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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.
Another bonus: a back-yard mechanic can work on it...
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.
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...'
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.
I'll try that tomorrow on my way into work. :)
Reviews with a twist! http://www.sardonicbastard.com
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.
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?...
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.
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.
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
Hmmm.
DVD -- one hand to hold my coffee, one hand to gratify self while watching DVD porn, one hand to hold cell phone, one hand to gesture rudely at other drivers. Hands free to steer: -2
Book -- one hand to hold my coffee, one hand to hold the book, one hand to turn the page, one hand to hold cell phone, one hand to gesture rudely at other drivers. Hands free to steer: -3
Clearly, car DVDs are safer than books.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
-JemAside 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.
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.