What a charming title for an automotive advice column: “Queen of the Road.” No, it doesn’t appear in a Utah newspaper. But the California curmudgeon is as credulous as the spiritual descendants of the talking salamander. His/her reader posits: “I drive daily on westbound Highway 24 through Lafayette, usually in the early evening. On several occasions, as I pass by the Lafayette BART station, my little Volkswagen Jetta seems to lose power. I push on the accelerator but the car doesn’t respond, quite a nerve-racking experience in the middle of evening rush hour. I’ve found that if I downshift and accelerate, power is restored and I continue on my way.” The Queen’s edict: “It’s indeed possible that a magnetic field or radio frequency interference affected your car’s computer and caused the car to stall.,” as the LA Police’s investigation into an EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) remote car disabler almost seems to prove. And there’s history here, dammit! “When the computers were first installed, in the 1980s and 1990s, cars would pull up at intersections and when the signs changed from ‘Walk’ to ‘Don’t Walk,’ their trunks would pop open. The cars’ trunk releases were picking up the radio frequencies from the ‘Walk’ sign.” Who knew? Now what?
The problem could be cured by wrapping the wire harnesses in the car in aluminum foil and grounding the foil to the battery negative. But since it only happens in this one location, it’s not worth the thousands of dollars that would cost, [automotive instructor at Las Positas College Brian] Hagopian said.
The Queen also asked BART spokesman Linton Johnson about the problem. He pointed out that there is a lot of distance between the BART station and the freeway and also said that the power at the station is grounded. But, Johnson allowed, “I guess anything is possible.”
Baseless conjecture! That’s how you become automotive journalist royalty. Now you tell me . . .
I think the Comments feature got zapped by an EMP. They be invisible.
This happened in a shopping mall where the security cams were on the same frequency as car door key fobs. Customer cars were locked and unlocked randomly. While no one took responsibility, a TV news station did a report and some ham radio operators, with a Spectrum Analyzer, were able to determine that the emissions were coming from inside the store.
I’m certain this is all true. It’s in San Francisco, after all.
Alternatively, wrapping the driver’s head in aluminum foil will work even better.
Maybe it’s like the Red Bull F1 gearbox failures last year at the Singapore GP. Both cars had gearbox lockups in 2008 when the dual clutch units released both clutches at the same time. And this happened at the same location on the track, over top of a subway line. They now think it was related to the subway.
http://en.f1-live.com/f1/en/headlines/news/detail/090925174637.shtml
<i>The Queen also asked BART spokesman Linton Johnson about the problem. He pointed out that there is a lot of distance between the BART station and the freeway and also said that the power at the station is grounded. But, Johnson allowed, “I guess anything is possible.”</i>
Does BART not have a legal department to warn the spokesman against saying dumb things that may be admitted in court later as a party opponent statement/statement against interests?
My kid’s remote control 4×4 Nitro truck gets amazingly confused when we drive it on a mountain bike track near a weather radar station – military installation complex on the west coast of Vancouver Island. More than once my cell phone rang and went dead while over there too. If it can slow down a jetta, imagine what its doing to our brain juices.
When visiting Turlock, California there was one major intersection where I had several instances of the engine hesitation upon acceleration and nearly stalling.
Over a several month period of visits to the area and traversing the intersection several times daily I noted the event but it did not occur every traversing event.
The hesitation/near stall has not happened anywhere else.
There was a dip in the road there but I have ran into similar dips elsewhere without the event occurring.
It is a conundrum.
I wondered if there was perhaps a high-voltage running under the pavement.
The hesitation/stalling event was obvious as was the lack of the event occurring anywhere else.
I haven’t been back to that spot in two years so am unable to provide recent verification. Also, after departing that area there have been no further incidents.
Maybe, due to the time lapse, I CAN blame Bush.
It’s not Bush’s fault. It’s the fault of Bigfoot. Bigfoot is in cahoots with UFO drivers who are well known to cause engines to fail.
Didn’t you all ever watch the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind?
Sheesh!
My old integra’s key fob would stop working in certain parts of Manhattan. I would have to put the fob right up to the alarm brain in the trunk and try multiple times to get it to work. It was a real pain especially at 2am the first time it happened to me. Took me an hour to get it to work (mainly because I thought the battery in it was dead and went searching for a battery at 2am). It was always in the same location, around 27th street between 6th and 8th aves. Unfortunately there was a favorite night spot of mine there and after it happened to me several times, I ended up disabling the alarm every time I parked there. I assumed it was some sort of electromagnetic interference. I read a story about it here actually a couple years ago I believe as something similar was happening to other cars in the area and it made the news.
Hmmmm. Could it be the same effect that causes vehicles to mysteriously stall at railroad grade crossings directly in front of an oncoming train?
Hmmmm. Could it be the same effect that causes vehicles to mysteriously stall at railroad grade crossings directly in front of an oncoming train…
No. You are confusing that with the magnetic field that attracts tornados to trailer parks.
Have we finally come up with the explanation for VW’s electrical issues? I thought the EMF/Cosmic Rays excuse was just for IT help desks.
On a serious note, it could be possible that the BART station puts out enough (or the right kind of EMF) to cause a car problems, but since electric trains (and other high EMF emitters) are not new or isolated, this should be something a car should be able to handle.
Of course, this is VW, otherwise known as the company that can’t make a working AM radio.