Heard a guy at the parts counter say new engines are too computerized and it got me thinking

I was grabbing injectors for a 6.7 Powerstroke and this old timer starts ranting about how all the electronic controls make these engines less reliable than the old mechanical ones. He said he can fix a 12-valve Cummins with a screwdriver and a hammer but needs a $5k laptop for anything after 2010. Do you guys think the trade-off for better emissions and fuel economy is worth the extra complexity in diagnostics and repairs?

2 comments

2 Comments

nancy92923d ago

Oh come on, that old timer's forgetting those 12-valves were running 30 year old tech with zero emissions gear to fail. The real trade-off nobody talks about is that modern engines can actually self correct and adapt to bad fuel or worn parts without you touching a thing, which old mechanicals couldn't do at all.

the_jana23d ago

Funny you mention self correcting, because that reminds me of my buddy Mike who had a 2003 Duramax that would just die on him randomly at stoplights. He replaced every sensor and actuator under the sun, spent like 4 grand and it still acted up. Turned out it was a loose ground wire behind the battery tray that the computer couldn't self correct for. Me and my old man spent a weekend cleaning grounds on his 94 F250 just because they were corroded, and that thing never had a single problem after. So yeah, modern engines can adapt a lot, but they can also get totally bamboozled by something stupid that a mechanical engine would just push through. Its like the old trucks had common sense and the new ones have a PhD but no street smarts.