What is really wrong with America?

You want to know what is wrong with America? It's not the pillaging of the American Citizens by Wall Street, Big Unions and the progressives in control of the executive and legislative branches of our government. It is not the unemployment rate. It is not even the decrease of real estate values back to something that represents reality. No my friend, the real problem is the character of many of our fellow citizens and more importantly, the character of the individuals who make laws and regulations about something they have no real knowledge of. Legislation lobbied by special interests with an agenda, the consequences of which are never considered. Two small illustrations follow after an introduction of the problem. I think a lot of Americans will be able to relate to these.

Around 1980 the United States passed emission legislation which required cars sold in this country to be equipped with computers and sensors to control emissions. These computers have the ability to turn on warning lights that will force you to go to an automotive service department with the correct software to diagnose the reason all of the warning lights came on. You cannot even sell your vehicle with these warning lights on because it will not pass the smog test. In many cases, the sensors will stop your car dead in it's tracks and have you on the phone with a towing service. As you will see by the following examples, this approach has opened the door for Americans to exhibit what is "The Real Problem With America."

Illustration No.1:
I was driving home from a wedding about 100 miles from home a year ago. At midnight, going down the freeway at 70mph, with my wife, daughter and another friend, my 2003 Jeep
Liberty stopped running. All of the warning lights on the dash came on, the tack went to zero and we coasted to a stop. After being stranded for a couple hours, we were rescued by my best friend, the Father of the groom, and the next morning decided to have the car towed to Aamco Transmission in Oceanside on Monday morning. My Jeep only had 70,000 miles and had had all of its services. I checked with Aamco every day for status and was told they were having to do "extra" diagnostic computer work.That should have been my red flag. The car was finally ready on Friday. I was told both cam and crank sensors had gone out. The sensors were $140.00 each and with the "computer diagnostic work" and labor the bill was $675.00. After I got home to San Bernardino and checked with the Service manager at Moss Motors, I found out that crank sensor failure was common on the Liberty. The crank sensor retail was $39 and labor to install was $100. He also said that he had never heard of a cam sensor problem on the Liberty and that it was mathematically impossible for both sensors to fail at the same time. He said that what probably happened was that they misdiagnosed the failure and replaced the wrong sensor and then had to go back and replace the correct one. At any rate they had overcharged me $100 on each sensor.

Illustration No.2:
Last weekend it was time to buy my almost 18-year-old daughter a car. I was limited to $6,500.00 so we wound up at the Repo-Depot in Redlands, California. Andrew, one of the owners, had a 2006 Suzuki with 60,000 miles that was pretty clean and told me that I could get it out the door for $6,500.00. I drove the 15 miles back to our house with my anxious daughter eager to go out and learn to drive the stick shift as soon as we got home. After a call to my insurance agent to add the new car, with daughter behind the wheel, off we went. My daughter had been driving our Jeep with the automatic transmission for almost 2 years but needed some lessons on driving the manual. After 20 minutes the check engine light came on. Back home we went to call the dealer with daughter thinking she had broken her new car. The dealer told me to drive back to his lot and he would check it out. He used his hand-held computer to turn off the check engine light and told me that I had probably not tightened the gas cap good enough. That should have been my red flag. The next morning I took my daughter back out to try again. After 20 minutes the check engine light came on again. This time, a clue to the real problem surfaced. The throttle pedal stopped working. With the engine running at idle, nothing happened when you pressed down on the throttle pedal. Something in the car's computer or sensors had put the car's engine into a "Limp" mode which prevented the throttle from working. After turning off the car and restarting it, the throttle worked for a few more minutes and then again stopped. Push down on the pedal, no response. Back to the house for a second time with my crushed daughter again thinking she has broken her car. Andrew doesn't work on Sunday so Monday morning I take the car back to him. He says he will take it to his mechanic and have the problem fixed. Two days later, Andrew calls and says the car is ready. They did a tune up and everything is fine. When I asked Andrew exactly what was wrong, he asked me to call the mechanic directly for that information. Now I'm talking to the mechanic, Mr. Morales, who is not happy when I ask for the error codes from his diagnostic work and what parts were replaced, but goes to find his diagnostic work. After giving me two codes he admits that they did not replace any parts. They had cleaned the throttle body and reset the computer so that the check engine light would go off. They had then driven the car for 20 miles and the check engine light did not come back on, yet. In other words, either they could not diagnose the problem with the sensors, or they did and the dealer was not willing to hit the hip for the repair bill. I am quite sure that when the check engine comes on the next time and the throttle stops working, I am going to learn the true character of Andrew at the Repo Depot. I will add the end of the story to this blog when it plays out. Wish me luck.

This is the consequence of letting special interests get their way with lawmakers, regardless of the ultimate effect on others. Building in thousands of dollars of service department repair bills to replace computers and little sensors and perform computer diagnostic work on cars seemed like a good idea to Detroit. How are you liking your sales figures now, Detroit? How many Americans have experience situations similar to mine? I have a suggestion, Detroit. Build a simple car with no computers or unnecessary sensors. One that can be serviced in the driveway by the owner when needed, without a computer. I'm O.K. with making the car pass a smog test every other year. If the owner can't keep the car smog compliant, make him take it to someone who can and don't renew his license until he does. We don't need to destroy our cars to fight smog. A little common sense will do.


Tell your senators and representative to introduce legislation to stop this madness. Don't we have a car czar that can handle this anyway? I thought the taxpayers owned a controlling interest in the American car industry. If they won't do it, elect someone who will. We have the power if we will only use it.


McWeijun