@viven44
I have been dealing with electronic failures for far too many years. Often many are solder joint related, long before the RoHS leadless or low lead solder all the way into the more modern RoHS solder. Its like the newer DI engines with DFM, we are actually going backwards trying to keep all of this junk working.
In my experience while there are solder joint problems with lead based solder, they were not at bad as what I have seen with the low lead/leadless solder. The low lead/leadless solder is too hard, does not expand and contract or flex like the lead based solder. It tends to crack/frature far too easily.
I have dealt with everything from ball grid array chips unsoldering themselves or breaking joints to having to service boards with the higher temp leadless solders that are a PITA to replace components on.
I used to say many years ago, if electronic circuits and computer modules could survive in the automotive world, they could clearly survive in the consumer electronic world if they had decent quality control and workmanship.
What I deal with a lot these days are the stupid mini/micro relays rated at 10-20 Amps that are no larger than a sugar cube that fail typically in 5-7 years depending on the applications. I have repaired/replaced so many boards with these stupid relays in everything from door lock modules, to refridgerators, humidifiers and many other products.
Have spend too much time with freeze spray and hair dryers or heat guns looking for components with thermal faults. Dealt with circuit boards with many different size conductors and headers where either wave solder or IR solder would not heat the mass of the larger diameter leads enough to get a proper solder joint, ending in cold solder joints on headers, larger relays pins and compenent with larger wire guages.
Some of the other fun I have dealt with is finding and repair circuit boards in the automotive industry that did not have conformal coating on the circuit boards where humidity caused the solder or lead to oxidize and form the white crystaline oxide that is conductive that would cause shorts on close terminals or surface mount parts.
Even lived thru the counterfiet capacitor problem or capacitor plague where I have had to repair countless flat screen TV's, computer monitors, computer boards and switching power supplies.
I get the cost cutting, but I also have seen counterfiet components, overly optimistic specs, and young engineers that do not have much experience missing out on safety margins. The other thing I find a lot is the male/female pins or contacts are either too small to handle the current, the female terminals get loose over time due to heating/cooling and vibration, or the really common problem is many aftermarket parts with male pins/terminals often use thinner gauge metal than OE to save a buck and the female terminals in the connectors will not properly grab the male pins/terminals causing intermittent problems, especially under the hood with wide temperature changes.
It is amazing things work as well as they do from a hardware standpoint, but the software and firmware is a far bigger issue these days!!!
One thing I need to notify GM about is the "Check Back Seat" child warning and how it more often than not does not function when I shut the truck off. Often due to my phone connected and streaming audio from an App or when I am pulling data from the OBDII port. While I will likely never need a reminder, I figured why not, too many sad stories of people not checking in the back of the car before they leave and lock it up.
The real scary part is these cars and too many things are almost now too complicated to repair these days. Less from the mechanical side but more from the electrical/electronic/software/firmware side. Unfortunately these vehicles are really too expensive to be disposable, but getting intermittent problems fixed are really difficult.
I wanted to get a newer vehicle before the stupid mandatory drunk driving detection technology is implemented where there is either some breath detector in the cabin or some way to determine alchohol in your system from your hands on the steering wheel! Wonder how often this will malfunction and leave someone stranded?
As the world burns.
Anyway I hope the poster with the random shut off probem finds a solution sooner than later. So many problems are often questionable connections or even battery related these days, especially with the Dynamic Charging Systems in these vehicles. I was monitoring the charging Voltage in my truck this week on a 5 hour trip in both directions and noticed it was in the 12.5-12.7 range for a long period. Luckily I know how the alternator is turned off on these platforms so I was not worried, but I was kind of surprised for how long the alternator was turned off while in the car for almost 5 hours.
