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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'd rather have an older, less advanced car that I actually have a chance of fixing. Who needs all this new car technology anyways?
No. Not as long as the average television-advertised car costs about $35,000 (Five years of $400 payments, and you STILL don't own it)
Perhaps they could make the cars simpler by removing the DVD players? Are people so bored that they must be watching movies/television constantly? How about READING a BOOK?
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
I'm sure a portion of this trend is a ploy to keep the repairs of auto's in-house. A Ford dealership, for example, makes a LOT of money doing repairs. If they can force a clentele, its gravy money, of which a chunk goes back to the Ford headquarters. Seems like a sane progression, now that manufacture costs for these specialty components are probably WAY down for the manufacturers.
I could have just taken that job as a mechanic straight out of High School and built my skills up to the point that I could be making good money in the automotive industry rather than spent all those years and all that money in college to get to the same point? I'm feeling a little depressed.
'And all the monkeys aren't in the zoo Every day you meet quite a few...'
rant
/rant
They want your money.
They do not want you to fix it yourself.
They want to sell you a whole new part every time!
They do not want you to buy a part from someone else.
They want you to get then to fix it in one of their repairshops.
strong != flexible.
Newer cars are being treated like appliances rather than machines. Machines you have to maintain, appliances you replace.
The problem with this is that cars _are_ indeed machines. People are just lazy.
People no longer care if "that thing's got a hemi" They just want 50mpg and oil that never has to be replaced.
It's sad.
up 12 days, 22:30, 2 users, load averages: 993.20, 994.21, 994.56
*makes note to limit user processes...
Strong means it requires a lot of force to affect a change in its shape. Brittle means that instead of bending or subtly deforming when enough force is applied, it will shear or shatter instead. You might be able to un-bend a deformed mount. A shattered mount has to be replaced.
How can you fix this problem? Stop buying new cars when you car is perfectly good. Plus it will save you a few bills each month.
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
I Have bought cars like a Bic Lighter for years. Get a Cheap one in the 500 to 1000 dollar price range, drive it till it breaks down and go get another one.
With New Car payments in the 400 dollar plus range if an 800 dollar car lasts over two months (most do) you are ahead of the people driving new cars. The Champ junker I bought was a 200 dollar 1977 Caprice that lasted 3 years and still fetched 75 bucks from the scrap yard!
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
increased use of expensive electronics
The use of electronics in cars was supposed to make them cheaper not more expensive. The problem isn't generally the 'expensive electronics' the problem usually is that there aren't enough trained technicians to fix electronic problems. Most mechanics are trained in, well mechanics, not electronics.
xenon high-intensity-discharge headlights: $3,000 each
I'm thinking this isn't a general problem. How many people are buying cars that have $6000 worth
of headlights alone? Damn, those must be some mighty fine headlights, why not just equip the car with nightvision goggles, it would be cheaper.
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've actually been thinking that automotive electronics diagnostics & repair could be a good field to get into - it can't be outsourced and the demand is there.
Aluminum. Not very strong, but how often do you see it shatter? It just bends
But if it doesn't shatter, then how can you expect to make a fortune selling replacement parts?
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
Looks like I'll continue repairing my own vehicle along with the family/friend vehicles.
Really though, many of the repair manuals (I often use the Haynes manuals myself) available for vehicles contain fairly detailed information for troubleshooting and repairing vehicles. I do find that the tools that I have to purchase are becoming more expensive, but it still beats going to the mechanic in most cases. Of course I always look for an excuse to buy new tools.
I find that most people are afraid to attempt even simple repairs so the high tech problems won't change the consumer behavior of running to the shop for any problem. The trend will lead to higher tech mechanics though (higher salary, higher repair bill).
Now the one thing I would appreciate from the auto manufacturer is simplifying the onboard diagnostics. I'll even settle for the blinking LEDs sequences I've seen in some of my older cars.
It's worth pointing out that profit margins for new vehicles are quite large -- I think the last figure I heard, on a variable cost basis, was $3,000 for a $20,000 car. Fixed costs are, of course, enormous -- R&D, testing, compliance, advertising, sunk costs in the factory, etc -- but whipping up one more Corolla is pretty cheap.
In other words, relief to the insurance industry will probably come via mandated replacements by the manufacturer, at cost (or maybe cost+10%). This could get worked into warranty programs, first as a perk, then as something greater.
Keep in mind, if your car is totalled, who's to say you'll buy the same brand next time around? Properly managed (i.e. worked into the cost of each car sold), this isn't a bad strategy for keeping customers loyal to your brand.
Manufacturer replacement is thus almost guaranteed to occur.
--Dan
Why would anyone want a $3K headlight, or a car that required them? Isn't there a limit to the candlepower a headlight can legally have when driving in a city? Wouldn't any old headlight be good enough for most purposes?
Cars with "features" like that are just conspicuously wasteful. Target market: Paris Hilton, etc. As if paying more for something makes it better.
I'm getting to the point of being shocked speechless by all the willfull stupidity in the world. I paid less than $3000 for a car that I drove over 150K miles (Oldsmobile, still running, I got a car with 4 doors instead when I had kids) now that's what they want for a headlight????? This wastefulness makes me sick.
Since the advent of computers & other high tech components in automobiles, people have long been predicting the same thing.
Honestly, how many 1970 automobiles do pass on your way to work?
Consumers buy new cars every few years regardless of the maintenance costs on their trade in cars, and people will never stop crashing their cars & filling salvage yards with plenty of recyclable parts.
In a sense, cars have been "disposable" for many years.
Leased vehicles are "disposed" from one class of consumers, down to another class and so on.
This reminds me of a book I read about garbology (can't remember the title), where scientist were baffled about the low quantity of washers & dryers found in dumps. They discovered that broken appliances were exported to central and south America to be rebuilt, and that many of the appliances used there were decades old!
These guys are on crack. Auto dealers get a good deal of their profits from repairs. They aren't about to let the carmakers close off this business.
As far as the headlight cost, a full conversion kit including ballasts, headlights and wiring harness typically costs $500. The actual lights are about $50 ea. Not $3000.
Nope, no oxymoron. Take some materials science classes, they're actually pretty eye-opening. Strong and brittle can exist happily together. Pure iron is another example of a strong but brittle material.
"Strong" implies that the material can take a relatively large amount of stress before it fails/breaks. It has nothing to do with what actually *happens* when it fails.
"Brittle" means that when the material fails, it fails abruptly and completely. The opposite of brittle is malleable (the material bends, or fails slowly instead of snapping abruptly).
Think of the difference between snapping a hard pretzel stick vs. tearing a soft pretzel. The hard pretzel can be quite strong - especially if it's as thick as normal soft pretzel - but when it breaks, it breaks completely and abruptly, and with basically no warning.
Of course this isn't so much of a problem as compared to the special materials handling required to work with magnesium parts. Like they said, the training and equipment needed to handle aluminum body work is expensive. Well, the same goes for magnesium.
"I feel that if a person can't communicate, the very least he can do is to shut up." -- Tom Lehrer
Actually, I think automobiles deserve a "greener" reputation than they usually get. Much of an old or wrecked auto gets recycled whether in the form of used parts, or scrap metal. That really doesn't happen with other big-ticket items like refrigerators, washers, dryers, water-heaters, PC's, stereos, etc., etc.
Proverbs 21:19
No kidding, how are these allowed when in many jurisdictions you can get a ticket if you have your high-beams on when there is on coming traffic.
I BRIEFLY flash my highbeams at anyone who's headlights blind me because of brightness to notify them they need to dim thier lights. But over the last couple of years I've had more and more people respond by turning on thier brights because they had these lights and it only apeared they were running with thier high beams on. I go from blinded to blinded and in pain!
I don't care how much better you can see the road, it doese no good if you get hit head on by some poor schmuck you just blinded.
Mycroft
(ps all you idiots who jack your truck up and don't recalibrate the beam angle on your headlights so as not to blind oncoming traffic should be forced to drive a small 3-4cylinder 2door for a month, at night!)
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b) is only half the truth... that laptop-wielding mechanic also won't have a clue when some actual trouble-shooting needs to be done. I've had technicians who could hear the horrible, screeching sounds coming from the engine as well as I could, but since no codes were forthcoming from the diagnostic machine, the problem "did not exist". So... some problems are easy to diagnose -- if there's a working sensor designed to detect that specific problem. Other problems are devilishly difficult as cars get so complex that it is near impossible to figure out what is causing an intermittent glitch.
- To err is human; but to really screw up, you need a computer
For the cost of a new car, you can have a custom done
Unless you factor in the cost of lawsuits. One mistake leading to a spine-crunching accident can wipe you out.
Table-ized A.I.
This is of no surprise.
In fact, since you mentioned tune ups I will relate a short tale.
I owned a '97 Pontiac Grand Prix. At about 85k miles it was finally time for a tuneup, ok no problem. Took it to have it done, expected it to be expensive since I was having the work done by a mechanic after realizing I could not reach the rear bank of plugs.
So that evening I go pick up my Grand Prix and find a $500 bill for the work, almost $300 of it was labor. I inquired as to why it was so high, apparently in order to get the three rear plugs out, it is required to unmount the engine mostly and tilt the thing forward. This wasn't surprising since the clearance between the back of the engine and the firewall was only a couple of inches at best, probably not even that.
Little chance of my doing that in my home garage, that's for damn sure.
I miss my '78 Chevy Malibu. Had a 305 engine in it and very easy to work on. Learned to work on cars with that one, too bad now a days you have to have a lot of time or equipment to work on cars.
I won't even get into the nightmare that working on my '03 Jaguar X-Type would present if I were nutty enough to attempt it.
It took them two and a half weeks to get a replacement part in for that because the car is still new enough that parts like what failed in mine are still scarce. Thankfully the issue in that case did not leave the car undriveable.
"We're so tough we're made of nerf!" --D&D Character Tagline
As these cars get more and more advanced its getting harder for doityourselfers to even attempt to modify or maintian them
Yet, somehow it becomes easier to build/mod your own computer as they become more advanced.
Too bad there isn't some 'Personal Car' platform.
We currently have fairly easily customizable tires, exhaust, audio, glass, and various 'case mods'.
What we need is user-interchangable chasis, engine, drive train, cab. That'd be cool.
"We're moving closer and closer to the disposable car," says Dan Bailey, an executive vice president at Carstar, the largest auto-body repair franchise in the United States.
well duh! of course the auto repair industry is unhappy about this. I'm sure they aren't happy about any loss of business, whether it be to dealers or just better quality cars that don't need as much maintinence. Good riddance I say. Doesn't anyone remember when you could only expect 100-150k miles out of a car? How about severe body rust after only a few years (I live near the coast). How about all the independant repair shops that just rip people off (seems to have gotten better since the 80s).
Also, so airbags are expensive? What's their point? Should we do away with them? I suppose it would be better if the teen didn't walk away from the accident -- yep, that would've been worth 30K. This reminds me of people that buy used or crappy 3rd world climbing equipment to save a few bucks.
No thank you. I'll take my *advanced* car that requires a specially trained tech to work on...even if it is more expensive, at least it'll be fixed correctly. The tech can at least run the diagnostics checks and has training on common problems, etc. The independent shops just take wild guesses and start replacing things.
\forall code \in C, \frac{\Delta readability(code)}{\Delta t} < 0
So if you bought the M3 don't go blaming BMW just because you forgot to figure in the cost of maintenance.
"Now Nissan and other automakers have started using taillights with multiple LEDs rather than a single inexpensive light bulb. The LEDs light faster in a panic stop to give drivers following more warning, but they're also more expensive to replace."
Come on, the LEDs faster than incandescents? Perhaps the quantum state required to fire off a LED is a bit faster than the time needed to heat those electrons off the tungsten wire, but I would be awfully suprised if that turns out to help avoiding accidents.
Part of the problem has nothing to do with the costs of the technology used to repair the damage. It's the cost to keep skilled employees fed, watered and insured. So whether they're pounding out steel or aluminum, it costs money.
And who these days, fixes electronics parts. You replace the little buggers. Anybody out there doing mobo parts replacement? (this being /., I'm sure there are, but it's not a Usual Thing).
And I love OBD (On Board Diagnostics). You never have to think! Just Replace(TM).
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Why can't I just download an OSS ROM and flash it myself?
Why can't you just disconnect the battery?
It is true that cars are harder to work on nowadays, but back up for a second and recall how unreliable cars used to be. Nowadays, it's not uncommon for a vehicle to go for 100,000 miles with zero major problems. That was not very common 20 years ago.
Just for example, there are lots of things that used to have to be performed on vehicles just to keep them driveable:
-Adjust engine timing. Don't need to do that anymore, computer takes care of it.
-Clean the carburator. Clean the points and distributor. All of that's gone with electronic fuel injection.
-The whole "tune up" procedure is obsolete, as the engine computer keeps fuel mixtures, timings, and environmental conditions in top performance at all times.
Granted, you can still perform the generic maintenance you're used to, such as changing fluids, etc. Cars have become easier to troubleshoot as far as sensors go. Simply hook up the diagnositc tool, and it tells you what sensor is broken or what's acting up. Whip out the shop manual, and it'll tell you exactly where to look.
Modern cars are documented so well, anyone who gets manufacturer support can work on the cars.
The only thing changing is that shadetree mechanics are getting pushed out of the game, but that's inevitable with the level of technology. I don't hear anyone complaining they can't swap out individual memory chips of thier PCs or solder parts onto their motherboards anymore to change options. Hell, you don't even have to set jumpers anymore. It's part of the evolution of the technology.
Also, the article is slightly wrong about Xenon headlamps, the whole system costs $3,000, but the bulbs themselves are only a few hundred bucks. Granted, anyone who owns a vehicle with those headlights is highly unlikely to be doing his own maintenance to begin with.
Another unforseen problem with the moron protection lights, beside that every one now ignores them.
Keep stupid people from the consequenses of their actions and all you do is dilute the gene pool.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
Also consider the amount of pollution that went into the air forty years ago to make that classic car. The process may have been simpler, but pollution control was an afterthought at best, in factories and in the cars. I won't buy the statement that it's more environmentally expensive to make and drive a zero-emissions car than it was to make and drive a '57 Belair.
Linux: The world's best text-adventure game.
Cars had better get safer, because drivers sure aren't.
But the Belair already exists. The damage is done, it cant be undone.
However, i think the best argument against worring about emissions of classics is that all the classics in the city don't produce as many pollutants as one old dump truck that is emempt from pollution laws becasue it pollutes so much.
A lot of car maintenance is still easy to do, perhaps even easier than before. Belts still need changed and a single serpentine belt is a godsend. Oil changes and filter changes are still the same. Changing disc brake pads is still pretty easy. Changing coolant, no big difference. And fuel injection means no more messing with carburetors and crazy vacuum hoses (thank God). If you are willing to get your hands dirty you can save a bunch of money. But as the article points out, a lot of stuff can't be "fixed" anymore.
A lot of people look under the hood and instantly get intimidated. My view is that despite how it looks, the basic parts are still there as they have been for decades. You just have to have the desire and interest to figure it out. With that said, I do see why people often don't want to mess with it. It takes work, you get dirty, and you can get hurt.
Tons of people open a computer case, see a complicated jumble of wires and chips, and say "I can never understand this". The average Slashdot reader thinks this stuff is easy. Same thing for cars. The bottom line is determining where you want to spend your time and efforts.
Personally, I do as much maintenance myself as I can. I even do some major repairs, but I make sure to do research before hand and decide if I'll be opening a can of worms doing it myself. So far I have been lucky and not really bit off more than I can chew. But then again I may have a better assesment of my abilities than a lot of do it yourselfers. I save a lot of money, and it is an excuse for me to buy new tools (i.e. toys).
sometimes old technology kicks butt. I've got a pair of 70s IH Scouts that I bought for a few thousand dollars years ago.
They're now over 25 years old, are driven every day, and never break down (well almost).
Advantages
- initial cost was very low
- labor is cheap & easy
- parts are very cheap and readily available
- most components are extra-heavy-duty, and so last hundreds of thousands of miles
- seven passenger convertible
- can use it to pull stumps on the weekend then commute topless during the week!
- gets better mileage than a new truck
- more fun to drive than most new trucks
Disadvantages
- no cup-holders
- no airbags
- no cup-holders
- loud on the highway
- even with extra emissions equipment, it isn't as clean or efficient as a new economy-oriented vehicle.
And the best part? After a day of listening to vendors describe how their shiney new product has made everything we're using from 2003 so obsolete...getting into a vehicle designed in the early sixties that still outperforms many new vehicles on the road. Screw disposable, build something amazing and folks will use it for decades.
Most, if not all, the technical advance in auto manufacturing has to do with government emissions regulations. People asked the government to demand better air quality and emissions from cars. This is the result. As always, you can't have it both ways (cheap easy to work on car vs. car that get's good mileage and has low emissions).
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
but that doesnt matter. the car has already been made. his point is that if he drives his classic, he wont need another car to be made for him.
will you buy the statement that its more environmentally expensive to make and drive a (near)zero-emissions car than to not make said car and drive another that was already made 40 years ago(thus eliminating the ability to prevent its manufacturing)? if i drive older cars with new fuel injected engines, i eliminate the need for new cars to be made for me. i think thats better.
whether the original statement that its cleaner to drive an old car than to make a new one is debateable. my point is that the cost of making the old car is irrelevant because it cant be eliminated while the cost of making a new one can.
use your turn signal! you people act like it's divulging information to the enemy
Why would you blame technology where blaming market economics makes more sense? Automakers are motivated by one thing, profits, and since it's more profitable to make disposable cars, that's the direction they will go. This has little to do with technology. So, perhaps you guys should quit titling your articles, "Technology makes cars disposable" and switch to a more honest assessment of the problem, which is "Market Economics makes cars disposable". In fact, the majority of the problems in the tech industry is related to the haphazard, profit motivated nature of market economics. It's a very short term kind of thinking, where somehow it makes sense to create a bunch of junk that only last 10 years. It's what I like to refer to as innovation of garbage, where the primary motivation is create products that head for the nearest landfill as quickly as possible so that another one can be sold. In a sane society, technology would be used to minimize effort, create efficient products that last, etc., in an insane society, technology is used to create extra work (extra jobs), products that fill land fills as quickly as possible, and in general, waste everyone's time. Yay capitalism. In the long run, we will need to come up with a better system than any that are around today, otherwise, it's only going to get worse.
It also pollutes the air more than any Hummer in production.
Neutrons are slippery little rascals, they can fool you. They can bounce and show up around corners you don't expect.
Lots of folks are driving around in 20-30 year old cars. Contrast with this: I recently had a 1995 Lincoln Town Car with one of those "state of the art" 4.6l modular v-8 engines go tits up. Spent a week screwing with it because I'm too cheap to pay the dealership to work on it - replaced a bunch of junkyard type parts - pip crank sensor ($20), ign module ($400 new, BTW), fuel pump, filter, etc. Nothing helped and I didn't have a compression gauge that would reach down to those spark plug holes buried deep in the heads.
So we hauled it 50 miles to the nearest dealership and left it with them - two days and $150 later I find out "it's dead." Simple as that - the fucking thing is dead. A new engine is thousands of dollars and even repairs are incredibly expensive because of all the labor involved to remove things like cylinder heads (all those valvetrain parts are now on the heads, so you have chains and gears and high pressure oil passages through head gaskets). And the engine has, like, 30PSI compression on all the cylinders but two. Why? Don't know and it'd cost several hundred dollars just to find out how extensive the damage is. Meanwhile a USED '95 Towne Car is like $3000, which means it's cheaper to send this one to the junkyard than to fix it.
End result? Now instead of having a ten year old car on the road after extensive repairs, it'll be a ten year old car permanently off the road. One less used automonbile in the chain to support with aftermarket parts, one less used car on the road to provide an alternative to a NEW CAR PURCHASE.
And that's where we're going. Just like those shiny new computers that die a month after their three year warranty runs out and cost as much to fix as buying a whole new computer, we'll end up with cars that are so expensive to fix it's cheaper to buy a NEW ONE. It's not about selling "parts" - manufacturers don't make nearly as much of cataloging, shipping and reselling a $400 part as they make off selling a whole new car. It's all part of planned obsolesence - not just of cars and computers, but an attempt to make obsolete "antiquated" concepts like quality and craftsmanship. Replace art with graphic design; intellect with economics.
I already treat mobo + CPU + RAM as a single package. Soldering them together wouldn't make much of a difference to me - assuming combinations I want would be available for sale.
If I want a new CPU (at leats 50% speed increase, otherwise it just isn't worth the trouble), I need to get a new mobo because the old mobo won't support the new CPU. And then I need to get new RAM as the old RAM isn't compatible with the new mobo. Or is just so slow that I wouldn't realize the speed increase from CPU change really.
At that point I think about moving the old comp as is to some supportive role (replace old firewall, fileserver, mailserver, or something). So, I'll look at the oldest comp to replace that with the one being replaced currently, and notice that the 7 year old case won't take the new mobo formfactor anymore, and would need new PSU anyway, and so on.
So, I end up buying pretty much a whole new computer unless I'm willing to ditch mobo + CPU + RAM that's at least twice as fast as the oldest one still in use.
You ever play FPS's? Picture the lag from the FPS while you're doing an intensive procedure like car repair or surgery, and imagine 300-400ms lag on the operation. Not a very cleanly done procedure. So no outsourcing yet, it has to be on roughly the same continent. Plus the robotics won't respond perfectly as a human hand does, the human operating the machine doesn't get tactile feedback, etc.
Karma: Excellent^(-t/Tau), Tau=Wittiness/Trollishness
Technology is expen$ive -- All those robots, controllers, lift-assist devices, etc. aren't cheap , plus they're not servicable by just anybody (a lot of heavy equipment sales contracts include exclusive service contracts -- where do you think the auto industry learned the trick in the first place? They're just aware that no ordinary consumer in their right mind would buy their car from someone who "held them over the barrel" on the maintenance!)
Tech people are expen$ive -- (this is where many of us come in) all that engineering (mechanical, electrical, and computational) expertise (not just directly employed by the auto industry but also employed by their suppliers, with the costs getting passed-on to you-know-where...) comes at a price; a high and ever-increasing one.
Doing business is expen$ive -- Government regulations, public expectations, employee relations, and a myriad of other lumps in the morass that has become business in America make for an extremely costly environment to manufacture just about anything. Let's say, for example, that the media gets ahold of the fact that your automobile company's R&D department used an "open source" CAD system to develop your latest release's state-of-the-art passive restraint system. Regardless of how you or I view "open source" software, the majority of the "unwashed masses" out there still feel more comfortable with some big company's "deep pockets" standing behind a product than a dedicated cadre of nearly fanatical enthusiasts, so voilà, instant class-action suit (and then we're not talking about the majority of the "unwashed masses" out there any more, just a carefully selected 12 of them...)
As a result of the points above (and a good many more than can be typed here with one hand while I eat my lunch with the other), the costs for equipment, supplies, software, education, facilities, even the electricity and water for nearly any major manufacturing facility are driven up, up and UP. "Cost"?!?! Yeah.
The major issue with high-tech components in cars is they can't be repaired, only replaced. If your transmission breaks, a low pay tech can figure that out and make the appropriate repairs, or get new parts then send the current ones off for rebuilding.
If your ABS computer breaks, you need a new ABS computer and the old one is scrap. Not really hard to diagnose because of the onboard computer diangostics, not hard to fix. But it is expensive as hell. It leads to a market in designing interfaces for the onboard diagnostic computers, but that's an outsourced job assuming an American company is even making the interface to begin with.
"Well, she moved to a location where they are illegal."
I find this hard to believe.... Is turning on your regular headlights during the day also illegal there? I drive with my lights on 24/7. IMHO daytime running lights are one of the simplest and most effective safety options available, and it's a pity they aren't more common. What could possible be bad about your car being easier to see?
If God had had a computer it would have taken him 7 months to create the earth...if he even bothered to do it at all.
Hell, ask an IT geek to weld some steel and see how sound that weld is. Like technology getting more sophisticated will some how spell the doom of mechanics. Mechanics will change and evolve just like all the IT guys getting replaced with off-shore workers.
Setting aside the landfill situation for a moment. Why would you want to make things more difficult, more miserable, and at the same time consume more resources. This to me seems like a win, lose, lose, lose situation.
1. Automakers win.
2. Workers lose since they have to work harder.
3. The environment loeses since there is more junk being created.
4. More resources are consumed to make those cars, not to mention all the extra driving that is done. etc.
A friend of mine wondered how we would justify feeding people for free if technology replaced their jobs. My response is that in a sane society, you would simply weigh the cost of the gas that they would consume driving to work everyday, vs the output of a machine doing that job. Then you would look at the overall budget and realize that it would be cheaper just to let them do whatever they want and not come to work, than to make them burn up several gallons of gas (and other resources) a week driving their Ford Explorer to work, all so that they can be treated like a robot. There are a lot of jobs like that, jobs that aren't really needed, working in factories that are beyond obsolete, but are kept around to keep a lid on the violence that would surely ensue if half of all Americans were suddenly jobless. The problem with the current situation is that we are burning up a lot of resources to keep the illusion of market economics alive. We could just admit that it's all a sham, be done with it, and simplify things greatly, minimizing work, resource consumption, the whole ball of wax. The problem is, giving the little people all that free time would be dangerous to those in power. So, instead, the illusion must be maintained.
Cars won't be sitting around piled up ten to the dozen or in landfills, they're going to be snapped up by entities who want the materials.
wow you are wrong.
those "scrap cars" are a goldmine for smart mechanics and car owners. those $3000.00 XENON HId headlamps can be bought from a junkyard out of a car that was in a nasty side impact or rear impact accident for $100-200 dollars. Computer for that Pontiac? $250.00 compared to $1500.00 at the dealer. how about simple stuff like the alarm keyfobs and electronic ID keys? the fealer quoted me $155.00 for a new key + alarm/entry keyfob. I was able to get a working keyfob + the secret proceedure to get it working at a local scrapyard for $15.00 and he was selling the key blanks for $10.00 each and had them cut at a local keyshop for $5.00
car scrapyards are worth much more as a parts source than as ground up scrap meatal, rubber and plastic.
In fact right now with the "down" economy.. the scrapyards with cars stacked up are making the most money and their business is booming as people are stretching their dollar every way they can.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
As a sysadmin/netadmin/IT/MIS guy all of my career, I've always described my job as being not too much different from a mechanic, except I stay less clean and I apparently get paid less.
And working on my 1969 Baracuda is MUCH more fun lately. Maybe I should change jobs...
It also pollutes the air more than any Hummer in production.
If the Hummers just barely meet federal standards, then no. I've had numerous '80s cars that tested to be well within the federal guidelines for new cars. Just because it is old does not mean that it is dirty.
Learn to love Alaska
Yes, manufacturing, maintaining and selling cars is expensive. That is three issues. But you forgot to add the developing of new cars.
We (the consumers) demand cars with ever more advanced technologies installed. Those technologies don't just appear out of the air - they are developed just like any software are developed. Development costs! The car companies have to gain profit for this development overhead - and the scheduled maintinance checks seem right on target for that.
Depends on what you mean by "sports car".
Gear boxes and engines are spent routinely at the quarter mile strip. Every suspension part that can break, will break on a rally course.
A true sports car should allow you to operate it to the breaking point, it should not limit your envelope for your safety or to keep you from breaking something. It should let you outspeed your brakes, it should let you oversteer, and it should let you put moure torque into the drivetrain than it can handle.
That comes with the understanding that if you break it by doing so, it's your fault, of course.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Electricity has a natural price cap: about where personal power generation becomes feasible. I can't drill for oil in my yard; I can install solar panels on my roof (for enough money).
This is irrelevent.
The only thing that counts is that the CEO gets the fattest bonus and golden parachute, and, accessorly, that the company stock rises as high as possible.
Everything else is fiddlestick poppycock.Totally disagree. The terrorists in Al-Qaida and the Palestinian groups have made it widely known that they hate the Jewish people. Most of their terrorist acts these days are because of American support of Isreal. Bin Laden's biggest motivator was that the dirty white American christians were in his precious holy land. They're intolerant, racist, anti-semitic bastards.
Popular opinion seems to be that the primary cause for this ignorance and violence is lack of proper education and lack of gainful employment. Since the poor people have nothing to do and can only learn from fundamentalist Muslim "clerics," they become terrorists. You don't see any rich kids blowing themselves up to kill innocents that they have never met yet hate passionately.
Anyway, back to oil. Not every middle-eastern nation has oil to sell (or even use). The US has a large amount of undrilled oil but it's hard to get to and too expensive to drill right now, for the most part. One of my best friends owns oil rights to some property in Wellsville NY and used to spend every day out in the oil fields. It's dirty, rigorous work, and although you can make money drilling oil you can't make money paying someone else to drill it for you. In Iraq and Saudi-Arabia the oil is easy to get to and close to the surface; in NY and PA, the oil is far down and underneath a lot of bedrock. Then there are environmental regulations and laws and taxes and special equipment costs for the deep drilling, etc.
Oddly, most of the laborers in Qatar (another oil-rich country) are foreigners from neighboring poor countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan where there is no money, no oil, no work and no hope. Even the people of Qatar tend to discriminate against "local foreigners" (see National Geographic from 2003... er... last spring? It has an arabian guy on the cover). The culture of the middle east is simply an intolerant one.
-JemSo, their point is legitimate. They kill to regain their land. Why do they have to call the rest of the world "infidels" and hide behind god whenever they can? Their position would get much more sympathy if they didn't use religion in such a manner in my humble opinion.
We should have been
So much more by now
Too dead inside
To even know the guilt
Aside from the power used, it's a cyclic process with minimal wastage. The rubber, plastic, metal can be reused for whatever purpose necessary. It has to be economically viable if these companies are willing to lay out so much green for these 'car eaters'.
Wow.... Uhhh, yeah. So you've got a Honda Civic or some other piece of junk which only lasts 7 years. You crush it, transport it, shred it, smelt it, transport the ingot, re-melt for cold rolling, roll it, stamp it, weld the stampings back together, paint it, and sell it as a new car.
Okay... Why don't you try looking up the specific heat of iron and the energy content of coal. Sit back and tell me how many tons of coal you have to burn each time you melt an equivalent quantity of iron and steel to a car.
It's horrifically wasteful and terrible for the environment. In fact, you'd have to drive a poorly-tuned old gas guzzler for 22 years (on top of its regular lifespan) to make up the environmental damage caused by recycling it.
Buy a good and *durable* car that is easy to work on - not some Japanese tinfoil crap. Wash it and wax it every week. Change the oil every 4,000km or three months. Keep the engine tuned up, and when it needs rings and bearings, do it. And drive the thing for as long as you can - I'm thinking 40+ years. The newer more environmentally-"friendly" cars aren't.
My automotive stable includes a 1970 Dodge Dart with a Slant-6. Fits my 6'4" tall body comfortably, starts every morning with the legendary Chrysler gear-reduction "dive bomber" starter motor and a satisfying click-click-click of the solid lifters, gets 28MPG and blows as clean on the emissions test as a 1990-spec. And forget the $3000 HID headlights; mine are $4.99 each at Wal*Mart.
Can't buy a new car like that these days.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
This is so popular to say, but I totally disagree. Calculus doesn't change. Data Structures doesn't change. Formal Languages doesn't change. The fundamentals of good software design do not change.
There's nothing you learn in Computer Science that you can't teach yourself.
Oh, I agree with that -- same with nuclear engineering, accounting, writing, and musical performance. So what? Many people go to school because it gives them a head start in their chosen career. Many employers will throw out your resume without a degree. Most people want to be an 'employee' for a while before they become an 'employer'. Ergo, get a degree. The smartest, though, go to school so they can saturate themselves in an environment of their choice, to study with the brightest people in their field. You can't get that by locking yourself in your bedroom with 'MySQL for Dummies'. An architect or artist gets critiqued a thousand times for their work before they're paid to design their first building or play their first concert. Why should a software project or IT infrastructure be any different?
he was telling me that most of the people running such businesses don't have degrees
Yep, I too know a lot of uneducated IT people making big money doing mediocre work. If that makes you happy, by all means -- but I'm glad to see that you're not giving up college. There's more there than you're giving it credit for, or you're going to the wrong uni.
As far as I'm concerned, if you cannot pay for a car in three years, you don't need to own it.
I was talking to a buddy of mine who got laid off and ended up selling cars for a short time. He never ceased to be shocked by idiots with good credit making $30k/yr working retail buying $35k SUVs with 6 year loans!
By the time they finished buying accessories and ripoff extended warranties, these people could have bought a more reasonable car new with the same payment and a 4 year loan!
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
The problem is when one of the electronics systems on your car goes out in 15 years then, as with a PC of that age, you're most likely screwed and will have to scrap the car. The point a lot of people here have made is that if older, less fuel efficient cars can last much longer - because out of production metal parts are much easier to replace than out of production ICs - then how much better off are we with newer cars in terms of saving resources and preventing pollution?
Personally, I can see the benefit of having the powertrain with electronic control but I prefer to have computers limited to that area. From my perspective, the question is "Why do I need this to have computer input?" rather than "Why shouldn't we put computers in everything?" E.g., cars coming with variable power steering almost always get poor reviews for feel and generally can't match the feel of a Lotus Elise's steering rack with no power steering at all (or the Focus RS/Ford GT steering rack with power assist). These days mostly useless, occasionally detrimental, computer interference in cars seems to be a main selling gimmick. It not only can hurt the driving experience but it will definitely hurt the cars' long term usefulness. Just look at BMW iDrive - the bane of many a driver, already having at least one instance of trapping an occupant inside their own car until a passerby saw the situation and broke a window to let them out. Imagine how unmaintainable that system is going to be in 20 years.
On the other hand, I'm sure that a new car produces a lot of pollution before it's even started -- because of the manufacturing processes (plastics, steel, aluminium, etc.). (I've even heard criticism of requiring catalytic converters because the metallurgy produces a lot of pollution -- although I personally believe this comes from cranks who think that catalytic converters reduce their power and "performance"). And of course disposing of old cars produces pollution too.
So where's the balance?
I think this article needs to calm down from its panic mode. Disposable cars will not be the result of making cars more expensive to build. I don't think that the author has ever dealt with an insurance company.
The car mentioned throughout a good part of the article is BMW. I've owned two BMWs in the past. I also had a friend who owned a BMW. We always assumed that if one of us wrecked our car, the insurance company would total it out. It turned out to be true in his case. In my case, they didn't total it out but there was only paint damage. (Both of my BMWs died peacefully of old age.)
My point is that insurance companies will not gamble on a few thousand dollars when they can just give you the car's current value and still make money selling the car off to a surplus broker. Any car with a high resale value will a target for premature totalling out, even without expensive components because:
$pay_you_off_money - $get_from_wholesale_buyer > $cost_to_fix_car
I can gaurantee you that if BMWs start getting totaled out over airbag costs too frequently, somebody is going to start manufacturing (relatively) cheap aftermarket airbags so that car dealers can snatch up these "totaled" cars from the insurance companies and turn a nice profit reselling them. If not, then it will be the BMW dealerships who snatch these cars back up and refit them with airbags since they get a break in price.
Also, I imagine that somebody is going to figure out how to fashion a steel bracket to hang their radiator from in new F-150s once theirs breaks and they learn that a factory replacement costs $300.
And don't forget that all of these new expensive components will come down in price over time and some car companies will not use the parts until they are cheap. Just look at Fuel Injection, Power Steering, Anti-Lock Brakes, etc...
I've seen the same report that you probably did. And it does make a lot of sense and a lot of the problem probably is explainable by the tendency of humans to look at anything new or different - we're innately curious and anything unexpected gets investigated, whether or not it's detrimental to do so. Odd light of a strange color (xenons aren't really all that blue - they just look like they are compared to the yellowish tinge of filament-based lamps) falls into the category of "strange, needs to be looked at, is it going to hurt me or can I ignore it?".
... xenons and HIDs are the same thing. Gas discharge lights often incorporate xenon-filled capsules in their bulbs, which is why they are commonly called "xenon headlamps" and "high intensity discharge" is the technical term for the most common method used to create the brilliant arc. (xenon/HID lamps don't have filaments.)
This gradually changes over time as a new object becomes more and more common, and in fact, given enough time, what was once the norm later becomes unusual - who turns their head to look anymore at a diesel locomotive as a train goes by? It's the chuffing, steaming, pumping smoky steam locomotives that make us stop and stare these days. But ask your grandmother or grandfather which is more unusual, and they might tell you that it's the diesels that are "newfangled contraptions".
In other words, at some point sufficiently far in the future, most cars will have blue-tinged headlamp beams and we will actually look more at halogen headlamps because a car with the old-style halogens will be a classic collector's item, or just sufficiently different from the typical design practices of that time. It's already starting to happen - you can get HID headlamps on cars that are very close to entry level.
I have fog lamps on my car (though they are OEM units) and I plan to get a HID retrofit - they're not available from the factory on this car in the US - since I've spoken with people who have HIDs on their cars and looked at the cars myself and found that they do increase visibility quite a bit. However, I have done several things that most people DO NOT DO (whether through ignorance, laziness, or "it works better if I ignore that advice") which leads to some, but not all, of the current furor:
- Headlamps follow the European standard - they are engineered to focus light on the road and not scatter it around like DOT headlamps do; yes, that's right -- outdated lighting standards are largely to blame!
- The headlamps have been properly aimed and the aim checked, including looking at the car at night from the position of an oncoming driver - this should be done from time to time as vibration and road conditions can knock the lights out of alignment
- The headlights are equipped with electrical levelers that allow them to be aimed downward if the back of the car is weighed down with a heavy load - this is a must-have in Europe if you have HIDs, but not in the US - again, outdated requirements
The car also has fog/driving lights and a rear fog light.
- The front and rear fog lights are only used in inclement weather or in areas with little lighting, not left on all the time to look nice
- Yellow bulbs are used so they actually do what they should - i.e. pierce fog (and yes, they do work.)
Oh, by the way
i am a soviet space shuttle
"Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should...."
A computer can more optimally adjust the ignition timing, fuel to air ratios, accessory loading, etc, than merely mechanical components. However, that doesn't mean that a computer controlled engine is immune to failure; it depends on the ethics and design principles of the engineers who built it. That said, computers have definitely improved the driving experience of the average driver.
Because the computer runs the engine, changing ignition timing or fuel delivery is as simple as replacing an EPROM or (possibly?) uploading new software. But more, some engine electronics enable capabilities that mechanical systems could _never_ provide. For example:
There's a saying among Chevy enthusiasts, "Those who'd rather push a Ford than drive a Chevy usually do...." Yes, it is true that you can fix vintage vehicles much more easily than computerized ones, and if you buy one, you might just end up fixing it more often than you'd like. What it comes down to is that at a certain point, it is going to cost more to keep an older vehicle running than it would to buy a new one.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Even if your car remains accident-free, some of today's high-tech parts can leave you with big repair bills. The celebrated find for car thieves these days is xenon high-intensity-discharge headlights. They can cost up to $3,000 each. That's just for the part, not labor.
If a car costs $30k, a pair of headlights is 20% of the cars value. WTF?!?!? There has to be some serious (and I mean SERIOUS) retail markup on those things, or else the cost reflects not just the bulb but the entire headlight assembly as well.
"Activating" a headlight assembly from the manufacturer after a repair? What, are these things made by Microsoft? (had to say it, sorry)
I used to think it might be neat to get a set of these...not anymore.
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
Some of this stuff sounds like auto manufacturers are trying to make sure replacemnt parts can only be ordered from the manufacturer. It the same bullsh*t printer companies were trying to do by sticking smart chips into their replacement printer cartridges. $3000 headlights that the manufacturer has to "activate" are a total scam.
Of course, the pollutants and resulting fire probably killed in that one instance more animal life than will every be killed by thirteen Hummer dealerships' worth of cars being driven off-road.
The ELF has done things like this before. They burned down an apartment complex being built near my home to protest "urban sprawl." Say what?
1. The apartment complex was being built in the middle of the city, nowhere near the city limits.
2. The smoke and ash from the fire poisoned the air in a 2-mile radius for the next two days.
3. Any wildlife that had been living near the construction was killed by the heat from a 4-story all-wood bonfire. We could feel the heat from half a mile away as if we were right next to our fireplace; windows on that side of our apartment complex melted from the heat. You think any nearby animals survived the blaze?
4. What do you think the owner of the property did? Do you think he saw the error of his ways? He ordered more wood. More dead trees. What else could he do? (The families you say that are now "safe in their midsize sedans" did not reconsider their purchases. They went to other dealers, or waited longer. They didn't change their behavior because of some arsonist's rationalization.)
5. There had been coyotes, rabbits and rattlesnakes living there before construction began. They were still there after construction began. They weren't there after the fire.
6. I hated the construction of that apartment complex for the noise, dirt, and turning a nice desert hillside between me and the interstate into one of urban construction. Once the ELF burned down the apartment complex, however, I felt sympathy for the people building it. I now cheer on the construction. This is significant; the ELF's actions not only have considerable harm on the environment, they turn hearts and minds AGAINST the environmental cause, and towards supporting developers. Besides, there are no more animals there; the ELF saw to that.
The ELF does more to harm the environment and environmental policy than the very people they seek to harm. What's more, their acts of arson turn people's hearts against the environmental cause. Given that, I find it difficult to believe that the ELF really believes in the cause they claim to promote.
The ELF needs to admit that they just like burning things, and stop the pseudo-environmental posing. That is the best thing they can do for the environment at this point.