My colleagues found a way to raise my blood pressure this morning. I woke up and saw that our resident car designer, Adrian, had thrown a link into Slack going to an article about some random woman on TikTok who somehow found her car dead after changing a sun visor. She says her husband used AI to try to fix the car and probably wasted a bunch of time. Everything about this article and the whole situation is insane, and I have to say something. You can’t trust AI to fix your car without constantly fact-checking it, and you’re better off just logging into an old-school car forum or a Facebook group for your car.
This story comes to us from Motor1. The publication recently debuted a “Trending” section, where some of the site’s writers will comment about car-related stories from TikTok. Many of these stories involve people not knowing that U-Haul charges fees for truck mileage, people not knowing how car financing works, or people not knowing how car dealerships work. If you want to consume TikTok without actually watching TikTok, these posts seem to do the trick.
Normally, these posts aren’t really our style, and that’s fine. Every site has its own vibe! But this piece caught our attention because of the fantastically terrible way that AI ruined this poor woman’s day, and how seemingly nobody noticed the obvious path of diagnosis.
The Conundrum
@sarahnovakwallace Ladies if your hubby is a mechanic or works for @Chevrolet or @General Motors HELP. I can’t get my car to start #chevrolet #gm #generalmotors #mechanic #tahoe
First, I’ll give you the TikTok. If you cannot watch the embed above because you’re at work or have TikTok blocked, click this link. You should be able to view the video without creating a TikTok account.
In the video, TikToker Sarah Novak (@sarahnovakwallace) talks about how the driver-side sun visor in her 2020 Chevrolet Tahoe broke. She ordered a new OEM part, and her husband installed it. The next day, Sarah attempted to drive her Tahoe, only to hop in the driver seat, attempt to start the vehicle, and find only a Christmas tree of lights and no start.
Sarah and her husband were immediately stumped and turned to AI, which told her that if you mess with any wiring, the vehicle’s various modules might stop working. So, her husband disconnected the battery for some time, hoping to reset whatever computer was angry. This didn’t work, and the next time Sarah attempted to start the SUV, she got exactly nothing out of the vehicle. Sarah continues by saying: “We’re ChatGPTing it, but I don’t know if we’re doing it right or what the problem is.” Then she says she only recently spent $400 on a brand-new battery.
Sarah’s car still wasn’t working when she published the video on December 29, and she was so desperate that she reached out for help on TikTok. Alright, so the stage is set. Here’s what happened next.
AI Fails At Diagnosis
Motor1‘s article doesn’t start off great, as whoever is in charge of graphics at Motor1 used a photo of a third-generation Tahoe, when Sarah’s Tahoe is a fourth-generation model. I’ve noticed this issue in a lot of TikTok articles on various websites. Anyway, the writer’s response was this set of paragraphs, from Motor1:
To many drivers, a sun visor feels like a purely cosmetic part. In modern vehicles, especially full-size SUVs like the Tahoe, that assumption can be misleading.
According to General Motors service documentation and industry explanations from the Society of Automotive Engineers, late-model GM vehicles rely on multiplexed electrical networks, such as CAN and LIN, to enable dozens of control modules to communicate. Components in the headliner area can share wiring paths with airbag systems, interior lighting, and the body control module, or BCM, which manages functions like starting authorization, door locks, and dashboard displays.
If wiring is pinched, grounded, or left partially disconnected during an interior repair, the BCM can detect a fault and disable vehicle startup as a protective measure. Automotive electrical experts frequently note that once a BCM fault is logged, simply disconnecting the battery may not restore functionality, as many modules retain error states until they are cleared with a diagnostic scan tool.
The writer then talks about how battery disconnects could make the no-start condition worse before dropping this nugget:
That distinction helps explain why Novak’s nearly new battery was unlikely to be the root cause, even though battery failure is a common suspect in no-start situations.
But here’s the thing: there’s no reason to just rule the battery out by default. Just because a battery is new does not mean that it cannot be drained. If Sarah’s husband messed around for too long with accessory power on or accidentally let the visor’s light stay on all night, those alone could drain a battery regardless of its age. Replacing a visor in one of these SUVs isn’t rocket surgery, either. Watch this:
Likewise, the only electrical connection that the mirror has with the rest of the car is for its light. If you watch the video above, you’ll see just two wires and a plastic connector for them.
One comment in the video reflects this:
The terrifying thing is that, depending on how you word the question, AI will give you some entirely unhelpful answers. Here’s what Google AI gave me after typing in “2020 chevy tahoe won’t start after sun visor replacement.” It went straight to assuming something is wrong with the vehicle’s Body Control Module:
Your 2020 Chevy Tahoe likely won’t start after a sun visor replacement due to a disconnected or blown fuse for the Body Control Module (BCM) or ignition, a loose battery connection, or potentially disrupting the ignition switch wiring, common after interior electrical work; check the main fuse box (under the hood and driver’s side) for relevant fuses like BCM or ignition, ensure battery terminals are tight, and if issues persist, consider resetting the BCM by disconnecting the battery for a few minutes.
Possible Causes & Solutions
Blown Fuse: The wires for the sun visor lights might have shorted or been pulled loose, blowing a fuse.
Action: Check the fuse box under the hood and the one on the driver’s side (left of the steering wheel) for blown fuses related to the BCM, ignition, or interior lights.Loose Battery Connection: You might have jostled the battery or terminals during the process.
Action: Ensure battery terminals are clean and very tight.Disconnected/Damaged Wiring: The wires for the visor might be connected to a circuit that also affects starting or dash power.
Action: Re-examine the visor’s wiring and the connection points in the headliner. Ensure no wires were pulled or damaged.BCM Malfunction: A brief electrical issue can sometimes put the Body Control Module into a protective state.
Action: Try disconnecting the battery negative terminal for 10-15 minutes to reset the BCM, then reconnect and try starting.
ChatGPT was equally unhelpful:
A no-start right after replacing a sun visor on a 2020 Chevy Tahoe strongly suggests something electrical was disturbed. The visor area is tied into several sensitive systems (airbag, BCM, interior power), so this is a common scenario. Here’s a clear way to narrow it down.
I won’t bore you with the details, but ChatGPT gave me a list that started with checking fuses related to the airbag system, the BCM, and interior lighting. Then it said that the visor replacement could have disrupted the anti-theft system or the airbag system. To its credit, ChatGPT did tell me that a drained battery could be the cause, but rated it as unlikely. If I logged out, logged back in, and gave ChatGPT the same question, it gave me a slightly different answer. One of the AI’s suggestions was to replace a fuse even if it is only slightly blown. Is a slightly blown fuse like being slightly pregnant?
I would not be surprised if AI gave Sarah’s husband an answer closer to what Google AI gave me, considering he tried to reset the vehicle’s computers by disconnecting the battery. The problem I had with this is that AI has no idea how to diagnose or how to troubleshoot. It can only take what it can search and spit it back out. Thus, poor Sarah and her hubby are chasing around computer issues without even having checked the easy stuff.
To be fair to the AI, it didn’t give the most insane response; that would go to some of the commenters on TikTok, who told Sarah that she fried the SUV’s Powertrain Control Module (PCM), told her to reflash the anti-theft system, or told her to reprogram the key. What’s with the suggestions for nuclear options after basically no troubleshooting?
Try The Easy Stuff First
Here’s what I would have done. First, I would have checked the battery. If it’s below 12 volts, or maybe the clamps aren’t tight, that’s probably the problem. A multimeter is only $8 at Harbor Freight, and anyone who works on their own car or their own home should own one, anyway. A dead battery would cause Sarah’s issues with flashing dash lights, no start, and then, later, a totally dead car.
If the battery tests good, uninstall the new visor. Use a flashlight to see if you somehow penetrated a wiring harness when you installed the visor. This is unlikely if you used the OEM screws, but it is still possible. It’s also worth checking fuses.
It’s possible that the no-start condition is not even related to the visor at all, and it’s just a wild coincidence that the Tahoe is not starting a day after the visor’s replacement.
I wouldn’t be sweating about the PCM, the BCM, or the anti-theft system until after I tried the easy stuff, like checking the battery. It wouldn’t be my first place to look. It would be like jumping straight to the assumption that you’re going to die just because you have a new cough. But this is one reason why AI cannot be trusted for wrenching unless you double and triple-check it. At that point, you’re sort of better off without it. AI has no nuance or context. It has no idea what it’s doing.
Just to be clear here, I’m not blaming Sarah or her husband for anything. They did the best they could with what they thought was a reliable resource. Not everyone spins wrenches or gets into car diagnosis, and that’s okay! I reached out to Sarah and will update if I hear back. Sarah has not published a follow-up, so maybe she and her husband figured it out.
If you have a problem with your car, don’t ask AI, and be careful soliciting opinions on just regular social media. Go to a make or model-specific Facebook group or an old-school car forum and just pitch your question there. You’ll almost certainly get better advice than you’d find on TikTok, and certainly better than AI.
Top graphic images: GM; DepositPhotos.com
Wow, side note on that motor1 site you pulled this lead from… it’s uh, not my cup of tea. 80% of the stories follow the format, “Here’s some unverified story we saw on Tik-Tok, here’s us reading you directly the comment section on said Tik-Tok, and here’s some LLM generated content on the referenced make/model/subject.”
This is the darkest timeline.
Ugh, we need to stop using the term “AI” like it’s HAL or something. It’s a large language model, and all it’s doing is scraping the internet and whatever other content it has been given access to…
Diagnosis of an electrical gremlin, a complex scenario with multiple potential causes and a high number of impactful variables (some named in the article, I.e., make, model, generation, known concurrent issues, etc.) is a very bad thing to use the current gen LLM tools on. It’s just going to scrape Reddit and owners forums for every single similar conversation and craft those into responses, some of which will be valid (check your battery) and other will be a mishmash of the stupidest advice to be found in Reddit and owner forums… in other words, none of what they got surprises me.
i’m shocked one of the results wasn’t “Use snow tires on a seasonal basis” lol.
FTFY
…even if they’re not the type to go to a car forum, I’m baffled they went to AI before, say, youtube.
if she didn’t have a shitty GM product she wouldn’t have this problem to begin with. 2020 car and broken sun visor? what is even that? that never happens in a normal car
You’d also be surprised how rough the average person is on their car, even new. I’d just as soon blame someone who relies on TikTok and AI for answers, as I would GM.
Using AI for anything where accuracy matters is a fundamental misunderstanding of how it works. AI isn’t intended to provide accurate answers, it’s intended to provide answers that sound accurate. It’s an unfortunately subtle but important distinction and if you lose sight of it you’ll pay the price.
Not to mention the fact that actual government agencies are constantly posting AI slop on social media.
I blame the pushers of such bullshit software 1000x more than the users. I know people should be better, but they aren’t, full stop. So the blame should go to your Googles and your Sam Altmans for proselytizing at the altar of AI and how it can just do it all, they promise!
I’ve only used AI to write very simple bash scripts for ffmpeg work, and even then I make sure to understand what it’s trying to do, and I also run it on test files first. I’m no programmer, so it has been helpful in that regard.
A couple months back one of our cats ate a few onion rings. Little goblin snatched them right out of a box while we were out of the room for a minute. I googled “can cats have onion” and the AI result said it was fine to feed them onions.
In reality, it is not okay to feed cats onions. They are toxic to cats. Called the vet, we kept an eye on him at home, and he was just fine. Little shit.
And this is why I will never trust AI. Every single search result below the AI answer clearly spelled out that onions are toxic for cats. And yet the AI result was the exact opposite of that. It can’t even correctly answer basic questions with all the right answers spelled out in thousands of search results. How the hell is it ever gonna diagnose a car problem?
Yeah, it can’t diagnose either a car problem or a cat problem >^..^<
I miss the days of healthy, active car enthusiast forums. It seems most of those are a ghost town these days, and have been replaced with Facebook groups. The problem with FB is that most responses are short, rude, and far from helpful. I don’t use TikTok but I’d assume the same happens there.
AI? No fn way.
Also, FB posts are not easily searchable like a forum is.
A lot of the FB groups I’m in now have AI bots posting conversation starters, such as ‘What’s everyone’s favorite tire for offroad use?” and other generic questions that can generate lots of responses.
as the owner of multiple old BMWs I still use those forums daily and i still worship and quietly thank all those soldiers who took time and effort to monument it. the browser on my phone always has open tabs of those forums open. and Reddit
I’m paying Photobucket every month, just so all the pictures I uploaded for DIYs on TheSamba (air-cooled VW forum) stay up. Far too many DIY write ups are missing their photos.
AI is what you make it, this is what I get back when I type the exact same prompt into my ChatGPT. If you just ask it questions randomly and don’t give it feedback on mistakes it makes then it will remain pretty stupid. It has a memory, you can give it feedback and instructions on how to change the way it responds.
If your 2020 Tahoe won’t start immediately after a sun visor swap, it’s usually one of these “oops” situations:
Here’s the fastest way to isolate it.
1) Figure out what kind of “won’t start” you haveA. Totally dead (no dash lights / no crank)
B. Dash lights are on but no crank/click
C. Cranks but won’t fire
2) Quick battery check (this is #1 after interior work)
3) Unplug the visor and try again (rules out a short fast)If your replacement visor has a lighted vanity mirror, it has a small connector in the roof.
4) Check fuses the right way (don’t just eyeball them)A pinched visor wire can blow an interior circuit fuse, and on some GM setups that can mess with modules enough to create a no-start/no-crank symptom.
(Replace only with the same amperage.)
5) Inspect for the classic pinch pointWhen people tighten the visor screws, the wire can get trapped between:
Make sure the wire isn’t:
6) Safety note (important on that corner of the roof)The Tahoe has curtain airbags in the A-pillar/headliner area. Don’t poke around aggressively in that trim, and don’t mess with yellow connectors. If you’re going to pull trim: disconnect battery negative and give it ~10 minutes before working near airbag areas.
Tell me these 2 things and I’ll narrow it to the exact likely culprit:
Any AI that uses the internet as a source of information is destined to fail: AI is basically a computer program… unreliable information in means unreliable results out,and the internet is full of unreliable information (to put things politely!). AI will never be able to distinguish between useful information and AI slop generated by a badly-worded question, AI will never be able to distinguish between actual news facts and parody or satire, AI will never be able to recognise when something is conspiracy-theory bullshit… and we haven’t gotten to the point where deliberately feeding AI with false information in order to produce an amusing result becomes an online sport. AI WILL be useful, but only in closed-information settings… analysing sets of genomes looking for cancer resistance, analysing sections of the galaxy looking for stars that meet certain criteria… closed, controlled, validated information in will result in reliable information out.
Now get off my lawn!
AI is like that person you know who’s full of shit. What they don’t know, they fill in the blanks with wrong information or just absolute gibberish.
I was just going to say I can name a few guys I know who are in Sales and they are walking AI
AI is the best at ai-splaining.
Sarah’s problem is that no va is in her last name. Oh, and when people shoot selfies and front camera videos in mirror mode, it makes me a little mental.
I completely agree that going to a forum and searching for something related will almost certainly get better results and much more quickly than making and posting a TikTok video.
Don’t use AI because of this.
“AI has no nuance or context. It has no idea what it’s doing.” Mercedes
It’s more accurate if you chop off the first sentence.
I’ve never used AI for looking stuff up and I purposely scroll past the top AI junk when searching for something. But this kind of thing is strong evidence that we are now living in a hellscape of the Idiocracy and Wall-E movies blended together.
I’m a bit disappointed that this was even written about in the Autopian. We know this kind of thing is happening all day long to people. Mercedes you did take the effort to show why it’s a bad idea, and how the process should have gone if someone did some critical thinking. But overall it’s just a sad way to start my Tuesday: Knowing we are well and truly F-‘d and my kids are going to live in a shitty world that was worse in every metric then what my wife and I envisioned when we decided to have kids 18 years ago.
Time for morning coffee and then off to work I go. Gotta feed the Master with my labor and taxes.
AI is only good for sorting through your own thoughts/words (it’s a language model, not an intelligence model) – by definition precision is not one of its strong sides. So it makes sense that in the world of physical outputs this is crazy to use.
…Which leads me to wonder at the dozens of well funded startups doing “agentic automation” of everything with direct real world impacts, that’ll be fun to watch. Most pretend to solve it by adding a human in the loop, basically making it your fault when you fail at supervising the robot. But hey, supposedly it saves you a lot of time, effort and mistakes, right?
3 things to avoid to make your life better” TikTok, AI and GM products.
she is cooked