This is quite interesting:

Fascinating evolution of automotive wiring...

The only annoying thing is how the narrator keeps saying "Soddering" instead of "Soldering", but then - everyone's a critic!  

I deal with lots and lots of 70's era British Leyland LUCAS wiring in various projects, and people with cars of that era with electrical problems bring them to me, cos they know I know how to diagnose and fix them - oh yay....what fun.....

"LUCAS - Prince of darkness"......
Edited 2024-02-26 15:39 by Grogster

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Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops!

Yes Grogster, cars sure have gone a long way.
I am not so sure that all the whizzbangery is worth it. It makes the car so much harder to repair and eventually they will have to be scrapped when one of the computers fail and a new one cannot be found.
I love the technology of a kettering igntion system and simple wiring of old cars.
It seems that US folk don't understand the word Solder and I often hear them call it Sodering. No idea why but then there is a lot about them that I don't understand
Cheers
Pete

I agree there is too much control crap in these new cars, and more of it is out of our control and at time's monitored or tracked without the owner knowing all about it.
Computers shouldn't fail or its just built in to fail and make you upgrade later, the computer in the old Magna (35years old) still works as do many others that are around.
Crappy wiring, bad insulation, connections failing and bad earth are very common nowadays....
New Cars are now a throwaway item, don't get me started, I like the older stuff I can work on and fix if needed.

https://www.quora.com/Exactly-how-many-computer-processors-are-there-in-a-BMW-5-series-car

about 50 cpus in a modern "hamburger with the lot" car.

prob's one to tickle yer arse on demand when the radio does not play "quite the best tune I want to hear today"

One of the factors we considered when we bought the electric MG was - it felt like my 25 year old MG.
The electric has real knobs to turn for AC and fan and even for radio volume, very retro.

Alas the next model has a touch screen to do everything.
I am not sure how you are expected to do things on a touch screen while keeping your eyes on the road.

If the touch screen fails, there is no hope of being able to do anything apart call the tow truck and wait a few months for a replacement part, if it's still available.

Sorry the chip is hard to get. We have all heard that recently.

One day, I will try and count the number of buttons on the steering wheel, it will take a while.

Jim

LUCAS wiring was about as simple as you could ever make it, so there is that!  

Absolutely NO fancy features etc, just the bare minimum of wiring needed to make the vehicle functional.  That DOES have it's pro's, cos it is so simple, it is REASONABLY easy to fault-find, and you most definitely can fix it all yourself at home.

Modern cars, it can cost you in excess of $200, just to have the garage connect the fancy diagnostic machine to the car-computer.  I understand the money behind that - the garages have to recoup the cost of the diagnostic computer unit they use, and they often cost tens of thousands of bucks each.

I submitted my latest project car(Morris 1100) for a WOF(Warrant Of Fitness) earlier this week, and one of the handful of minor things they pinged it on was that the park-lights front and tail-lights rear, although they worked fine, they all go out when you switch on the headlights.  

I've seen that halarious situation before on other BLMC vehicles, and it's the lighting switch on the dash.  The contacts are not the best - the switches were a cheap build even when new, so the contacts just get dirty etc.  You CAN pull them to bits though, so it's usually an easy enough fix, if you just clean the contacts and the wee slide-plate and put it all back together again.

Again - the lovely world of LUCAS electricals!  

Grogster, you could always fit a relay so that the lighting switch only switches the relay coil current.
That would make the switch last longer and also the lights brighter.
Yep I had a few British cars in my time.
Austin 1800 ( land crab) and also a 1951 Austin A40 ute.
The only british vehicle I have now is my BSA motorcycle. It is super simple and I love it for that.
Pete

Nat a bad idea.  
All modern cars use relays for the lights like that anyway, usually cos the stalk switch simply can't handle the headlight current.

I'll be doing the fix on Sunday, so I might see if I can rustle up a couple of horn relays.  I'm pretty sure I have a box of assorted relays somewhere....