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Car Makers Used Software To Raise Spare Parts Prices (engadget.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Ever had the nagging suspicion that your car's manufacturer was charging outrageous prices for parts simply because it could? Software might be to blame. Reuters has obtained documents from a lawsuit indicating that Jaguar Land Rover, Peugeot, Renault and other automakers have been using Accenture software (Partneo) that recommended price increases for spare parts based on "perceived value." If a brand badge or other component looked expensive, Partneo would suggest raising the price up to a level that drivers would still be willing to pay. It would even distinguish parts based on whether or not there was "pricing supervision" over certain parts (say, from insurance companies or focused publications) to avoid sparking an outcry.
This is why you look at car repair cost estimates before you buy your car, and use aftermarket parts when you can.
1) The software company that implemented this feature.
2) Each manufacturer that used it.
Nice little price fixing app for the industry you have there. Maybe you need more government regulation.
See for example Hillier and Liebermann, Introduction to Operations Research, "Inventory Theory" (chapter 18 in 8th edition) This is basically managing the components of the inventory model to where the value of filling the order yields maximum profit. It might be really annoying (like when I got charged $1500 for a replacement wiring harness for my truck), but it should not be a big surprise to anyone who thinks about this.
Ever had the nagging suspicion that your car's manufacturer was charging outrageous prices for parts simply because it could?
Suspicion? No. It's a well known fact. There is a reason car dealers have terrible reputations for ripping of their customers. Of course the markups on service parts is huge. Anyone who didn't know this is an idiot.
My day job is running a small manufacturing company that makes (mostly) car parts. I know what the markup is on the stuff we sell. As a crude rule of thumb you can take whatever they charge you and divide by 8 and chances are good that's about how much the company that actually made the part sold it for. My company makes wire harnesses and I've seen products that have maybe $5 worth of material content and maybe double that in labor and overhead being sold for north of $300. One of the sales reps we work with from a big distributor told me a story about how he saw a guy buying a harness for his car ahead of him in line at the dealer. He started laughing and when they asked him why he said "I sell every component that goes into that harness and you are holding maybe $4 in material". The sale price on the harness was $540.
Jaguar and Land Rover drivers have already decided to pay up for upscale branding and features. They like paying a little more. They could buy a Hyundai or a Jeep if they would rather save money. They could also source their own 3rd party spare parts in some cases if they wanted to save.
This is a nothing story. Upscale brands like Louis Vuitton and Prada charge huge markups on something as ordinary as luggage and handbags. There's no practical rationale for it. People who buy that stuff know what they're getting into.
They've been doing this for DECADES.
A friend from Ireland had a Jag E-type and there was one switch that would always die. It cost some ungodly amount. However, the exact same switch was also used in a low-end design, with a different badge (Mini?). That version, absolutely identical, sold for something like 1/4 the price. That was in the 70s.
AC Compressor for my jeep grand cherokee, 2001 was 700$ new at retail, 500 rebuilt.
Got one from a wrecker for 140$, if I could have waited, could have ordered the part from amazon brand new for 180$.
Since cars are aging they're trying to gouge, dramatically increasing the prices of inexpensive parts to get their piece to punish you for not buying their new car that breaks in 10 years vs yours that's been running for the last 20.
It might be really annoying (like when I got charged $1500 for a replacement wiring harness for my truck)
Out of professional curiosity (I make wire harnesses for a living) what harness were you having replaced? If it's one of the big body or engine harnesses that might not be a bad price once labor is included. Installing those is a huge PITA and they can cost several hundred dollars to make. We make an engine harness for a V8 bifuel vehicle that we sell for around $300 each. Our customer obviously marks that up somewhat. ;-)
So?
Are we saying that companies cannot charge what the market is willing to pay for their products now? In most cases, I hope not.
Where I get the feeling of outrage, why should I pay that much for a part for my car? I'm not opposed to collecting $300/hour for labor or selling that rare baseball card I found in the attic for a tidy sum. How's that different except that I'm the one collecting and not paying?
Companies should be able to charge what ever they can for their products and let the market chips fall where they may. As long as they don't collude with their competition, have at it. Just figure that consumers will eventually figure out what you are doing and you will have to live with the PR backlash.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
The software doesn't control them, it merely provided suggestions. The people selling the parts are the ones that are setting the price. Greedy humans are to blame here.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Damn those silly algorithms and expressions organizing themselves in a way to make extra money for a completely uninvolved party who happened to deploy them. The nerve of them!
The practice may be automated now, but it's been going on for literally decades. Even as far back as the 1980s and 1970s, you could swap parts between Corvettes and other cars. The part numbers would be different, but the equipment itself would be functionally identical. Funny how the part for the Corvette always cost several times as much; I'm sure it's purely because there were fewer Corvettes on the road (than, say, Citations or Skylarks), so the manufacturing costs were higher, right? Riiiiiiight
The price of a thing is always cost plus, where "plus" is defined by what the market will endure. If you can keep the cost hidden (see also: US healthcare) or obscure the availability of a thing (nearly-identical parts with different labels, with only one label approved for your application), the market will endure a hell of a shafting until the house of cards comes down.
Pining for the days when The Glorious MEEPT!!! graced SlapDash with his wisdom.
Got one from a wrecker for 140$, if I could have waited, could have ordered the part from amazon brand new for 180$.
Comparing prices from a part from a wreck to new parts isn't really apples to apples. The cost of the materials in the part alone almost certainly exceed the cost of labor to remove it from a vehicle and sell it. Basically if you can get the part new for comparable money to the same part out of a wreck then the person selling you the part from the wreck is ripping you off. If you could get the part "brand new" from Amazon for that much less then it is probably either surplus inventory being liquidated (or stolen inventory being liquidated) or it isn't the exact same part from the same supplier most likely. It's basically impossible to make a part cheaply enough to sell it for the same price as a part from a wreck.
That's interesting, because when different brands share the same platform with a huge parts overlap under different part numbers, you can save a fortune by cross-checking what are identical parts. For example, Porsche Cayenne, VW Touareg, and to a large extent Audi Q7 are largely the same, apart from trim and some of the engine options. But you can pick up things like air suspension components for a Touareg for a lot less than the same part for a Cayenne, even though the only difference is the part number. This is far from being an only example, too.
Production costs alone do not dictate the retail price - especially with vehicle parts, some of them can be kinda heavy - distribution logistics increases the price more than manufacturing sometimes...
My point was that production costs have almost NOTHING to do with the retail price in many cases. I've seen parts my company makes being sold at a dealer for 8X what I know for a fact it cost to make them. There is some overhead in there to be sure but most of that price difference is just markups by every company that touched it along the way with the markups getting much bigger when it is a retail customer.
Tomorrow, will you be complaining that the business next door that only marks up parts half as much doesn't pay a "living wage"? Where is the money for beyond-economic wages supposed to come from without beyond-economic pricing to customers?
This behavior is why we need no-nonsense laws forcing car manufacturers to release the exact specifications, including manufacturing costs, for all of their car parts, right down to the weird little plastic part that holds the windshield shade in place up after it's been flipped down or up. If OEM prices for replacement parts rise too high, then third-party manufacturers who've been watching like a hawk with sophisticated analysis software for this kind of piggish gouging can jump quickly into the fray with better, much less expensive alternatives. I'm strongly libertarian in most realms, but raping consumers once they're stuck with their expensive investments is just nasty and strikes me as inherently fraudulent.
By all means let the robber barons play fast and loose with their prices as long as they understand that the free market will then smack them down fast and hard. That specifically means no disingenuous games with stuffing proprietary software and firmware into many automobile parts and then using the DMCA to forbid exact duplication of those parts. It also means design patents are null and void against third-party suppliers for precise drop-in replacements. By selling their products to the public, car manufacturers have automatically agreed to forgo shithead games with patents, embedded firmware and software, or any other conceivable method as part of basic consumer protections that guarantee that vehicle owners will be able to make the most of their private property without subsequently running into piggish grunting and squealing from the manufacturers as they grab for every last possible dollar.
More than that, having tried once to rape car owners on any replacement part should lead to a cloud-based red-flag warning on all parts thenceforth from that manufacturer. "Warning: This manufacturer does not adhere to the guidelines for pricing replacement parts as set down by the American Fair Commerce Association. Parts from third-party suppliers are likely to cost substantially less."
(Yeah, I know the DMCA parts aren't exactly related to the original article, but it's part and parcel of the whole stinking load of slobbering greed.)
A truly excellent pizza parlor is a delight unto the heavens. Treasure the sauce and the toppings!
No, other companies are jealous of how Tesla has managed to get away with crippling independent service of their vehicles. If GM could force you into the dealer for work, they would. Somehow, Tesla manages to do this.
Heck, Tesla even refuses to replace faulty airbags in vehicles that have been independently services/repaired. Took the NTHSA beating on them for them to end up doing the work begrudgingly. Imagine if Toyota did that!
seinfeld: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
The story here is actually that some highly-skilled, white-collar jobs got automated out of existence.
Figuring out what the traffic will bear has been going on since forever. Used to be done by people, now software automates it and maybe takes more factors into account.
A friend worked at a Ford dealer, he sold me parts for forty percent off list price and there were lower prices listed. Most of the profit is from parts and service, not vehicle sales. 4X mark-up is common.
I'm dealing with this issue now refurbishing a machine. There are two plastic bushings that allow a variable speed sheave/pulley to slide up and down. (Basically a CVT, but the ratio is changed manually) They charge $100 for a simple nylon bushing and there are two of them. Two nylon bushings cost more than the 5 precision, brand name bearings I've already replaced. And I know exactly why. They wear out. They know it, and they are making a handsome little profit on selling replacements.
You live in a capitalist society - the primary function of ANY company is to generate profits and you don't think they'll charge as much as they can get away with ? You'd like them to charge you a fair price that relates to the cost of production & transporting including a little profit and sprinkling of Tax ??? Fairness in life, sadly, is limited to the Disney universe! It's their purpose to make as much profit as possible - and they make it all from you ðY
or maybe decades. Lots to learn.
costed 60 bucks despite it being made from 2 dollars worth of plastic
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
There's lots of similar scams. Generic repair shops couldn't fix our dealer-installed car alarm because the car manufacturer charges an arm and leg for the diagnostic software, which is too expensive for most shops. It's probably cheaper to have one installed from scratch.
We had a similar situation with our refrigerator. A repair shop has to deal with many brands, and purchasing diagnostic software from the manufacturer is too expensive for many of them*. If you repair say 15 brands, you have to purchase/rent diagnostic software from 15 manufactures, who love to jack up the price. This makes it so you have to call the manufacturer's OWN service, which is expensive.
If I suggest laws to reduce that kind of stuff, one will call me a "socialist", but if capitalists play games to avoid competition, then capitalism grows just as wasteful and noncompetitive as gov't. Throwing away otherwise perfectly good things because software games jack up the prices is bigly shameful, both from an environmental standpoint, and a consumer wallet standpoint.
That's not capitalism, that's crony capitalism. Saving $200 in tax but paying $800 the same year in repair costs for car, fridge, etc. repairs, or having to toss and buy new does not seem logical, Captain.
* The fridge has embedded chips that take readings from all the sensors and adjusts fans and temperature based on the readings. It's hard to diagnose many problems without dealing with the control software. A fridge doesn't require rocket science, but if you make it need rocket science, you can charge rocket prices to repair it.
Table-ized A.I.
So because of this there's a huge potential market for compatible spare parts. Are there places where I can type a VW part number and get the equivalent alibaba part or somesuch ?
Non-Linux Penguins ?
The automotive standard is 30% markup on parts, but... Some new parts are up to 200% markup, and some re-manufactured parts (alternators, half-shafts, etc) are well above 1000% markup. If it's German... add another 1000% for the badge.
Ever had the nagging suspicion that your local lemonade stand is raising prices on hot days just because it can? Nothing to see here...
Let's make like a bird... and get the flock outta here.
Makes me wonder what automobile make is the best for TCO, over the long haul.
Generally speaking the one with the cars that break down the least. My guess would be Toyota would be pretty high on the list of best TCO. They tend to top most reliability surveys.
So because of this there's a huge potential market for compatible spare parts. Are there places where I can type a VW part number and get the equivalent alibaba part or somesuch ?
It's not that easy. There are about 30,000 parts in a typical car and a substantial number of these parts are not shared with other cars. The number of car parts that one could do enough service volume to justify the engineering time to replace them is a pretty small number. Plus most OEMs factor in buying a bunch of service parts. And you have to compete with the used parts market (stuff from wrecks). The car parts market is SO fragmented it's really hard to get any decent economies of scale on a given part.
Until this story, I thought electric vehicles would be cheaper to maintain: fewer moving parts, less wear, easy to replace and repair. Now, I'm not so sure.
Software is no more to blame then pencils and papers were to blame for the same practice decades ago. It's just a tool. Blame whoever's using it for this.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
Are Honda's expensive to maintain?
As a general proposition they're generally pretty affordable to maintain. They're generally pretty high on the reliability charts and speaking from first hand experience the maintenance on them is generally pretty reasonable in comparison to other makes. I've got a Honda with around 180K miles on it and I expect to get to 250K baring something odd happening.
A while back, Toyota claimed I needed a new exhaust pipe for my Echo - $2,900 for the part alone.
Surprisingly the dealers generally aren't competitive on exhaust components. Usually cheaper to go to an exhaust specialist like Midas or similar. I actually had a dealer tell me that one time when I needed a new muffler. He was honest that they could do it but I would (and did) save a lot of money going to a specialist for that.
Why are there huge wiring harasses in the first place? Wouldn't it make more sense to have many smaller harnesses that are easier to replace small sections of without having to disassemble half the car?
Actually it would be more expensive because of the component costs. Plus it's actually pretty rare that you have to replace an entire harness if it is low voltage. You'd spend a lot of money modularizing the harness which would be hard for the manufacturer to recoup. That said, a lot of harnesses are reasonably modular where possible/practical. But wire is cheap and connectors are not.
There also is the problem of lack of standardization of connectors and terminals and other parts. There are literally tens of thousands of different terminal options and connector options, the vast majority of which are unnecessary and redundant. But no one is in a position to force standardization so we end up with stupidly fragmented design choices.
What actually might make sense though would be for the various automakers to come up with a standard for data transmission (think firewire or similar and god no not CANBUS) so they could use standardized cables and connectors throughout instead of designing a custom harness for every vehicle. Then you just worry about lengths and software. The component cost would be somewhat higher (esp at first) but in the long run it would make power and data in cars much easier to deal with.
"...If a brand badge or other component looked expensive, Partneo would suggest raising the price up to a level that drivers would still be willing to pay."
Uh, the price that drivers are willing to pay? What utter bullshit.
Cars are so damn expensive these days that anything other than the smallest of fender benders will warrant a call to your auto insurance provider in order for them to pay for it. Pricing has jack shit to do with driver tolerance, and has everything to do with how insurance companies have come to accept these insane costs for parts and repairs. If insurance wasn't so damn willing, then auto manufacturers would likely be left with little choice but to keep prices reasonable.
The harness is easier to install during production if it has as few connectors as possible.
Speaking as someone who makes harnesses for OEMs, minimizing the number and variety of connectors does not appear to be a substantial concern of the automakers. You would not believe how fragmented the wire harness industry is.
"Ever had the nagging suspicion that your prospective employee was charging outrageous prices for his salary, simply because he could?"
Everyone does this (unless there is some kind of charity element).
When you do it with your labor, it's savvy job hunting. When a retailer does it with stuff, it's a heinous evil ... somehow.
Then why do you care what the retailer charges?
Because sometimes I'M the one who has to pay the absurd markups. I also care that you don't get taken to the cleaners too albeit somewhat less for obvious reasons. I don't begrudge anyone making a decent profit. But let's not pretend that car repair shops have a sterling reputation for honest business practices. Just because someone could get away with taking advantage of someone doesn't make it right to actually do it.
It makes better financial sense to buy, say, a ~10 year old used car, and then visit a wrecking yard whenever you need a non-engine related part. Last year I bought a 2.5 generation Honda CR-V, a model that's known for reliability, safety, and relative efficiency. It was also a pretty common car, so there are plenty of specimens at my local wrecking yards to secure parts from. When you buy parts from a yard, you're reducing waste by virtue of reusing, and you might be shocked how inexpensive many of these parts are. And they're all genuine manufacturer parts, so you know they'll fit properly. A wrecking yard is an excellent way to go, if you can.
In other cases I often use third party parts, as long as I'm confident that they're of comparable OEM quality. Bought brand new headlight assemblies for my CR-V on eBay, for instance, and it probably cost half as much as Honda OEM. They've been great so far, a year into service, and you wouldn't know they didn't come with the car. They look and perform 100% original...
Auto makers design and assemble cars. Parts manufacturers manufacture parts (for *all* auto makers). How could Auto makers raise spare parts prices?
Oh... Are some people stupid enough to get service at the dealer?
Cars are a pile of commodity parts. I worked at a luxury manufacturer for more than 12 years. It's the same stuff that's in a Kia. They just add more sound proofing and give it a bigger engine.
This is capitalism doing what capitalism does. And it's not entirely a bad thing, either.
If Saab killed their automotive brand (this was mooted in another post I skimmed) by overpricing replacement parts, perhaps that was a rational market response (and implicit exit strategy). Perhaps they invested short-term cream windfall in other lines of business to great effect.
The whole point of capitalism is to let people screw their own pooch, if they are so inclined, because the view over the fence is generally full of shit. It's just human nature to underestimate the complications of other people's circumstances almost 100% of the time. Never heard at the water cooler after a natural experiment in trading places: "OMG! This is way easier than I expected it to be!" The other side of capitalism is that every action provokes a reaction, not necessarily equal and opposite (overreaction has long been a crowd favourite).
This pricing software exploits a fundamental asymmetry between the average car owner, and the industry as a whole. The rational response of the consumer is to flee the increasingly tilted asymmetrical power relationship—by not owning their own car in the first place. As car ownership becomes increasingly concentrated—in the hands of professional Uber drivers, ride-sharing fleets, weekend rentals, and leasing agreements—this asymmetry shrinks again.
Often this kind of pointed exploitation exactly precedes such an industry shift (because the incumbents see it coming, anyway, for other reasons; there's not a soul remaining in the automotive industry who doesn't daily hear the loud footsteps of the see-it-coming train).
Even so, private vehicle ownership has been equated to personal freedom by Madison Avenue for so long now, that this all does come as a shock, somewhere deep down. Of course, we all know that Madison Avenue only traffics in captive freedom, from the get go. I mean, we buy the products, but we're not dumb.
Even so, the unpleasant sound of tight fingers collapsing the trachea of romance does register as a shock, somewhere deep down.
Something is worth what someone is willing to pay. That's all.
It sounds like Partneo has automated this and maximized it, versus leaving it up to people to estimate and update. OH WELL.
The rule remains the same.
I have worked in the auto parts industry and all of the brands mentioned are A) known for poor reliability and thus they NEED more parts more often than most cars, and B) they are all foreign to the US market which tends to make the prices higher as well, at least for the Land Rover and Jaguar models sold here.
Many Nissans are also sold as Renault. But Nissan parts in the US don't carry a premium.
Commentary: Many Jag and Land Rover vehicles have very low resale value in the US and end up reselling as used cars into poorer areas where they, along with Mercedes, Lexus, Infinity, BMW, Volvo, etc, are just obtainable to people with low to moderate income, and such cars are perceived as a status symbol and an exaggeration of the owner's weath. All is fine with this except many of these cars DO have expensive repairs and parts and some require specialized mechanics with the proper computers and tools. And nobody in these lower income areas is prepared for the sticker shock when they find out their BMW needs six new fuel injectors at $400 a pop or the water pump has failed and most ot the front of the car will need to come apart to work on it.
They figured they got a deal on a sporty import car. They did not expect the cost to own, whereas many of these cars were actually made and originally sold with the idea that the owner would simply have a mechanic to do these things and not even worry about the costs. Pockets so deep, you don't even care. You just tell your mechanic to fix it.
So when buyers like the ones in the poor areas complain about the parts costs, it's really their own fault for not taking that into consideration when they bought the stupid car. Anybody in the parts business could have also told them which brands are notorious for needing a lot of repairs and expensive parts.
Sig for hire.
> Jaguar Land Rover, Peugeot, Renault and other automakers have been using Accenture software (Partneo) that recommended price increases for spare parts based on "perceived value."
Recognize the name? Accenture were formerly known as Arthur Andersen the accounting firm behind the Global Financial Meltdown. Changed their name to avoid the bad publicity, but cunts are still cunts.
Thanks Subaru. Had I had a proper garage and jack stands like my dad did I coulda done it for $60.
Next time Iâ(TM)ll check non dealer shops and save some but with homes being so expensive I canâ(TM)t really afford a garage at least till I find a good job in a cheap market.
I think you miss-spelt Audi ;)
What I'm really saying is that I'd rather let the free market fix issues like this because the alternative solutions are worse.
While I'm by all means a proponent of free markets there are some cases where you do need the government to step in. Fraud, deception, and collusion are some of the cases where it is necessary. I don't have any problem with honest brokers charging what-the-market-will-bear prices. The problem comes when they start taking advantage of people who aren't in a position to defend themselves or worse when they start colluding to eliminate competition. People shouldn't have to be experts in car repairs to have a reasonable expectation of receiving good service for a fair price and I'm sure you know damn well that people get ripped off by car repair shops routinely.
When you have your broken car up on a lift it's a little bit like a surgeon negotiating prices with you once he's got you on the operating table and opened up. You're not really in a position to negotiate at that point and the repair shop knows it. Good luck getting the free market to work in your favor at that point.
Government market controls don't fix these problems, because in that case you'd be sitting in your broken car because that $500 harness worth $4 in parts would not be in stock, anywhere at any price.
I think you are fearing something far more heavy handed than is necessary. I'm not talking about government price controls (a stupid idea in this context) and never even hinted at anything similar. But when a ground of automakers are tacitly colluding by (wink, wink) all using the same software "independently" to price discriminate then that is a problem. That violates anti-trust regulations most likely. Now we have companies effectively forming a cartel and breaking the market. The role of the government is to keep the competition honest, vigorous, and ongoing which should be possible here. Heavier regulations should only come into play when it is not possible or practical to have a properly competitive market (like with non-elective health care, utilities, or law enforcement for example). I'm arguing FOR keeping market forces working by having the government stop those who would prefer less competition.
I think it depends on the model.
Of course it does. That's why the phrase "as a general proposition" is at the start of the post. In GENERAL Honda vehicles are among the more reliable and affordable to maintain vehicles out there. Every automaker has exceptions but some have fewer than others.
I don't know about a Nissan Frontier, but my 1989 240SX had a "super multiple junction" at the firewall that avoided having to do that.
It's called a bulkhead connector. They're a good and unfortunately underutilized idea, mostly because they tend to be rather expensive. It's not unusual for a weather sealed bulkhead connector with 30 positions to cost $15-30 wholesale for each of the mating halves. A 100 circuit bulkhead would be VERY expensive. A big OEM could negotiate that price a lot lower but regardless the cost is relatively high compared with the cost of paying someone $15/hour to feed the wires through. Plus it isn't just he connector, you have to terminate (and possibly seal) each of the wires which adds additional cost. And you have the additional engineering costs too AND you have to maintain additional part numbers.
So it's a good idea that tends to get tanked by the economics. It would be a LOT cheaper and more common if wire harness parts were more standardized than they are but as I'm typing this I'm looking at a bookshelf full of catalogs of wire harness connectors and terminals. There are SO many more parts than are actually reasonable or necessary but very little is standardized so there is little chance for economies of scale to do their thing and drive prices down.
You're such a moronic asswipe.
...knowing how to change the oil doesn't grant me knowledge how to rebuild my motor.
250K... Why would you get rid of a Honda that's barely broken in?
Ha! Honestly? Boredom and fuel economy. It's a fine vehicle (a Ridgeline) and in good shape but I've had it for close to a decade and I'm getting a little tired of it. Probably will drive it for another 2-3 years and then look for something different. Plus the fuel economy for the horsepower isn't very good. Around 17-20mpg and I can get a half ton pickup these days that gets over 30mpg so that's pretty poor for 250HP. I'm kind of surprised Honda hasn't come out with a hybrid version of the Ridgeline because I would definitely consider upgrading to that if they did it right. But instead they made a boring pickup version of a Pilot which is fine but unremarkable.
I did have to replace the engine on it about 80K miles ago due to rod knocking but the replacement cost me $3000 and only had 8K miles on it so I expect to be able to drive it for a long time if I want to.
Honda Genuine(TM) parts have always been expensive, especially as models get superseded.
As a general proposition all OEM branded parts are relatively expensive. Honda is par for the course here but the good news is that you don't generally need a lot of parts because it doesn't break much.
Instead, there are multiple connector holders in the box which can be filled or not, and the connectors themselves of course can have pins installed or not. Audi then packaged each vehicle with a standard harness which is in all vehicles, a national harness which is country-specific, and accessory harnesses.
I've seen various attempts at doing this or something like it but I've yet to see an automaker actually force their engineers to design a common electrical system across all or even most of their cars and platforms. Would be a HUGE benefit but it would take a lot of planning and firm orders from high up in the company. Most electrical system design in cars is shockingly ad-hoc in design. VW has been better than most at keeping stuff common across their products.
Personally I think a better solution for a LOT of car wiring would be to go to a system something along the lines of a robust version of something similar to USB-C or Firewire or ethernet for data communications with some circuit boards embedded in components and between compartments. Think of it something like a standardized ethernet backbone for cars. It should be able to carry power too up to a reasonable amount similar to USB-C. Every component should be able to connect to it. High power stuff obviously could still use some dedicated conductors but signalling should all go through the common system which would be identical between vehicles. Taken to its logical conclusion you could in theory make most of the cables and connections in the car identical or nearly so which makes the physical bit of wiring very simple, easy to install, and easy to design/update/fix via software. They'd have to drive the logic boards into the components and make a LOT of them to get the costs to something reasonable. They've done some stuff like CANBUS which was an idea not taken nearly far enough. Right now basically every car has its wiring system designed more or less from scratch which is just bonkers.
In my book it'd actually be better to put the PCM inside the vehicle (as Nissan does) but make the connections inside a box like Audi put everything into in my car, which would then only contain connectors, relays, and fuses. I like keeping the computer where it's safe and cozy.
I could be fine with it either way. The problem isn't so much the location as it is the lack of standardization. There is SO little in the way of standardized components, standard design practices, etc in vehicle wiring that most people just don't really think about but the cost of it at the end of the day is enormous. It makes the engineering, installation, servicing, and testing far more difficult than it should be.
Collusion is illegal already so we don't need anything new here. Fraud is also illegal. If these companies colluded or engaged in fraud, the law enforcement part of government needs to engage and deal with it.
Yes those things are illegal but it still requires an active and motivated regulator to enforce the laws and to define what is permitted in the inevitable corner cases and unexpected circumstances. Right now we CLEARLY do not have that.
we don't want to do anything to disrupt the free market because the net result of government intervention isn't good for anybody.
You seem rather dogmatic about the idea that government involvement is always bad. I disagree. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. You can have too much or too little. The job of the government is to keep a free market doing its thing but then be ready to step in when it fails. Our health care system sucks because we have a government doing too little and not being involved enough. Our justice system puts too many people in jail because it the government is over involved. The idea that government intervention is always bad is just foolish ideology run amok.
Auto repair shops are rife with fraudulent practices that are hard to prove, but this isn't universally true of all auto shops.
That's not an excuse for sitting idly by and praying that the all powerful market will somehow fix the problems. We've been dealing with auto shops ripping people off for decades and the market clearly has not fixed the problem nor is there any plausible likelihood of that changing. The market has failed far too often to just sit around and hope it will be better next time.
Just rest assured that fraudsters will eventually be dealt with in the marketplace.
No. I'm not satisfied with such an approach. Waiting for the market to do its thing is why we had a massive housing crash in 2008. Markets do not always work and I think your faith in them is excessive.
Accenture scum, big surprise.