damn gremlins!

[willmoodom]

technology is going to be the death of me. among alot of things not working that I am going to have to tract down eg. moon roof, passenger seat,tcontrol, backup lamps,intermittant brake lamps, manual shift. now my air bag light is on and the car is holding memory. what I mean is every time I start the car trip meter reboots to "0", hvac not where I left it and steering column has to be set everytime. where is the unit responsible for memory located in the car? 91 q45 t/c, no steering/no electric suspension.

[qship96]

sooner or later every asset reaches the end of its economic life.

[ericthered]

It is possible that environmental conditions have generally added moisture and corrosion to electrical connectors. Any car that his been submerged has this problem. I expect lots of condensing salt air could do it, or cars with leaks so that there is water in the carpet.

With a problem like this, you could replace every component and still have problems. The connectors are arduously cleanable, at least the ones you can touch without breaking them in the process.

Qship said it in fewer words in the previous post.

[BadQ45t]

the 90-92 had alot of gremlins. I had a 92' for 6 months a number of years ago that was owned by my dad. The good news is that unless you have a transmission failure or timing chain failure there isn't that much else that will cost you alot of $$. Just keep taking one gremlin on at time, post up your issues and the guys on the board will help.

I have to tell you that I gave up on the 92' as I didn't want to chase gremlins anymore and I decided that having 2 V8's that required super unleaded was too much for one family. The timing chain exploded shortly after my dad sold it too...if you haven't done those and the transmission you might think about throwing in the towel now.

[ericthered]

the 90-92 had alot of gremlins.

My '92 with 215K has had only a few electrical issues in the past 12 years:

It has always been quirky about the seat positioner on start up. Espetially if I had set the steering wheel position low (Really!). But it works most of the time.

After some work, the AC display works reliably (this was a pervasive 90-92 problem)

As of now:

My BOSE radio display sometimes disappears. Also I have replaced the window controllers in the rear doors. And BOSE speakers have died.

Not all the electrical self tests work.

The only major thing is an electrical component used by TCS in the front right fender is hyperactive and the TCS fuse was pulled to make it stop. Not worth fixing on this older car.

Instead you could have an older (Toyota, BMW, others) with the phenolic dashboard that is a fungus-feeder. Given enough time and moisture those little fungi love making extra connections - you need a whole new dashboard in as little as seven years (but never during warranty). Phenolic may have been used elsewhere in any make of car's electrical system.