Some of you have noticed our mobile theme coming and going over the past day or two (it’s back for now). That’s because we’re doing some work under the hood of CC in an attempt to solve ongoing site responsiveness issues, and it’s one of the components we’ve been wrenching on. The site may experience other rough-running symptoms over the next few days, up to and including temporary (intentional) blackouts. If you experience problems connecting, please check back in 15 minutes or so… and thanks for your patience!
(Additionally, e-mail notifications on new comments are also being held up, so go back and check manually if you don’t want to miss that latest brilliant comment to yours. PN)
Oh great – first my 93 Crown Vic, and now CC. 🙂 Between the two, I am glad I get to wrench on the car. I am happy to leave the innards of CC to your capable care.
My grandfather had a CEL that would only come on for intermittent periods while the car was on the interstate travelling at 65 mph. My dad asked him why he didn’t get the cause of the light checked out. His response: “Well it says “check engine” and I can’t do that while the car is in motion. When I stop it goes away.”
Priceless!!!!
Brilliant !
Not a CEL, but car related: many years ago an aunt had a friend who knocked on the windshield, instead of honking her car horn, to warn pedestrians. Complete with a gentle “move over” hand gesture.
I liked the mobile theme with pictures. Hope it can come back to stay…
I’m not sure if there’s any way that could work without being a memory hog.
The CEL (which plagued my Dad’s ’80 Sedan deVille) is the ancestor of modern software putting up a failure alert box with messages like, “Application Failed.” As a software developer, I figure there’s no such thing as Too Much Information if you’re stopping the parade anyway. Give ’em a traceback dump, like the old mainframes & minis used to do. Maybe users can’t understand them, but support engineers can.
Sometimes, Windows apps create useful logfiles, but hide them in obscure places.
The CHECK ENGINE light is the bane of modern car ownership…what it really means is, check your wallet and bank account. Because emptying either or both is the only way to get whatever mysterious problem is there, fixed.
And of course, with emissions testing, there’s no way you can ignore it. Not once your testing certificate expires.
So, I guess it’s well to use the metaphor to explore what’s going on with this web-page thingy. Because I’m as clueless of the mysterious workings of HTML and coding, as any 17-year-old girl is to her CHECK ENGINE. And I’m going to be as clumsy evaluating it.
All I know is, this WordPress thingy is hard on older computers. It’s a real resource hog…
We can make it a lot “lighter,” but then you’d only have teeny-tiny photos to look at.
I’ve had the Check Engine light on my Cavalier on for the past 100,000 miles. I can’t remember exactly now but was an evap code. Car runs perfect and the gas mileage has always been good, if not getting better the closer I get to 200,000 miles, so knock on cracked hard cheap plastic.
On the F-150 I just sold, the CEL had been on constantly for the 7 years I owned it.
Every time I went to get it checked out the code readout said that something was wrong with the automatic transmission.
Only problem there? The truck had a 5 speed manual.
My sister rang me last week reporting the CEL had come on in her ’05 Mazda6. With our dad being a mechanic, she knew to stop driving and ring someone. Oil and water levels and temps were all fine, so I advised her to drive it to the Mazda dealer 3km away. Turned out the airflow meter thing had died, replacement cost was listed at NZ$750…! The dealer was really good and said that’s ridiculous, and with my sister’s permission got her a secondhand one for a fraction of the cost. They win my Honest Mazda Dealer Of The Year award.