. As far as "luxury" ... I wouldn't consider a heater/blower and vehicle lighting a luxury of any sort. With both running from a DC generator, you're not going to have a lot left over to charge the battery. That's just a simple fact -- not a "dig" at generators. Yes, I do like a nicely equipped vehicle and for that I make no apologies -- when the world's your oyster, you don't settle for fish paste. ("Nicely equipped" meaning working air conditioning, a cruise control and a radio that can at least receive AM and FM. Power windows and locks are nice, but not required.)
