Slashdot Mirror
Tech To Blame For Ever-Growing Car Repair Costs, AAA Says (cnet.com)
A new study from AAA highlights the high repair costs associated with cars that have advanced safety technology. "[S]eemingly small damages to a vehicle's front end can incur costs nearing $3,000," CNET reports. From the report: The study looked at three solid sellers in multiple vehicle segments, including a small SUV, a midsize sedan and a pickup truck. It looked at repair costs using original equipment list prices and an established average for technician labor rates.
Let's use AAA's examples for some relatable horror stories. Mess up your rear bumper? Well, if you have ultrasonic parking sensors or radar back there, it could cost anywhere from $500 to $2,000 to fix. Knock off a side mirror equipped with a camera as part of a surround-view system? $500 to $1,100. Windshields are especially tricky. People who own cars with windshields that have embedded heating elements already have to pony up hundreds of dollars to replace what you might think is just a piece of glass. Factor complex camera systems (like autobrake) into the mix, and not only do folks get hit with the windshield replacement, they possibly have to find a trained professional to recalibrate all that tech behind it.
Let's use AAA's examples for some relatable horror stories. Mess up your rear bumper? Well, if you have ultrasonic parking sensors or radar back there, it could cost anywhere from $500 to $2,000 to fix. Knock off a side mirror equipped with a camera as part of a surround-view system? $500 to $1,100. Windshields are especially tricky. People who own cars with windshields that have embedded heating elements already have to pony up hundreds of dollars to replace what you might think is just a piece of glass. Factor complex camera systems (like autobrake) into the mix, and not only do folks get hit with the windshield replacement, they possibly have to find a trained professional to recalibrate all that tech behind it.
Subaru wants $57 for a replacement fan control knob. This is "tech"?
It's a bargain if the safety feature prevented a $30,000 hospital bill.
Let's go back to no crumple zones where you can pound out a front end collision with a hammer and clean out the passengers with a fire hose.
The effects are not long gone. There are many cars that were purposefully destroyed under Cash for Clunkers that could have otherwise been dismantled and resold as used parts. Instead our lovely government had dealerships pouring sand into the engine and running it until it seized in order to qualify for the subsidy.
The amount of engines destroyed for no purpose was ludicrous, and the remaining fleet of cars where people could have gotten used parts to keep their car running now have much more expensive repairs, if they can find parts at all, for cars that really aren't that old and definitely were not uncommon.
Cash for Clunkers was a corporate giveaway to the auto industry with a very thin whitewash of "raising overall fuel efficiency" applied to sell it. It was wasteful in practically every way.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Those highly deforming materials you're laughing at are designed to absorb energy then distribute it slower and more equally to reduce shock in an accident to increase passenger safety and reduce bodily injury.
While it's true those materials ultimately increase the monetary cost related to vehicle damage in an accident, they reduce risk of fatality or medical costs of injuries to the passenger(s).
If I have to choose between my car and my life I'll set the thing in fire and roll it over a mountain in a heartbeat. Sure, the cost sucks but I'm alive to pay for it and move on.
What it is, is advanced marketing techniques, improved market cornering, and a better legal understand to prevent lawsuits for shady business practices.
The tech, the tech, the tech. The new USB connector, which is the same as the old one, but with a slightly different shape you pay 20$ for. It costs the store 0.70$, and to make it probably less than a fraction of a penny. The 0.70 cents the store pays covers the shipping and logistics of it.
It's all market price gouging cornering. It's been going on for thousands of years. Greedy people try to corner the market and increase price at the max rate that won't cause rebellion on their products, and lobby to prevent competition, and any competition there is has to play by their rules or else they'll sue them to financial ruin, even if they lose the court case, the money the large company loses suing them is minor, compared to the threat of competition, and the small company loses its market entrance point, it gives time while financially ruining them for the large company to make competing products, and that's what they do.
You literally have people who know they have no legal ground to stand on, but just the effort to prove that will ruin your company, trashing companies, and making your prices higher.