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Technology Makes New Cars Too Expensive to Fix
securitas writes "The CSM's Eric Evarts reports on how technology makes new cars too expensive to repair, which may lead to disposable cars. The increased use of expensive electronics, air bags and advanced, lightweight body materials are causing costs to rise. Add to it the cost of specialized training and equipment (for an aluminum-body repair shop: $200,000) or even the cost of new parts alone (xenon high-intensity-discharge headlights: $3,000 each), not to mention the knowledge base required (over 1 million pages, available only electronically vs. 100 pages 20 years ago) and a labor shortage. From the article: 'Specialist technicians need advanced reading, problem-solving, and basic electronics skills.... The best people to find are those who have worked in the IT [information technology] industry.'"
I work as a car stereo installer, we installed a high end stereo into a new lexus, the stereo was defective and ended out shorting a circuit, for some reason the computer that was tied in with the stereo (for door chimes I think) got fried aswell., Ended up costing the shop 700$ for a replacement part.
As these cars get more and more advanced its getting harder for doityourselfers to even attempt to modify or maintian them.
Yes. VW at least are investigating recycling fairly intensively: they are under strong pressure to be non-polluting in their home market. I think many of the others are doing the same. But don't expect much scrap value from your totalled car - this is more about saving you a disposal charge rather than getting any residual value from the wreck.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
Materials can be strong (which I take to mean high yield strength in this context) and brittle (low deformation before fracture). In other words, it can take a fair bit of force to cause any damage at all, but when you pass a certain point, it just breaks rather than deforming plastically.
Of course, "strong" isn't a very precise term when talking about materials and different types of strength are better suited for different tasks.
If the radiator mount is strong, how can it be brittle at the same time?
High tensile strength, low ductile strength.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
It takes a stronger force than other metals to begin to deform, but once it does, it shatters or cracks rather than bending.
My father works for a company that produces aftermarket automotive wiring. He's noticing a lot of products that are designed to supplant this kind of individual part - by combining multiple parts, they prevent people from replacing just the part in question.
So instead of replacing your spark plugs (~$15), you have to replace the plugs, the wiring, etc. The total cost? More than $100 for some. It's intentional - it's like soldering your CPU to your motherboard so you have to replace the whole board in order to upgrade/replace your CPU. I believe Packard Bell used to do this, and look where they are now.
Strength can mean many different things. A rope is strong in tension, but weak in compression. A glass pillar can be pretty strong in compression, but it's brittle. Aluminum is strong and light, but can be susceptible to fatigue under cyclical loading conditions. Magnesium is similar to titanium and aluminum, but more brittle. (and flammable.)
A brittle part will crack and break shortly after exceeding its yield strength. A tough part will stretch and deform after reaching its yield strength, finally breaking at a much higher stress level. However, it is possible for a given brittle part to have a much higher yield strength than a given tough (or ductile) part. The material used, and the production method, and the heat treating process all affect the material's final strength.
In other words, it's kinda complicated. : )
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
After you undergo elastic deformation (where the item returns back to its original shape, within tolerance), you reach plastic deformation, where the item will not return to its original shape.
Different materials have different strength ratings for compression (crushing), tension (pulling), sheer opposite forces in a different place), moment (bending), etc.
Ductility the ability of an item to take on a new shape. Although it's different from tensile (tension) strength, ductility is a not a 'strength', it's a measure of maleability.
The above's off the top of my head (civil engineering undergrad 7yrs ago that I never did anything with), but the following seems to explain some of the concepts:Oh -- and don't forget that strength is typically a function of temperature. [steel's biggest enemy is fire, even though it doesn't burn.... it just becomes really weak, really quickly]
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
I'd acquit anyone arrested for stealing those goddamn headlights (what kind of safety feature is it to blind oncoming traffic?). that's what calibration is for. halogen lights are blinding at night when they arent adjusted properly. HID has important uses like for bikes where it increases visibility during the day.
I just put HID Headlamps in my BMW M3 for $196. Not $3000. If the prices are so skewed when it comes to relating the other issues, than we can't exactly trust this article. Yes cars are getting more expensive to fix, but it's only because of manufacturer's strangehold over diagnostic data.
As a backyard mechanic who works on both a 1998 VW Passat and a 1973 VW SuperBeetle, I'd have to say that the Passat is the easier to work with.
All this "backyard mechanics can't fix today's cars" talk is just nonsense. Modern parts are lightweight and precision manufactured. There's no banging or clanging to get parts off, no rusted bolts, no tweaking of the carburetor and timing. There's no cables to break, and very little danger of an improperly timed engine pinging itself into oblivion.
Cases in point: the Passat stopped firing on one cylinder. There were three things that could have caused this: a broken plug wire (it was fine), a broken plug (brand new and tested fine) or a problem with the ignition control module. Testing the ICM showed cylinder three was receiving no signal. $100 later, I had a new module which installed in about five minutes.
When I had a similar problem with the Beetle, I had the same three possible sources (plug, wire or ignition control). However, the ignition control system, being mechanical, was far more difficult to troubleshoot. I ended up replacing pretty much everything...the distributor, the condensor, the solenoid...and even then, I spent the better half of an afternoon tweaking it.
Of course, working on the Beetle is more FUN, because the endless possibilities of a custom and delicate relationships between components make it more satisfying.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
If I were on his jury, I'd acquit anyone arrested for stealing those goddamn headlights (what kind of safety feature is it to blind oncoming traffic?).
When a car leaves the dealership with HID lights, it is aimed and filtered properly so it does not blind other drivers. When a car leaves the dealership and then decides to retrofit HID lights into headlight housings meant for halogen lights, then you have problems. IIRC, the housing internals has to be modified for HID lights.
-dk
Because 51% of vehicles sold the last few year were light trucks or SUV's which are not regulated as to their fleet average fuel economy?!? Yep I bet that's it. If you look at the fleet average for all regulated vehicle classes you would see that we are doing better all the time.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Then came "integrated bumpers" and "bumperless cars". Those things can be totalled at very low speeds. Damages in minor collisions soared.
Here's the Institute for Highway Safety on the "$3000 light replacement" issue. They write: "The Institute's continuing series of 5 mph bumper tests show that today's flimsy bumpers can result in substantial and expensive damage to vehicle lighting systems. For example, in March of this year the Institute released results of front-into-angle-barrier tests of several new models. In the tests, the housings for the headlights on both the Acura RL and Infiniti Q45 broke and had to be replaced. Largely because of the cost of the headlamp assembly, the damage to the Q45 in the angle-barrier impact totaled $2,661." That's probably the source of the "$3000" figure.
The lack of a tough bumper standard coupled with the crashworthyness requirement means that the car's crumple zones crumple in minor collisions. Hence the big repair bills.
But when you go and ask for those headlights, does the guy in the dungarees say 'Yeah, I'll just take off the ten cars that are on top of that one you want and then remove the headlights for you'? Or are the high value components already stripped as soon as the car comes in? Wouldn't it make more sense to gut a car of anything worthwhile to the junkyard owner - high value parts, rather than chuck it into a pile of other cars and sort it later? What I was trying to say was that technology has made it easier to fully dispose of cars, hence no particular need for 'disposable cars'. I wasn't trying to imply that this is an end to scrap yards as a whole.
You want your headlights. You pick em up cheap from a big pile of headlights. You win.
The companies interested in cheap raw materials buy everything else that is of no use to Joe Sixpack. They win
The scrap yard owner gets both your money and money from the company looking for cheap bulk scrap. He wins
Less junk piles up that people off the street don't want. Mother nature wins.
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
"Properly aimed and focused" only works on flat straight roads! If you're coming up a hill and one of these guys crests the hill in front of you he will blind you way worse than a regular car. Often times I'll loose sight of the road entirely, unlike regular headlights which just cause a lot of glare.
I read the internet for the articles.
your a bit right. Typicaly auto salvage places are two sides. You'll have your Bubba's you pull it on one side, and Freds used auto parts on the other. Cars will come in to Bubba's. There if the car has no massive value, say it's a 67 chevy nova, good for parts but no modern stuff, it will go straight to the yard. Now say a 97 Ford Taurus comes in that got rear ended real bad. The will take it in, rip the engine out, many some other sub-componets, tranny seats, glass and so forth, since these are still very common cars. Those parts going over to Freds and people come in and buy them. Typical your local garage thats fixing a car. The rest of the car will go to the yard for U-pull it use. After a period of time if it's been stripped of most that was left over time by people, then they crush them. If there wasn't much after the first strip they will just crush them. Very few yard stack cars. Those are places that are just crushing. U-pull it places lay them out and keap them sorta by brand and type, usualy put them up on old rims so you can get under them. They have limited space, so they will crush the least useful ones as time goes buy. But if say its a classic, but all stripped, but has a good body they will keap those for people looking for project cars.
Like the poster said, cars are worth a lot in parts. Thats why you see Push Pull Drag in deals where they will give you 1000 bucks for a POS, it's worth it to them.
These places keap prices for repair down. If you need a big part for your car like an engine or tranny this is where it comes from, or a fender or hood. When a body shop or garage goes fixing your car they will always use these parts first unless they can't find them. Insurance company price out for these parts. You wouldn't want to pay for OEM fenders or a brand new engine. Even if they say they are new it is very unlikely they are new.
The reality of it is, if you bought a brand new car, or maybe a year old model cheap, then took it to a salvage yard, they could probably turn around and turn a profit on parting it out.
The giant car eaters are good for stuff that is crap. But those programs also raise the cost of used parts for your car. They are mainly pushed because the car companies get emmissions credits for getting old clunkers destroyed. Not a bad thing, just has it's serious draw backs. Since if your a car collector it will be come very hard to find that car you always wanted or parts for it.
It should be noted that in some places in Europe now car companies have to set up a EOL plan for the car that includes it's disposal, thats why those scredders are coming into play.
Anybody with *any* experience with Chrysler products, or Honda Civics, would moderate this as a troll, or perhaps humorous. There's a reason that Consumer Reports (among others) gives top ratings to Honda, and low-end ratings to anything Dodge. And I can assure you that Honda Civics last a *lot* longer than 7 years, and you don't even have to change the oil every 2,500 miles. Perhaps in the late 70's what you're saying is true, but now Civics are the most reliable cars on the road.
The idea of being a car snob over a Dodge is absurd. I owned one before, and I wouldn't wish one upon my worst enemy.
"Japanese tinfoil crap"
Wow, biased much? No offense but I (and a ton of other people) would prefer to own some fine Japanese tinfoil, any day. Americans have produced some decent cars, but overall... suckage. IMHO of course.
Honda CR-V. 5 years old, 45k miles, good as new, seriously very close to mint condition. Check the resale value if you like.
Also, I wouldn't wax your car every week unless you're talking about automatic carwash wax. Waste of time, waste of wax.
Be happy. Nothing else matters.