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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: $3,000 each), not to mention the knowledge base required (over 1 million pages, available only electronically vs. 100 pages 20 years ago) and a labor shortage. From the article: 'Specialist technicians need advanced reading, problem-solving, and basic electronics skills.... The best people to find are those who have worked in the IT [information technology] industry.'"
We've got plenty of resources and landfills with tons of space. These are perfect. I hope they also get less than 1 mile to the gallon, because efficiency sucks! Yeah!
goes faster than your new car, handles better, has a real transmission, and is easy and cheap to work on...
power steering is for pussies.
Before long people will be sending thier cars to India to get them fixed ;-)
And if you thought that was boring you obviously havn't read my Journal ;-)
I'd rather have an older, less advanced car that I actually have a chance of fixing. Who needs all this new car technology anyways?
I work as a car stereo installer, we installed a high end stereo into a new lexus, the stereo was defective and ended out shorting a circuit, for some reason the computer that was tied in with the stereo (for door chimes I think) got fried aswell., Ended up costing the shop 700$ 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.
...Pintos, for example. Problem with them was that they disposed of the owners too...
--- Welcome my son, welcome to the machine.
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.
Another bonus: a back-yard mechanic can work on it...
Thank you! Thank you! That would be post 2000! w00t!
The best people to find are those who have worked in the IT [information technology] industry.
Woohoo - IT can people can finally have jobs again!
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
Ahhhh so THAT is why the spaceship had an RS232 port.... everything had to be accessible via a Mac to enable proper support.
And I thought it was rubbish....
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
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.
Nothing to do with bikes, but are companies investigating the ability to recycle cars in a fairly efficient fashion? Is it even possible to do so? It seems that this would prevent the Grand Canyon in the US from filling up with old H2s and whatnot but still not cost a ton like repairing complex cars.
Anyone heard anything about this?
True story.
Will there be less ride pimping the future? This concerns me, because I think all cars need shoe racks, waterfalls, and Playstation's (Whatever the current version) in the back. You also can't have enough DVD players or speakers in a car.
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...'
This author is crazy, its easy to fix a car, just need a roll of duct tape.
I remember a time when it was easy to get under the hood of your car, do tune-ups, and perform other ordinarily easy maintenance functions ... without having to take the car to a maintenance shop or forbid, a dealer! I've seen these changes occur slowly to the point where it requires special tools (and skills) just to do simple things. I don't even try anymore ... I've seen it in our shop where the technicians are sometimes baffled by problems because they can't get specs from the manufacturer. I've actually had to wait months to get replacement parts for a Ford Explorer because the car is considered too new for generic parts! Go figure. So is this any surprise?
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.
The other thing about that mount is that if the truck catches fire and it is hot enough to ignite the magnesium - ouch!
A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
strong != flexible.
it's sorta like buying a new PC if you're a typical (windows) user: you get all manner of doodads you don't really need, b/c that's all anybody is making anymore.
ed
a) If the car repair industry requires IT gues, well heck, better for us hacker and hobbyists out there!
b) While the cars become more complex, the tools to fix them become better. Nowadays a mechanic plugs a laptop into your car and the car tells him/her "the fuel pump is 10% off, should I readjust?". 15 years ago mechanics would do something closely resembling forensics to figure out which wire was fried. This is done today in seconds.
Clearly some complex parts are hard to repair, but instead of dumping them, export them to third world countries where they will be miracolously repaired....
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...
the 1990 Volvo 240 wagon, and sleeps better at night knowing that my insurance company and the police can't download my driving history from a black box, either.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
...out of wood. And replaced horses with engines. Can't grow one anymore. Gotta buy a whole new one.
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.
Entertainment while you wait for the ambulance to arrive. That's not a bug, it's a feature.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
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.
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
"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.
Um...Am I the only one who thinks there are probably numerous reasons why this is a bad idea/statement? Disposable Car? People in other countires must love our frame of mind. If a brand new BMW (as in story) costs more to replace the air bags than the car, than somebody please, sell me a BMW sans airbags. I'll throw in a five point harness, reinforce the subframe, and sign a waiver. I think I have a rain check for a mid-life crisis around here somewhere....
No... really... disposable car = huh? Recycled car / rethink industry as a whole = hah!
besides, does anyone here in the IT industry really want to figure out why the 2010 Ford Festiva is having a hard time finding drivers (pun?) for it's various parts?...
It is ironic hearing this news from the auto industry. Replacement parts for cars have been notoriously marked up. I went in to purchase a knob for my car's A/C (a plain old molded plastic knob about the size of a golf ball) and they wanted to charge me $12 for it. After a bit of cajoling on my behalf, I was able to get it for cost: $0.79.
I doubt that the parts themselves are too expensive to replace that makes some repairs seem unfeasible (after all, the automakers get parts so cheap in bulk), but rather it has been realized that they cannot add that extra 1000% markup on a per part basis, so why not make the consumer buy a whole new car? (where the markup is still 200-500% from cost)
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.
Basic solid mechanics.
Strength is related to how much force a material can take before it yields (bends plastically).
Brittleness is a function of toughness (ductility), or how much impact a material can take before it breaks.
For most materials, strength and ductility are inversely proportional. It takes some fancy alloying and creative manufacturing to create a material that has both.
For instance, a lot of titanium alloys are very strong, but also very brittle.
He took a duck to the face at 250 knots.
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
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.
Cars have been very hard to maintain for years, well before the avent of EFI, computers and all.
Engine bays are so small these days (either because the car is a compact or because the emphasis is put on the roomiest interior possible) that one often has to drop the entire engine to change things like a timing chain or an alternator.
I have an econobox here that I brought to a small garage because I have a sump gasket leak, and the guy said that he'd take so much time just getting the engine out and back in that it's just not worth fixing. (On a side note, modern cars are supposed to be environmentally friendly, but cars that are left leaking oil or plain junked because they're not economically worth fixing don't seem very green to me).
Anyway, the short is, on my old '69 Charger, I can pass full size regular tool around the engine and still have spare room to work, while I'd need very expensive, specialized tools, and very flexible cervicals to work on an econobox. And that's not counting the electronics at all...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
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!
If working, playing or otherwise surviving in the PC world has taught the Slashdot community any lessons at all, it is that the matured concept of standardized modules combined with competition can lower costs incredibly.
Auto manufacturers can go a LONG way to lower the cost of cars and car repair by creating a variety of standardized systems. While it's true that to some extent that style and creativity would be hampered by the inclusion of modular standards for automobiles, the cost issue can be quickly and effectively addressed.
Consider the various levels of standardization that we already enjoy. There are standardized tool sizes. There are standardized bays for electronics in the dash such as radios, CD and even DVD players. The incredibly thin margins on the still surviving PC components market proves out that making automobile components even more standard and modularized could easily address the concern over the rising cost of automotive repair.
In many ways, if the concept were more widely addressed, a great number of matters could be addressed such as handling recalls of various components and even upgrades.
This could open the door to smaller manufacturers to get into the third party parts business... which is exactly why the idea will probably never be realized.
I guess there must be consumer demand... Last year my wife and I were all set to purchase our first new car (we're 35 and consider cars a horrid waste of money), but we simply could not find a "base" model. Everything has power windows, locks, CD player (actually wanted that).
God forbid you want a car that doesn't have all the crap or *GASP* not an automatic transmission (I'll take the lower gas milage and increased service problems for $800 alex!").
Anway, when we could only find ONE manual, base moodel subaru Forester in the entire STATE and we didn't like that color, we bought a used one at an auction threw a friend for $7k less, 2 years old 28K miles (this is why I don't buy new!).
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
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.
As an owner of a VW Beetle (wife's), I thought I'd be happy to own something that should have been as easy (and cheap) to fix as my 1983 Rabbit. Recently, it ran rough, hard to keep idle, stalled under load. After an oxygen sensor ($180), a mass air flow sensor ($60), a new set of spark plug wies ($120), she was running as good as it gets. These are just *part* prices - No labor. It's insane. This is a damn 4 cylinder, most of em should pass emissions pretty easily. Squeezing the last drop of horsepower out of an engine had made it nothing but costly and unreliable when something breaks. I used to pull and rebore/rebuild engines back in the day, got a BsCsci, and even I'm hesitant/reluctant/afraid to touch anything on the emissions/electrical/ecm system. WTF?
What really gets me going is that I took it to VW to get the ECm re-flashed because emissions is coming up for me. Told em to do warranty repair/recall work only. They did it, but they "checked the car" because it's been a while since it's been to the VW dealerships. They found that the coolant and brake line fluid's PH balance was off (I can't even make this up!) They were more than happy to perform the fluid flush ($220).
HEY! While you're at it check my headlight fluid and don't skimp on the halogen fluid!
Goddamn I hate these new cars.
-B
Most of these cars get "written off", bought by salvage specialists, and then rebuilt using parts from other wrecked cars (which are also "too expensive" to repair). It makes perfect economic sense to do so. But the way the laws and insurance companies work, it's almost impossible for the original owner to do this. It pretty much has to be done through a salvage title.
The rise in parts prices isn't limited to brand new cars... I've seen some normal maintenance items (belts, filters, etc.) on my 1992 car rise by a factor of three in the past few years (and yes, the new models use those same parts!)
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!
Strong will tell you what it takes for magnesium to bend--a lot. Brittle will tell you what magnesium will do when it bends--it breaks.
Think of the old super ball in liquid nitrogen trick. It doesn't take much to deform a super ball at room temp. But it isn't brittle and won't break. Freeze a super ball and it gains strength--you probably won't be able to deform it with your hands. But throw it down or hit it with a hammer and it will shatter. It becomes brittle.
This trend is also driving mechanics out of business. It used to be that a car would generate serious $$$ in terms of annual scheduled maintenance.
So consider the plight of independent mechanics - not only does it now require the equivalent of a college degree's education to understand most cars, but it's also less rewarding because there are fewer opportunities for maintenance.
This is a double-hit.
--Pat / zippy@cs.brandeis.edu
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.
This could be a good sign for the prospect of robotic cars. I expect that when self-driving cars hit the streets in a few years there will be a decrease in car buying. For one thing they'll be expensive. For another, why let the car sit in the parking lot after it drives you to work, when it can go back home and ferry other family members around. Net result: more one-car families.
Next step is why let the car sit in the home garage at all? Instead of buying the car just subscribe to a taxi service -- a fleet of robotic cars runs around picking up riders continuously.
The fact that cars in general are getting too expensive to maintain could give an encentive for this pattern. I think in 30 years very few people will actually own their own cars. My house will be have a lot more space when I don't need a garage!
I'm a volunteer firefighter and we did get a warning about the Ford pickups and their magnesium parts. Probably will never be a problem, but it would really suck to have a fire that we really need to put out that we couldn't dowse with water.
A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
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
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!)
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
Cars are major investments, especially in the USA where finding a reasonably desirable one will run you 20k easy. My point here is, this means insurance companies will be totalling more cars after accidents rather than repairing them. The rule of thumb is, if the repairs cost more than the car blue books as, they total it. Cars depreciate the second you drive them off the lot but repairing them has gotten more and more expensive. This will lead to much higher insurance premiums for EVERYONE.
This is only going to become more of a problem as more hybrids are released. Your average mechanic is what he is because he grew up working on cars with his dad/friends etc.. It's very much a lifestyle worn as a badge of honor by the blue collar salt of the earth crowd. They no more want to use a computer than many of us want to get our hands dirty under the hood of our cars.
The only saving grace here is that repairs seem to be less frequent on newer automobiles. I have less than 30k miles on my 2000 Ford F250 and have yet to need any under the hood work.
I hate to think on what I've spent on software/hardware tools over the years. At least mechanics' tools don't suffer from bit-rot. (That Megamax C for the Atari ST, what was I thinking?)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
The problem with a lot of the expensive components is they have to be installed by the dealer, or somebody with the diagnostic tools to properly get something working. When the headline blew on my passat, I tried replacing the bulb. It didn't work, and the fuses were all good. So then I took it in to the dealer, who charged me for replacing the headlight. Thing is, he did something with his computer to get the passat to "accept" the new headlight
And it gets worse. I found I could buy tires for wholesale + shipping at some site online. So I bought them, but having them mounted on my rims and on the car cost an arm and a leg. Why? Because the "free mounting and balancing" at Firestone dealerships is only for tires you buy there, and it came to an arm and a leg -- more than I saved on the tires.
Well...I confess that I didn't read the article yet - but I think they are talking about an expensive manufacturer supplied part on a high end car. I read a story about Porsches (if I recall correctly) having their headlights stolen very frequently, because they were easy for a thief to pull out quickly, and the new ones from the dealer would run an owner about 3K+ each...makes a nice little used parts business for the thief.
If anything here is inaccurate, I am just going by memory - but you get the gist....it's the high end import cars with expensive OEM parts.
"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.
Just an example... my sister bought a car that came with daytime running lights (DRL). Well, she moved to a location where they are illegal. Too bad the mechanics can't figure out how to disable them....
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.
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.
The first car I actually bought was a brand new, just off the assembly line 1983 VW Bug (made in Mexico and not available in the States). It was a little more "hi-tech" than the ones from the 60's (it had an electronic radio instead of a manual one) but it was a tank. Nothing could stop it; it could take all kinds of abuse (and believe me I put it through all kinds of abuse); didn't care about weather, roads, anything. Hell, when the battery would die ('cause someone would constently forget to turn the headlights off) just put it in second, give it a little push and pop the clutch. Man, that was a car.
--
If I actually could spell I'd have spelled it right in the first place.
No such thing.
Ductile means that when you exceed the yeild strenght of the material, the material flows plastically to give significant displacement before it fractures. Think clay or silly putty.
Brittle means that when you exceed the yeild strenght, there is very little or no plastic deformantion before failure. Think ice.
Glass and mild steel both have similar yield strengths. Glass failure is brittle, while the steel is ductile.
Yield and Ultimate strength of a material and ductility/brittlness are completely unrelated and independent of each other.
Cars had better get safer, because drivers sure aren't.
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
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.
The only area in which cars have not become lower maintenance is oil changes. You still need to change the oil every 3,000 miles. But aside from that, most cars today require very little maintenance compared to their simpler predecessors.
Yes, cars are more complicated, but for the first time in history, machines with moving parts are more reliable than those without. The average PC is less reliable than the average car, and given a choice, I think most people would rather have a reliable vehicle than a simple one requiring more maintenance.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
1 - it keeps the dealers service department in business.
2 - it makes customers more likely to just buy a new car, rather than spend 10 grand on repairs as the car gets out of warranty.
Scary part is that people who want options are going to be out of luck soon. Between people not supporting parts for 'real' cars, and government mandates for features such as black boxes...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
>> The best people to find are those who have worked in the IT [information technology] industry.
Man I'd go back to that industry in a heart beat if they'd pay me anywhere near as well as I get paid for software dev... All this sitting in a sunless little dungeon room staring at a CRT all day is for the birds.
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.
Parts that are often stolen are quickly adapted with chips by the manufacturer at the demand of the insurance companies, who will otherwise jack up rates on those vehicles which may result in a subsequent loss of sales. They've been doing this to audio equipment for years, so I wouldn't be surprised to see this happening with the lights or any other high-theft-rate item.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
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.
A recent newspaper article talked about all the bad financial decisions people are making on cars; really long term loans (8-10 years), negative equity transactions, and so on. The car industry keeps this going because they need to keep plants running and cars selling to keep the whole machine turning, and consumers are dumb ass enough to keep paying massive lease or loan payments.
How do we know that the next step in this consumer financial treadmill isn't "subscription cars"? When it breaks beyond a certain level, you go to the dealership, turn in your car and get into a newly refurbished one. No hassle for the dealer to figure out complicated parts or systems, just basic fluid level maintenence.
Auto mechanics become few and far between; the use/broken/damaged cars are shipped by train/ship to $third_world where they're parted out and reassembled to be returned to dealers. The truly bad parts are either scrapped for base metals or, if modular, further disassembled for their own reassembly.
At this point, we don't have mechanics with any more skill than the droolers at Rapid-Oil and the high value technician jobs really have been essentially outsourced to a third world country. For the US, Mexico would make more sense than India due to simple geography and the size/weight of a car; but it's not improbable that labor rates in India/China/Philipines would be low enough that transhipping cars overseas would make sense.
Technology is expen$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.
Won't more complex cars provide additional oppurtunity for the "lower class"?
It seems to me that as the requirements to fix the cars increase, so might the pay, providing better jobs for more people.
Could just be my take, but I am a civil egalitarian, so I am willing to put with extra complexity and cost to put decent person to work at a decent wage.
I am a novice mechanic who has owned and worked on (to some degree) 12 cars. Some of them I ran into the ground, some of them I sold, some of them I ran into other cars. So that was my introduction to learning how to work on cars - buying beaters. About the most complicated thing I've done so far was a head swap on a SOHC toyota motor, or at least I participated in it :P Actually, doing the oil pan on my 240SX without removing the motor was kind of an odyssey all on its own, involving dropping the cross member...
Now, I'm in air conditioning class, have taken an auto body class and an auto paint class, and have been doing that kind of stuff for some time, and as well I have a car that I work on somewhat regularly and my girlfriend has another which I'm going to pull the transmission from soon as I get a sunny weekend. Then, I'm going to be getting a 1962 chevy pickup which is going to need a ton of work. So I know a little something about working on older cars.
The first big thing to make it hard to work on modern cars was the ECU. Code readers came out as a result. It's true that you can't get the really cool codes out of the computer without knowing all the manufacturer-specific information, like the position of mode doors, the values of sensors, and so on. However, the documentation still tells you how to go about testing all that stuff with nothing more complicated than a DVOM. Any shop without a DVOM is no shop at all, so that's no big deal.
Finally let us discuss the price of intensely expensive individual parts. This is a scam by the dealership to make money. However any car with $3,000 headlights (for example - The headlights on a 1991 Acura NSX are $500 each just for the reflectors is pretty much meant to be dealer-serviced-only. Basically all top end cars are meant to be serviced only by the dealer, but no automaker I'm aware of makes cars which are unfeasible to service in any old shop.
With that said, the repair garage is on its way out. Oh sure it'll be many decades before it happens but progress is relentless. Eventually everyone will want to trade in their internal combustion monsters (except for those people doing motorsports, did you know you can run methanol in ordinary engines with minimal conversion? it's high octane, too) for fuel cell, battery-powered, flywheel-powered, or other alternative-energy source vehicles because they will be both cheaper (to operate) and more reliable. As the part count drops the vehicles become easier to repair; Eventually the dealers will end up designing the parts to be easy to replace, and just charging ridiculous amounts of money for them, and anyone who can assemble a children's toy (of course, this isn't everyone) will be able to make any kind of repairs to a car.
Oh yeah, one last note on the computerization of cars ostensibly making it harder to troubleshoot problems with your car: Some of the cars with a screen in the dash have a diagnostic mode you can put them in (outlined in the car's manual) and you can actually use that screen for a code reader. In other words, you get the full benefit of having the code reader, without even having one. This is possible because all the little computers in the car talk to one another on the newer systems. You can see which switches, doors, etc are activated without even plugging anything in.
You have only yourself to blame if you get some high-falutin' car with the little radar parking system and everything, and then expect it to be easy to work on, and repairs to be inexpensive. It simply doesn't work that way.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It will take a fundamental change in compensation practice in the auto repair industry to make it feasable to move from IT to automotive. I made the opposite career move in 97 (auto repair to an IT job) and haven't looked back. Don't believe the stories of six-figure technician salaries. With very few exceptions that is a myth - especially with respect to "educated," non-flat-rate work. With the current system, it's the guy that beats the clock on a book job that gets the good paycheck - and that's not the sort of work that requires a brain trust to complete. Likewise, the service dealers will literally give away diagnostic time because customers refuse to pay for it, thanks to the bogus McTuneup shops that claim to do a complete job for $59.95. Unfortunately, the only guy that usually makes good money in auto repair is the shop owner - and that's with a struggle.
WRT to the expensive parts, you didn't actaully think all those safety features would not cost more than the old stuff? That's why an "economy" car costs what it does. It's litigation insulation that's not optional for the buyer.
One upside = job security. If you can read above a 3rd grade level, have some mechanical aptitude and a decent set of tools, you'll never be unemployed in the auto repair industry unless you just don't want to work. Everyone wants to hire a top diagnostic guy but they're never willing to compensate appropriately. If the worse should happen and I get layed off my IT job, it's comforting to know that I can bring 10 years of experience and college education to bear on the goal of earning $15-20/hour flat-rate.
Call me cynical, but they get away with devaluing your car so much when they estimate its insurance value ("What? A dog pee'd on the hub-cap 6 years ago? that makes it worth another $1000 less. Next!"), that I guess it is cheaper for them to write off than repair.
the future's bright, the future's ginger
Look on the bright side geeks. If you become an auto mechanic, you will always have work and it isn't very likely that it will every be cheaper or practical to ship a car to India to be fixed.
The icomes of most high end mechanics aren't too bad either.
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.
Just ask the Earth Liberation Front...
They found out, in the news, after they lit a Hummer Dealership on fire, that Hummers, ONLY when lit on fire, put out more pollutants then they EVER would through normal usage and eventual PROPER destruction at the end of their lives...
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
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...
One of the reasons I studied computers and not 'shop' was because I *HATED* the idea of getting my hands dirty. I just couldn't handle that phobia. Yuk!
Now they are enlisting IT personnel to service AUTOMOBILES??
iiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!
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.
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.
The Hummer emits way more CO2.
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.
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.
-JemI tried whipping it with a buggy whip, but no, the shop computer still insisted that it needed a new lamda probe. I have stripped a car down to a pile of nuts and bolts and rebuilt it in a different shape, but I do not know what a lamda probe is, nor why I should need one. That makes me sad.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
The reality is that cars are becoming harder to work on.
The problem is all to do with the computers.
Manufacturers are deliberately making it harder and hard to get diagnostic information from your car.
Let's contrast my old '87 Buick LeSabre, vs. my GF's 98 Toyota Tercel:
-On the Buick, if I want to read the trouble codes, I need a paperclip. That's it. That will let me access ALL the trouble codes. Clearing them is as simple as disconnecting the battery/removing a fuse.
-On the Tercel, I can't get the trouble codes until I buy a $150 code reader. Even then this code reader only gives me a faction of the functionality that it should. OBDII was designed for gov't emissions testing. In order to clear trouble codes you MUST have a reader, and your car will not pass inspection if it has uncleared codes.
Basically, here's my rant about OBDII:
Here's an example:
My GF's MIL comes on. We call around and find out that any shop is going to want $70 just to look at it. So I'm pretty much forced to buy a reader.
The trouble codes indicate a misfire. I replace a $5 set of spark plugs, problem fixed.
A problem that would have cost me $5 to fix on the Buick, cost me $155 on a newer car.
Now look, I'm willing to shell out $150 for a reader, but I want it do be able to do more than I can do on an older car with just a paper clip.
The way it's set up right now, $150 gets you your trouble codes, but if you want any of the things that you SHOULD be able to get with a computer interface (like TPS sensor status) you need to buy ANOTHER special purpose computer (if you lucky and it's even avaible for you model) or spend the value of the car itself on a computer.
The solution to all this BS is pretty simple:
No dealer-only diagnostics
Any non-engineering computer interfaces must meet a federal standard, and any deviations from this standard must be disclosed.
Right now I could build a car and cryptographically block you from doing anything but basic ODBII functions. If you want to do something as simple as bleed your brakes you MUST pay a dealer or you will not be able to properly bleed the ABS unit. Then it's both a market manipulation issue and a safety issue.
Life is too short to proofread.
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.
Couple it with the worse (yes, worse) pollution from modern cars fitted with catalytic converters, and from unleaded petrol (hmm, replace tetraethyl lead with two class-A carcinogens, clever) and it suddenly doesn't make sense to have everyone in new cars for "environmental reasons", does it?
Bin Laden IS a rich kid....
Hmm...and I thought it read:
"Technology Makes New Cats Too Expensive to Fix"
Guess it's time for another cup of coffee!
The idea of "disposable cars" disturbs me. But when I think about it on an "outside of the box" level, I realize that we already have them. We have them because style and marketing make us want newer cars. Cars are status symbols that very much tell other people about us. We buy them to show others a piece of our personality. And we trade them in to get a car that tells people something about us that was missing in the previous model. Cars are a class system.
When I think a bit further about it, I'm thinking wouldn't it be neat to have a modular snap-together system of major assemblies that would fit in a chassis? That way you could buy whatever module you wanted and install it. You could have a Ford motor, A GM Tranny, an Allison rear end in a Honda body. When a module got to the point where it needed replacement you could shop for the features and price you wanted. Rebuilders could fix up old modules and sell them as replacements.
This concept is not without precident in the automotive industry. Checker did it for years and years, some big truck manufacturers do it to some extent today. Some buses have their motors and transmissions mounted on a pan that can be installed with a forklift, putting the bus with a blown engine or tranny back on the road in as little as forty five minutes.
It ain't gonna happen though. Manufacturers like things the way they are today.
I go to several large old car shows a year. I think I have hit on an idea that will put me in nice wheels at a reasonable cost. Several of these shows have areas set aside for cars that are for sale. Some of the really hot restored cars sell for tens of thousands of dollars but less hot fully restored cars are frequently inexpensive. You can get six cyl '67 Mustangs in fully-restored shape for five grand. This is a lot less than a new car and these cars are wonderful, unique, and would be up to the task of being a daily driver. I am seriously considering one of these machines insetad of a new car.
Philip Greenspun wrote a fascinating analysis of this a few months ago. To quote part of it:
If his analysis is correct -- and it certainly seems plausible -- then the predictions he goes on to make from there are wide-ranging and dramatic. What happens if the 5% of the American workforce that makes, sells, and finances cars is suddenly out of a job? What other manufacturing field could pick up that much slack? Can the economy change course in time to maintain America's wealth, or could this drastically accelerate the loss of blue (and now white) collar jobs that we've been seeing since the 1970s?
Maybe we should all just go apply at Wal-Mart now. At least then in 10 years we'll have a shot at being a minimum wage shlobs with seniority.
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
I heard of a report (yes, someone actually studied this scientifically) that explained that the entire "blinding" problem of HID lamps can be entirely explained by that fact that funny colors of the HID lamps catch people's attention, and so they look at them. Don't look into the lights. If you look away from HIDs the same way you look away from halogens, then there is no problem.
People putting obnoxious driving lights on their crappy wannaberacecars was just as bad with halogens and xenons as it now is with HIDs.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
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?
"Flying" disposable cars! I can't wait! I'm sure they are just around the corner!
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
"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.
than it takes to make it.
:) This has been demonstrated. Not sure what carcinogens you are referring to (perhaps additives such as MTBE? - but I belive gasoline or some of the substances in gasoline such as benzene are).
Yep, you read that correctly. The amount of fuel that powers the car is the primary energy expenditure. I didnt realize that until I looked at some of the literature.
Some numbers from a Life Cycle Inventory (USCAR AMP Project) noted Paper 982160 Society of Automotive Engineers, Inc.
Operational Phase: 84% of the energy
Material Production and Manufacturing: 14%
The rest would include mining and disposal.
Granted, one can argue about environmental impacts of the various activities, but the LCI does not deal with this.
This is based on a "life" of 120,000 years of a 1995 sedan (average of Intrepid/Lumina/Taurus). But your Volvo isn't going to be much different.
Oh, and cars running on catalytic converters with unleaded gas tend to have fewer emissions than those running on leaded fuel without cat. converters.
You are of course aware of the massive amounts of lead released into the environment by the use of leaded fuels? They are found in lake sediments anywhere powered boats where/are used. Lead released by motor vehicles also had a habit of accumulating in people who lived near roadways...causing lead poisoning
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?
If I have to drive at night on 290 between Houston and Austin, I will wear my Oakleys to keep myself from being blinded. I honestly don't see how these HID lights are DOT industry approved. They are way to bright in my opinion.
The only thing missing on my nightly trips is the song "Sunglasses at Night" by Corey Hart playing in the background.
Life is not for the lazy.
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.
One of the reasons (excuses?) John Z. DeLorean gave for the stainless steel skin on the automobile that bore his name was that it would never rust, thus avoiding what DeLorean saw as built-in obsolescence in cars made by conventional manufacturers with conventional materials. He backed that up by advertising a 25-year warranty on the car's body.
It might not be easier, but wouldn't it be a significantly better investment to build cars meant to last as long as possible rather than cars meant to be thrown away?
What an incredibly whiny article!
The major thrust of car safety design for the last 10-20 years has been that the car should be written off to protect the occupants. Therefore: airbags, crumple zones, seat-belt pre-tensioners and tension limiters, collapsing steering columns, staged failure of structural elements...
The BMW quoted in the article performed very well: the occupant was uninjured, the passenger cell was not breached. The damage looks minor specifically because the structural components are meant to be hardest and fail last. In that minute, the owner spent $30k to prevent their child from being killed or paralyzed. (Whether they still think that was a good deal is another question...)
If they'd been driving an older car, it might well have been repairable after a rollover: more steel, more parts that bend plastically rather than breaking or crumpling, no airbags. On the other hand, if they'd been driving an older car, they might have been dead.
It's pretty simple: if you don't want to write off your car, don't flip it over!
"A good landing is one you walk away from. A perfect landing is where they can use the plane again."
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.