Interesting
 

I worked on a BMW X5 today, it needed a new alternator. I'm not well versed on newer cars, and I only work on cars to make a quick buck, but it's still the same old song and dance, see it and saw it. What was interesting is the fact that the alternator is water cooled. I guess it wasn't the brightest idea BMW ever had, the original only lasted 53K.:D

What other odd things are popping up in the automotive world?

I retired from the greasy hand club in '84, I'd hate to be crawling under cars for a living at my age.
Jim

That's good and bad, and it all depends on how involved you get. Tinkering with cars is fun for me, but being a mechanic is not my aspiration in life. I'm way too slow. This job was booked at 2.4 hrs, or so I was told, and I took 5 every 10 so it ended up being 6. It's a good way to knock out a day.;) A friend needs the help, and I have the time, so I make some spare change. The concept of a h20 alt. didn't blow my mind, I just thought it to be similar to reinventing the wheel.

I do the same. I do a little work here and there and try to keep it fun. I've never heard of a water cooled alt.

New cars have way too many wires and sensors and electronic nonsense in them for me to take much interest in.

My M.B. has a warranty. If it breaks, I hand it to someone else. I do the basic stuff that I understand like clutches, brakes, oil, filter and fluid changes and drive it. That's about it.

I guess I'm old-fashioned, but I despise needlessly complicated things on vehicles. I think there's a certain elegance in simplicity.

not an auto, but ride-by-wire on my bike:

http://www.apriliausa.com/njb_dettaglio.asp?id=409

Huh? To change out an alternator? Wow...

Normally you think of that as a 20 minute job ....

Even on my Land Rover it was about a half hour...

I don't know if it's true, but I heard 70% of dealer revenue is generated through maintenance/ repair, not through car sales. Maybe someone else from the biz can chime in. There has already been the push for overpriced "proprietary tools" for minor repair (brake pads, etc.). The "shade tree" mechanic will be a thing of the past.

For one of my shows (National Treasure II) we had to work on a MB 500 SUV thing, it had, and I'm not making this up, something like 100 fuses between the three fuse boxes that we found.

I recall in a R&T editorial a few years back a discourse on the rising electrical consumption of modern vehicles. The water-cooled alternator in the BMW was an attempt to cool the device more efficiently to allow it to meet high demand draw.
Didn't work too darn well on that one, did it?

Personally, I like the "let's hunt for the battery or some other place you can attach booster cables." game.

Then there was the mechanic friend of mine shaking his head over the ABS module on some sort of Chrysler which was behind a splash panel in the front wheel well. That might be fine in other regions, but not in the salt-belt. When the alloy housing corrodes, it leaks. Ooops!

Then I was looking at the underside of my '06 Tdi Jetta during an oil change and spotted what looks like an aluminum cooler housing under the car. It's a fuel cooler. I wondered about this up here where the biggest problem with fuel temp is keeping it flowing at low temps.

Les

My 2001 Audi had 2 water pumps, one mechanical and one electrical. When the car was turned off and the turbos were hot the electrical one would run and cool down the turbos.