[NickD]

Cruze radio has its own microprocessor, actually a microcontroller that is a single chip with the processor and all of the required peripheral circuits built in. Has its own flash ram and own code that can be refreshed, can't do this at home like any other cheap digital piece of equipment.

But the same crap is used in automotive what you will find in your home equipment. Except your home is normally at 70*F not at -40*C to even 125*C in the automotive environment. So temperature can be a problem.

In the integrated circuit market, we have what is called yield rates hundred of chips are printed at the same time, but the question remains as to how well they are tested before used. Typically at least 10% hit the trashcan, but can get marginal ones as well. Same chip is used in military applications, but undergoes a lot more testing, rejects for military applications fall into the so-called consumer or commercial class. Guess where you are. You can get a marginal component or one that meets full military specifications, call this luck.

MTBF is a common engineering practice that in my mind is a big joke, mean time between failures, based on guessed parameters where the cost of paying extra for good tested parts is opposed to warranty repair costs. Typically the warranty repair costs wins out for more profits. So are you filling lucky? But based now on 36 months, after this you are screwed.

But if it does last 36 months, normally you should be okay.

Another huge joke is self diagnoses in automotive, as opposed to military, worked in both, secondary or tertiary references are used, won't find any of this in consumer grade automotive. So a component can be way out of tolerance and still not generate a code. And if the CEL comes on pointing to a particular component, that component may be just the victim of another component failure.

This is why your dealers are dead lost. We use to provide technical specifications for each component, but the attorneys stepped in to greatly eliminate this or at least restrict this all important information. Claim this increases the companies liability.

For about the first 70 years of automotive manufacture, and ignition system consisted of the ignition switch to the high side of a coil, ballast were added later, to the ignition points to ground. Very simple that anyone could deal with. Today the same thing is done with millions of transistors depending on code stored in rather very temporary flashram. Namely to reach EPA requirements.

 

[ChevyGuy]

You went over my head with that one.

I wouldn't worry about it. What he describes is the corruption of flash memory, not regular memory. How many USB thumb drives have become corrupted while sitting in the car?

No, I think the most likely cause: It's a computer. All computers can crash if the programming is at all buggy. My feeling is that the MyLink wasn't that well tested for reliability. I've seen issues with mine that suggest it's not always waiting long enough for various modules to "report in" when booting.

I'm not sure about the crashing, but it could be it's not well protected from power issues, or it gets confused by something on the car's bus.

 

[NickD]

Voltage spikes can be the problem and the main culprit is the alternator. When you switch off a load, the field collapses and induces a high voltage in the stator they gets through the entire vehicles electrical/electronic systems.

The only prevention of these voltage spikes is the battery, therefore it must be in good shape as its filtering capacitance is dependent on its capacity in AH.

Also the terminals must be clean as well as the terminals, and tight. Notice on my brand new Cruze, terminals were bone dry, need a dielectric type grease to retard corrosion. And even though the negative battery cable bolt was tight, I could still rock this terminal side by side. So I removed it, spread the tabs inside the where the bolt goes through and hand filed it, so there is now a 3/32" gap with a tight bolt. Now has been tight ever since then. I check these frequently for corrosion.

Ha, only took GM three years that this could be a problem. So simple, so obvious, but the average person is not aware of the voltage transient that this can cause, let alone, their engine won't crank.

 

[NickD]

This comment should be posted in the political section because this is what this is all about.

EPA says firmware should only be downloaded by a "professional" for automotive applications due to emission requirements.

But we are not talking about emissions, we are talking about a radio. And just about any other entertainment device we buy that is also digital, we are free to download the firmware for this device. Either an update, or just to refresh it.

This firmware is also exclusive to a particular device, meaning its worthless for any other device.

So why can't we update or refresh our firmware for our radio in our vehicles? This radio is a worthless piece of way overpriced junk without working firmware. Heck with even my cheap 50 buck DVD player when I switch that on, get a message that a firmware update is available, would you like to update it?