PeutMieuxFaire

Hi there,

Based on the experience I gathered in repair cafes:

• Some old power switches generate an arc (spark?) when flipping them. Cleaning their insides with an “electrical contact cleaner” spray can sometimes help.
• Defective electrochemical capacitors do NOT always swell or leak. If it is worth it swap them all for new ones (We sometimes desolder what we think are good ones from dead appliances to be re-used).
• All domestic appliances around here (France) have an “anti surge” (?) capacitor soldered just after the power cable and power switch. If I understand it correctly, its job is to prevent a “parasitic” current spike to travel back on the domestic electric network when the equipment is switched on. That’s the one I would replace in priority to see if it fixes your problem.

Disclaimer : I have no degree in electronics / electrical installations. Take what is above with a grain a salt as I might be dead wrong.
Always unplug the appliance from the mains before tinkering and discharge ALL the capacitors which are on the 110 V /220 V side of the electronics before touching the PCB on which they are soldered.

Good luck with your repair. It would be nice and helpful if you have a chance to post some pictures :)

Valid point, no offense taken. I did not think about the airbags! As for damages to the vehicle, this is something I understand an am willing to accept. If I do stupid things I have to face consequences.
Anyway, getting the help of a mechanic would be point number 1 on my list. If can find one willing to take the challenge :)

Thanks! Knowing that what I might be searching for would be somewhere under the dashboard is a good first step.

Then I am not an engineer nor have any experience in electronics BUT I know from my dad that taking the dashboard apart is not an easy task. If I would succeed I do not know what I would be looking for… Would tan antenna look like a piece of wire? Or could it be embedded in the ‘copper’ circuitry of a PCB? Do cars use regular SIM cards like the ones found in phones or would they look different?

The maintenance manual would probably be a good place to start before trying to put anything apart.

For recent cars I am afraid you are right. My current and “old” car has a built in navigation system with the map on an SD-card. No need for a connection to a smartphone - which I do not own. Therefore I suppose it is not communicating with the manufacturer.

Then, someone in my family with a more recent car got several “firmware updates” out of the blue, hinting to a ‘permanent’ connection to the manufacturer.

I have the feeling we need to start organizing and claim a “right to disconnection”. Having the car dial for help after a crash is one thing but what Mozilla’s report describes is at another, much higher level.

Thanks a lot for your post ! The future of cars looks grim.

Serious and naive question: how could I get rid of the tracking at the hardware level when I will have no choice other than to buy a connected car?
Is there an antenna or a SIM card somewhere that I could disconnect/remove? Would the car continue to work if the connection to the manufacturer’s server is lost?

Do you wish to submit me to a Turing test? I am sure at 92.82293 % that I could demonstrate my appartenance to your species.

It is because of rumors about Windows starting to implement this type of measures that I moved to Ubuntu… That was shortly before Windows Vista came out, back in 2006.
I never went back again, except briefly on an air-gaped machine under 7 to play Skyrim and Grim Dawn.

Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Craddle is a wonderfully satirical novel.

American Gods is very good as well, I did not try the other books by Neil Gaimlan you mention but will definitely give them a try, thanks for the recommendation.

Good Omens was like my favourite cake spiced with bits of oh-so-ironic-and-absurd British humour.