car computers Archives - certifiedauto.com

CAN System…Your Car Has One!

I have written articles many times about that fact that your car is really a computer on wheels. They have up to 100 million lines of computer code and that is more than many jet fighters! The most basic of vehicles have a minimum of 30 microprocessor-controlled devices. We call these ECU’s (electronic control units). Luxury cars can have 100 ECU’s!

These processors make it difficult for the average person to work on their own vehicle but it makes it easier for auto repair shops, such as Certified Automotive Specialists, as they have made an investment in the right equipment and diagnostic tools in order to translate trouble codes and determine what is actually wrong with your vehicle.

What do all these ECU’s do? They help meet emissions and fuel-economy standards, do diagnostics, simplify design and manufacturing, reduce wiring, provide safety features, comfort and convenience.

Controlling your vehicle’s engine is the most processor-intensive job and the engine control unit is the most powerful computer in your vehicle. It gathers data from dozens of various sensors and knows all that is going on. It performs millions of calculations per second. The processor in your car runs more efficient code than that in your PC.

Each module communicates problems to a central module. The problem is stored and then a technician can read the code using an off-board diagnostic tool. There seems to be more and more technology going into our vehicles each year so more and more computer code will be necessary. This is all part of keeping our environment cleaner and reducing the amount of accidents. As we are moving toward the commercialization of the self-driving car we will find this will increase a great deal.

The CAN (Controller Area Network) also known as CAN Bus enables all the electronic control units to communicate with each other…without a host computer. This lets the vehicle’s electronic components; control units, microcontrollers, devices, sensors, actuators, and many more talk to each other on a single or dual-wire network.

Your engine management electronic control unit is connected to the transmission electronic control unit, which is connected to the anti-lock braking electronic control unit, and so on! There are essentially two wires involved; a CAN High and a CAN Low. Why is this important? They act as a backup for each other in case one fails. This is why your car can continue to run just fine with the check engine light illuminated.

This is also why we tell you not to keep on driving miles and miles with the check engine light on…it really is telling you that your car needs attention. You are already down to one wire…if the other one fails you have a problem! Next time your check engine light illuminates, make an appointment and let our diagnostic technicians get your car back to excellent health.

Please call us with any questions at 626-963-0814 or visit our website at www.CertifiedAutoCA.com.

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Your Car – Robocop On Wheels?

I have written in the past about our cars being computers-on-wheels that constantly collect data. What if they were required to share that collected data with government agencies. I know…this sounds like George Orwell’s novel, 1984 doesn’t it? Could our car become, in some form, Big Brother?

What if you find yourself zipping along at 75 mph and in a couple of days find a speeding ticket in your mail box? We already know that cameras placed in certain intersections record anyone who runs a red-light and sends that person a red-light citation in the mail. Your car is already fully capable of collecting emission data. What if you got ticketed for that? What if your car refused to run until you got the issue taken care of?

We’ve heard a great deal lately about “black boxes” due to airlines losing contact with planes. One plane was never found…and the latest one has been found and they have now recovered the black boxes. The black box records what took place to give clues to what really happened prior to the tragedy.

Many cars already have black boxes. Your car collects a remarkable amount of data about your driving habits now…and eventually it is possible that this could be used to govern how you drive. What if your car is required to send the data to public officials to notify them of your driving habits? They would know if:

You are a habitual speeder.
Your car is polluting the air.
You idle too long at rush hour sitting at red lights.
Where you go at every moment.

It hasn’t come to this yet…but it is being researched and it may mean that the government and not you, own the information your car is collecting. It is a little scary isn’t it? Like I have said before, sometimes the stuff of science fiction is really science future…

Please call us with any questions at 626-963-0814 or visit our website at www.CertifiedAutoCA.com.

Hometown Service You Can Count On!

Your Computer On Wheels And Malware

Like any piece of software, connected cars are vulnerable to malware. Cars’ computers are very necessary as they control everything from brakes to our “infotainment systems”. This is a market hackers are eager to explore and exploit.

When you or any driver in Glendora, get in your car you don’t have to log on first, you don’t have encryption or other ways to verify you are in command of your car’s computer system. Hackers can access your vehicle a number of ways by Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Internet. Just think about it…your laptop and mobile devices are actually more securely protected at this time than your vehicle. That doesn’t make drivers feel very secure, now does it?

Controller Area Network (CAN) Bus makes it possible for a car’s ECUs (Engine Control Units…and cars can have over 100 of these, depending on the make and model) to communicate with each other. They work hard to make sure your car is ready to go and quickly. Last year researchers showed just how easy such an attack is by getting “inside” a Jeep Cherokee. They disabled the brakes and controlled the steering remotely. Chrysler had to recall 1.4 million vehicles and “patch” this loophole.

Since protecting a vehicle with a firewall is not the answer as it slows down the ECU so it can’t control safety functions quickly enough when you start your engine, a company in Ann Arbor, Michigan called Karamba Security is looking for another way. They recently introduced anti-malware. It will provide security by protecting the gateways to the externally connected controllers. This anti-malware knows what should be running on these ECU’s and should a hacker introduce another “code” not on the list, the anti-malware will stop it in its tracks.

This works well with the codes supplied to Karamba from the manufacturers. The difficultly comes, however, when a driver decides to add aftermarket devices to their vehicles. The FBI and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has issued a warning about this very thing.

Our mission is to keep Glendora drivers informed as we enter this new arena!

Please call us with any questions at 626-963-0814 or visit our website at www.CertifiedAutoCA.com.

Hometown Service You Can Count On!

We’ve All Heard The Jokes… But Could It Happen?

By Gene Morrill

We’ve All Heard The Jokes… But Could It Happen?

If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

1. For no reason at all, your car would crash twice a day.
2. Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you would have to buy a new car.
3. Occasionally, executing a manoeuver such as a left-turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, and you would have to reinstall the engine.
4. When your car died on the freeway for no reason, you would just accept this, restart and drive on.
5. Apple would make a car powered by the sun, reliable, five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would run on only five percent of the roads.
6. Oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single ‘general car default’ warning light.
7. The airbag would say ‘Are you sure?’ before going off.
8. Occasionally, for no reason, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key, and grabbed the radio antenna.
9. Every time GM introduced a new model, car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
10. You would press the ‘start’ button to shut off the engine.

With our cars becoming “computer on wheels” we can expect software updates to become a reality. Currently, Tesla Motors is wanting over-the-air Wi-Fi and 4G wireless downloads so cars can self-park and also have other functions. The more we push for autonomous cars, the more we will rely on software and software updates and downloads to keep them going. Tesla has a new software now that allows certain sedans to park themselves without a driver assist. To download this software takes 45 minutes and it also boosts engine performance and battery usage.

Cars have 200 million lines of code…that only a software expert can appreciate. To the lay person it means regular “updates” and software bugs. In 2014, Toyota had to recall over half of the Prius’ sold due to a software glitch. The more “connected” cars become, the more updates and bugs we can expect.

Software companies are all vying to be a part of the new automotive technology and of course, hackers are standing by as well. We are in for a ride…one way or the other!

Please call us with any questions at 626-963-0814 or visit our website at www.CertifiedAutoCA.com

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