“Where are you?”

“I’m on University Drive.”

It was time for me to jump again into my newest Dad role of late: action hero/car rescuer.

I got my keys and headed out to help my youngest daughter, Julie.

The symptoms were the same ones we’d seen before on her 2001 Ford Focus: Engine light comes on. Lights and radio flicker on and off. The speedometer and other gauges go crazy with their needles shooting up and down. It was lurching and stopping as the automatic transmission shifted.

“I heard a buzz and a ding this time,” Julie told me.

The first time the trouble happened to me, I was half expecting the mirror to cloud over with frost and green bile to ooze out of the glove box.

Pinpointing the problem

What’s been maddening about the problem is that the Ford Focus would behave normally when we took it to the dealership.

They checked it over, ran diagnostics and tried their best to duplicate it. Everything was perfect.

Then a day or two later, the car began again to have its electrical sputtering. And we would go another round at the dealership.

“I think it’s possessed,” I said, describing the symptoms to the service adviser. He thanked me for our patience, said they would take care of it and paid for a rental for us.

I told the technician I found a write-up by another driver who had similar experiences with a Focus. He said he would do some checking.

Multiple microprocessors

I did some checking, too. According to howstuffworks.com, cars have as many as 50 microprocessors in them.

The reason for most were because of modern pollution laws, which require lower emission levels, which, in turn require your car to be more fuel efficient.

There are also modules all over cars containing microprocessors. They control such components as the airbag, interior lights, door locks, windows and seats, cruise control, the heating and cooling systems, the anti-lock brakes and the transmission.

The biggest brain for the engine in most new cars is the ECU, or engine control unit, (sometimes called the ECM, or engine control module.)

It deals with the spark timing and the air/fuel ratio, emissions controls and stores all the information sent to it by the other modules.

This processor reads dozens of sensors located through the engine to provide optimum performance.

And to help diagnose the problems, there is a communications bus, which auto technicians hook up their diagnostics tools to read the “trouble codes” that could help detect what’s wrong.

As time goes on, we’re expected to get more of these modules in our cars. They’re supposed to make cars easier to build and require less wiring.

But they’re also going to require the auto technicians to become more and more computer savvy. And sharing technical solutions is going to become even more important.

Focusing in

I got a call from the friendly service adviser at the dealership.

He did some research on Ford’s technical database. He found a solution for our problem under the heading “2000-2002 Focus – Intermittent erratic gauge sweep, crank no start, hard start and various other electrical and/or driveability conditions.”

The technician told me that Ford has learned that on some of its Focuses the problem was caused by a voltage drop on a negative battery cable.

I was glad to hear Ford was sharing the information nationally with its local service departments.

“I thought for sure it would be the ECU computer or one of the modules,” I said, trying out the new lingo I learned.

“No, we’re just going to get you some new cables,” he said.

Getting steamed

While that car was in the shop, my phone rang again. Different car. Different daughter.

“Dad. I’m at 15th and Wakarusa and smoke is pouring into my car,” Katy told me, her voice more than a little stressed.

“Is it black smoke or steam?” I said.

“What do you mean? Dad, smoke is coming into the car. No, it’s not black. What do you want me to do?” she said, sounding upset.

“Shut it off and park it,” I said.

After I got there and looked it over, I found a hose fitting had broken. I thought about going to the auto parts store, getting a new one and fixing it myself.

Then I wondered if there might have been some microprocessor that wasn’t firing up in a module, which could have caused the overheating, which led to a broken fitting, which led to all the steam. Or it could be faulty voltage.

The decision was simple. I had it towed in to an auto technician.