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My wife has a '94 Jeep Wrangler. It just turned 70,000 miles and has had to be towed to a repair facility at least three times during this time. I could usually determine whether or not it was a fuel or spark problem but that was about it.
The last time I went over to the dealership after the tow truck came to get it and found a mechanic out back with a pile of boxes of parts plugging them in and trying to start it. He had no idea what the problem was and it was pure guesswork. Like the other two times it turned out to be a sensor of some sort that fed information to the F. I. system.
Another mechanic told me that while you can put modern cars on a computer for diagnosis it's no guarantee that the problem the magic box says it is will be the problem--and then it's experience and/or guesswork.
I have a friend who has an '08 Yamaha WR-250R dually bike with F. I. that has over 125,000 miles on it!! The only problem he had that put him in the back of a truck (in Baja, of all places) was the fuel pump failing, a fairly common problem with these otherwise stone reliable bikes.
Back to Jeeps I read about an old duck who was up in the mountains of Colorado when his mechanical fuel pump quit. He rigged up a can on the windshield that gravity fed the carb and he'd add to it as he went along. It allowed him to get him back to civilization. Try that with a F. I. vehicle!!
No argument here that when it works F. I. is absolutely wonderful. It's just when it quits that it scares me.
(As an aside I've mentioned on this forum I believe modern gasoline is formulated for use in F. I. vehicles and works fine when it's sprayed in under pressure but doesn't work so well nowadays in carburetors, a. k. a. "controlled leaks". Score one for F. I. here.)
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