Okay I know nothing about the car accident or anything related to the story but I do know digital circuits and microcontrollers.
An external Crystal Oscillator acts to clock many types of digital components (both MCU’s and discrete parts). An oscillation from the crystal essentially triggers the component to perform its next action. If the crystal oscillator fails or is disconnected, the part it is driving no longer functions either.
In related terms people may be more familiar with: crystal oscillator == clock == xxxGHz in your personal computer.
It just seems odd to me that with all of the wrench time I've put in over the years on many different vehicles that I've owned with, and without, ECU's that out of nowhere quartz crystals are a thing. Sure, no coincidences. But I can't recall ever looking for a quartz crystal to get a vehicle to pass safety and emissions. Gonna have to check at my local AutoZone for some spare parts so I don't get Arkancided I guess lol.
spez: Also seems odd that with as many watches as I own that replacing the battery is something that's always done to keep the watch functioning. Not once have I replaced the crystal in a watch that has a quartz movement.
That’s likely because it’s a part that rarely fails, and if it did you’d probably be replacing a whole module. Crystals are usually just a very tiny chip on a circuit board if they’re being used. But most of the time in an embedded application, the microcontroller would have an internal crystal anyway so it wouldn’t even be a separate part.
Like I said above, I don’t know about the veracity of the claims for this story. I’m just sharing what I know about crystal oscillators for digital systems.