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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"?
are over. So get over it.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
I choose a simple manual trans commuter.
Not so different then what I bought 20 years ago.
Currently that's a Chevy Cruze.
I fix it myself, bought it in cash w 50k on the od for $6k.
The other side of consumer culture is quite affordable.
some dude in a big beautiful pickup truck rear-ended my PT cruiser. Dented my hatch and I drove home just fine, fixed it some weeks later. His radiator exploded everywhere and he had to be towed.
I would be interested in knowing the breakdown of an automaker's sources of profit.
Are we now to a point where they sell a $25k car at a loss. However, they know the odds of a fender-bender are high, and it will cost the automaker $800 for the $8,000 repair.
Is the model moving to something closer to inkjet printers, banks and airlines? Get you in the door cheap, then nail you on the parts or fees.
The interactions I've had with people from parts suppliers indicate the mark-ups the automakers put on parts are insane.
Yeah, everything's the techs' fault...
No, it is just one of the excuses, in fact any part, regardless of the "tech" it has will be sold to you for a ridiculous markup, especially if it is an original part. Take my Ford Focus for example, it has a known flaw in that the dashboard compartment lid plastic lock breaks easily. Then, for that plastic lid they charge you £90. That's probably a 10,000% markup. I wish someone would do a sort of "reverse-ifixit", i.e. calculate how much it would cost you to build a car if you bought all the parts separately. Bigger parts have a lower markup than that little piece, so the Focus won't end up costing £2 million as the lid might indicate, but still I expect parts sell several times their cost on average. A great consumer friendly law would be to limit the manufacturer part prices so that the cost of all the parts together are not more than say 2 times the cost of the car. Anyway, some wishful thinking there...
P.S. If you are curious, the grey market lids are still at around £30, because they just have to compete with a £90k part, so that opened a market for a little piece of plastic which you glue to replace the piece of the lock that breaks for everyone, and they charge you £15 for that!!! I.e. I have to go to a scrap yard to find something in my case...
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
Well thanks for demonstrating you're a moron in multiple respects, none the least of which in expecting a "racoon"-SIC to be at truck bumper height in the first place. YMMP (=Your Mother May Party)
Love this post.
Fuck the Brodozzer
$7000 for a small dent on the fender.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
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.
My brother's 2 year old Nissan Sentra with 15k miles on it cost him $11500. It's a strippy. CD Player and a jack 3.5" for your phone, AC and an Automatic. About as basic as it gets (it's 2018, a CD player costs $5 bucks to make, no, it's not a "luxury" when they're that cheap).
Cars are more expensive because fewer and fewer people can afford them. That means fewer used cars. That means higher used car prices, which the car manufacturers see as cue to raise prices. Cars are also a necessity in most places. Even most major cities lack viable public transportation. When the commutes 90 minutes by car it's 3 hours by bus. That's not an inconvenience, that's a life altering event. The car companies decided how our cities were built before any of us were born (assuming there's nobody under 70 reading this). We're living with the consequences.
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I've used the same trusted mechanic for 30 years, and he said that he's been watching the cost of repairs shoot upward, with my $700 repair bill being the lowest of all of his customers' bills that day. I can hear his frustration with the (in my opinion, needless) technology found in today's vehicles. He's getting pushed out of doing repairs little by little because the software and jigs are too expensive to purchase and keep up with. Did you know that one can now rent certain auto-repair software for so many hours? He tries to troubleshoot the problems within those time windows. Even the manufacturers know that it's gotten too ridiculous to own all the digital tools to troubleshoot everything for every model, every year.
I know the ignorant car buyer just wants the toys and doesn't consider the extra pollution or future repair bills, nor the fact that such "features" will make the car too expensive to repair in the future, sending it to the junkyard even sooner. My mother's 15-year old Buick's dash is lit up like a Christmas tree because the box that runs all those bells and whistles hasn't been made in 5 years. Luckily the car still drives.
However, I also blame the ignorant members of Congress, past and present, who ONLY considered that higher MPG might mean less air pollution, not the extra expenses we all quietly pay to get our rolling computers fixed, the complexity that befuddles the average person/mechanic and the extra wasted man-hours dealing with that complexity.
Actually, my daughter plans on studying in China and then hoping to get a job with a western company and a western salary... then she can live in China, work at the world's top tech companies and live in a place where prices are cheap... at least until the Chinese decide to simply crash the world economy to further communism.
My son is 16 and already looking into micro-houses for when he gets older. We're considering buying a plot of land and populating it with 4-10 micro houses with parking for a single shared self driving car. We're hoping to be able to sell them for $25,000 a piece. We'll use a single centralized heater, have a single parking spot for cars, room for one electric moped per house, etc...
The idea is that at least until they have children (a LONG WAY OFF I hope) this would allow them to live with very little debt and spend the vast majority of their income on socializing and enjoying live while saving money for their eventual houses to raise children in... which may also be somewhat minimalist.
If food is readily accessible via delivery services and restaurants, and clothing can be washed by service (which will become increasingly more popular as the job market shrinks) and most forms of entertainment at home is computer rather than large sitting room oriented, what's the point of a big house or apartment?
I would move into one as well if I were single. I have an office where I spend most of my time (even recreational) and have little need for much space at home. I think 30m^2 would be far more than enough for me. I'm in a room about that big right now and can easily mentally design the room to meet all my needs.
So, yeh... cheaper housing would make perfect sense.
Wow!!! I just Googled that truck... that is one giant heap of metal.
What would you use a vehicle like that for? I drive a BMW i3 which is a gigantic family car and when my kids get older, I'm looking forward to hopefully switching to self-driving Uber as my main transport.
So back to that truck.
I can imagine that it's good for farming, but it's very high up, so without loading docks, it seems very impractical. I'm also guessing it has a huge engine (didn't check), so you're probably hauling car parts or other heavy materials?
Let me guess, you're the guy who parks your lifted, extended cab, extended bed, dualie, trailer equipped truck in the "compact car" spot in the parking garage.
That's not a commuter vehicle jackass, and you can park it on the roof and hike your fat ass to the stairs.
The technology is one bit, but is there any reason why there has to be a single unit which encompasses the front end around to the wheels, and integrates the lights and grill? As a result, you can't easily just replace a broken piece, you have to replace the entire assembly.
[One reason is fuel efficiency. The assembly has fewer gaps to catch the wind. Another reason is reliability, the assembly is constructed as a unit and doesn't rely on as many people being successful. But there are probably alternative approaches which could give similar results.]
Hauling stuff (firewood, etc).
Dropping a boat in the lake for a day and hauling it out....
Those are just a couple of quick things that come to mind.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
This is where the cell phone right to repair shop needs to get busy. The problem arises because the sensors for your Chevy Corvette may be different, for no good reason, than your Chevy Silverado. Different mounting or whatever. Just like in the past your Lincoln Mark V could have front end parts at $800 but the exact same part from a ford truck might be $250. Different part numbers. Same exact part. Well now they do things like create skus based on trim parts that may not even be damaged. But they differentiate the parts you can order. TPMS sensors are particularly overpriced as OEM parts, and they are periodically replaced. Equivalent after market parts? They are significantly cheaper. Car key fob? Or keyed key? The exact same key at the dealer with a FOB, $180 for the pair $200 to program it. After market $25 for the pair, including instructions to program it yourself in the car. Factory parts can be hugely inflated because they stock so many skus for many many years. Standardization is the way to drop the prices. Fewer skus.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
increased base prices for a thing increase the cost of repairing that thing because the demand for repairs goes up. Who knew?
The damage done by cash for clunkers was 9 years ago. The effects are long gone.
Not gay, but if I was Obama'd be a better choice then our current president.
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The radar sensor on the front of my car is over $3k just for that one part, let alone the rest of the front.
You already can do this. It's called a trailer park.
The news I just heard is that we found the guy with the PT cruiser that hasn't rusted to shit, and actually still runs.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
There are people that buy Ford F-series trucks for work purposes - a whole lot of them. However, there are plenty of people that buy them for image, and rarely actually use the vehicle for it's intended purpose of hauling things around. Some will use them on the weekend for towing other recreational equipment - camping stuff, boats, etc.
Also, many people that buy an F-series truck for a business may be better served by an E-series van - it's cheaper, and has roughly the same cargo capacity without the thievery and cargo getting wet if it rains. Any business working in agriculture or other outdoor work is probably served best by the truck, but construction contractors usually go with the van, because they can lock up all their tools and still have room for several 4x8 sheets of wood, wallboard, boxes of tile, etc. without the risk of having all of it ruined should there be weather.
But vans aren't "cool" so the F-150 is the best selling vehicle in the world by a long way.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
It's nice not to have to lift each piece of firewood over your head to put it in the truck. Also nice to be able to drop the firewood out of the truck without it bouncing away and having to move it again.
I'm probably getting old, but I like to minimize the work rather then maximize it and most new trucks are way too high and hard enough to get in, little well put anything else in. Nice to be able to see that boat that you're towing, especially when backing up to the lake.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
> I also drive an F250 Super Duty King Ranch ... YMMV
Your Mileage May Vary indeed.
It may vary between 10 mpg and 16 mpg.
These issue are PRECISELY why I go for older cars.
Everything I own, 6 vehicles in various conditions,
is *before* 2000. You can find good gas mileage there.
My babies are pre-1990 and get 32mpg highway, and
have hardly any computers, and the diesel has none,
it will survive an EMP pulse, lol.
Bog standard cheap as hell parts on all of them.
Yes, if I were to go all out, I'd buy a brand new Tesla.
But for now, the economics, purchase, maintenance,
risk of accident costs, etc simply don't add up.
Oh, and my oil burners have nice weldable chassis
that can easily be converted to electrics later on.
I'm tempted to do that right now with one of the trucks
and a motor from a tesla wreck.
Not even a little bit true. Most repairs cost so much is people don't bother trying to do it themselves. It's amazingly simple to implement most car repairs these days with a modest tool box and a copy of the manufacturer repair manuals for the car. Combine that with the fact that you can order parts online for a fraction of what the dealer will charge you. My last air conditioning repair took a $25 (fried relay). The dealer wanted $750 to do the same fix that took me longer to type up in this comment than to do. (Open the hood, took off a plastic cover over the fuse box, found the relay, pulled it out with a pair of pliers, stuck the new one in.)
What it is, is advanced marketing techniques, improved market cornering, and a better legal understand to prevent lawsuits for shady business practices.
The tech, the tech, the tech. The new USB connector, which is the same as the old one, but with a slightly different shape you pay 20$ 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.
I'm obviously not a 'car person' as all new cars look the same to me - identical bulges, curves and massive footprints that make parking a nightmare.
With a big enough lift kit, it should also be suitable for running over self-driving Ubers.
In modern cars. I could not do it myself in my Citroen. The mechanic had special tools and an endoscope. For a Reno, you need to pull off the bumper amongst other things.
(I like French cars. So cheap second hand.)
not always true, sometimes it gets really hard to find certain parts and then it gets expensive again.
just ask any retro car owner/lover how cheap his car parts are.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
This is why we have zoning laws. “Damned Cletus, you can’t use the car-on-blocks as a dog house for the pit!”.
A long time ago this guy invented something called interchangeable parts... Most of the stuff we are complaining about are components of something that was designed, parts created, assembled in a batch series and forgotten. So some gang in China get a bunch of containers full of widget parts, makes them and off they go. The parts are intentionally unique to this batch because the real intent is to make it difficult and expensive to service -- so when there is a problem the easy thing is to throw it away and get a new one. (And don't ask about recycling the old stuff...). Cars are just a bigger instance of the problem. The folks who make them have little incentive to make them serviceable -- and when styling is poured over the concoction it becomes even worse. But as long as we have a world where this months Buick has to look different than last months... the problem will continue. Maybe 3d printing can address this... but I suspect the manufacturers will make that difficult. After all, who will by the output of their factories? And isn't profit and waste the name of the game in the end?
You can buy many of these built in safety systems and bolt them on.
Lane departure
Back up cameras
Collision Avoidance
Sure...maybe suspect or poor quality at the moment, but it will only get better,
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
When I was a kid, my Father was always working on the car, Tuning the Engine, replacing parts that had seemed to fall off, welding parts back on, Cutting off rust and putty and painting it back again....
So now it cost $3000 to replace something that you could do yourself. However you had normally had that car for much longer then the life of the cars before that, So other then paying $5000 of maintenance over the life time you are paying $3000 once.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Modern cars are unnecessary complex to meet safety and emission regulations. These are not "free", they add both upfront and lifetime costs.
You legislated 40MPG, 5 star offset crash rating, collision avoidance-equipped car and you go it. Only it costs an arm and a leg to buy and repair.
Yaknow, if you use the bed of your truck once a month...you still need a truck. This is one of the weaknesses of data-driven analytics. "Our data shows most people hardly ever use the bed of their truck - morons!" Yeah, but that one time is when you need it.
Moreover whoda thunk it - we humans are motivated by status. What morons! Obeying their instincts instead of suppressing them. That's so bad for their mental health!
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
" then she can live in China..."
There's the downside. Quite why anyone would want to live in a polluted authoritarian dictatorship beats me. Obviously money is king with her.
"Moreover whoda thunk it - we humans are motivated by status. What morons! Obeying their instincts instead of suppressing them. That's so bad for their mental health!"
The amusing thing is that anyone thinks a pick-up truck confers status. If its not being used by a real blue collar worker then just says wannabe trailer trash to me.
You don't even need to look for überadvanced tech on today's cars.
On all new cars these last years, the use of LEDs instead of bulbs allowed to install super cool, super fancy lights everywhere -for instance the fashion for turnlights recently was to wrap a luminous line of LEDs all around the stoplights, or even with ultra-zen shape inflections.
Very sillily, I just thought 'Ahh, fashion...' in the beginning.
This, until I understood that, from now on, whenever one of your stoplight or turlight dies, you cannot switch a 20-cent bulb there*.
You now MUST get back to the original automaker, to politely ask for this complex plastic element, ultra-zen-shaped, that, obviously, no one else than them can provide.
(Oh, and the left side isn't the same as the right side, mind you, don't confuse!)
I'd say, you'll pay it not ten times, but one hundred times the bulb cost.
Ahh, but this is for fashion, isn't it?
(*) and even, have a complete light repair set within the volume of a smartphone, slipped somewhere in the car, allowing you to repair in 5mn straight in front of the cop if need be...
Herve S.
Loading ordinary vans is an asspain and vans don't take outsize cargo. If I needed a van I'd get a medium duty box body van with a liftgate to solve both problems. If I needed a pickup for construction I'd install a flatbed with a liftgate for the same reason. I have one on my longbed F150 (with Hellwig overload leaves, coilover shocks and Timbren urethane springs which BTW don't conflict with each other). It's carried a milling machine without squatting much and the liftgate is a great work surface. I use the gate to load my other trucks too.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
CFC was in 2009 and that's ancient history in the salvage business. The crushed vehicles were typically over ten years old. Who drives that ancient shit today? What parts shortage?
I worked in the used car/auction/salvage biz at the time and nothing about CFC rules required crushing the good components. Buyers had a limited time to strip profitable parts then were required to crush the hull, long block (engine sans accessories) and transmission.
Most yards bought CFC cars at auction then parted them out. Wholesale and retail consumers bought those parts. All the engine accessories not oil-wetted were unaffected by the silicate and remained salable. It was economic to crush many as scrap prices (an important part of US foreign exchange) were high, but the vast majority of CFC vehicles no one would miss.
Outliers make the news but any car or SUV over ten years old (specialty vehicles of course excepted) is worth so little most salvage yards crush them when over 100 hulls accumulate. (100 hulls make it profitable to call in portable crusher outfits who flatten the hulks then take them to the shredder.)
Salvage yards usually have limited space and make money by turning over stock. Those CFC vehicles you mourn would have been long gone by now with or without CFC.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
I agree.
And yet i disagree, a lot.
Because as you try to repair, you run into 3 issues:
Can you reach the part without removing items, can you find readable documentation for the part(i.e manual) and can you physically poke all the connectors with a voltmeter?
The general answer is that you can move your hands half a meter from the battery, and nothing is now accessible by hand. Which means if connectors are not exposed at doors or hinges, you can't diagnose them. Nor is cables mentioned anywhere.
Oil filter and fluids is generally easy to access. Clutch oil? Not so much. Might not be mentioned in manual either.
Fuses and tires are easy to change, so long you don't need to calibrate sensors.
Lights? Assuming you can reach them, its possible. Bonus point for socket type not being mentioned in manual, so you need to remove them before entering store to buy replacements. Interior lights are harder, because they often have hinges that are hard to spot or pry.
Relays are a nightmare to replace if they are not exposed, or if you don't know enough about electronics to poke the right ends with a voltmeter to find it.
Springs and suspensions requires special tools and clamp to change safely.
Coating frame underside is cheap. Having a way to elevate and have it elevated safely, so you don't need a gas mask while lying on the back: Not so cheap.
Engine isn't so bad, but you need a tool to lift it. And you need to know how to connect it with everything, and possibly adjust all valves.
Gasoline filter? It might not be exposed at all.
Air filter tends to be exposed, and getting a new coal filter is like a dream for the first few hours driving.
I've never seen a car without 4 doors being referred to as gigantic. "Cargo space is not one of the i3’s fortes, as the small hatchback offers 15.1 cubic feet with the seats up and 36.9 cubic feet with the seats down. Front passengers receive 40.5 inches of legroom and rear passengers get a tight 31.9 inches." - MotorTrend
"Giant" doesn't mean what you think it means. Do not be overly impressed by expanses of chromed sheet metal. Bumpers didn't protect much and were not seriously thick. They were large chrome decorations.
BTW 1980s build quality usually sucked, VW and Toyota (which were less complex than today) excepted.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Lessee, about 15 or so years ago, I had a Grand Voyager. One day, a window fell down. Took it to a mechanic, and he replaced the belt that raises and lowers it. $160. 8 or so years later, newer Grand Voyager, same thing: nope, the mechanic said, "we both know it's only the belt, but they've made it a sealeed unit, which includes the motro, but I have no choice now but to replace the whole thing (for twice the price).
Oh, and about needing computers... my ancient, deally beloved Toyota Tercel wagon, an '86, with a carburetor, no computer, was a) still passing emission tests and b) getting 35-36mpg in 2000.
Blame the car companies. They want you to buy a new car every two years, like back in the late fifties.
I have an old truck that's probably about that big.
As much as it probably sounds like I'm stating the obvious, it's good for hauling bulky stuff. Brush and leaves, mulch, lumber and related materials, two-wheeled vehicles, etc.
But I mostly use it to haul stuff to the dump. ;)
As an average joe working in IT, my personal truck probably runs a few times each year, since it is a slight PITA to drive and I have other vehicles. I go back and forth on the convenience of having a truck available, and if it's just cheaper to rent one when I need it.
Funny enough, I'm much more likely to haul stuff with the car, since we love canoe camping and the car's much more convenient and comfortable. Two backpacks in the trunk, a canoe on the roof rack strapped down, and we're good to drive four or five hours to great canoe camping sites.
You missed the big one.
Honda Super Cub (all variants) - over 100 million sold, from 1958 to the present.
Nope. They sell a 50k car at a loss these days, knowing that they will fiance it and make all the profit off that. Dealers are merely lenders at this point, the product is somewhat meaningless.
Nope. Cars are more expensive now because for the last decade interest rates have basically been nothing. Seen by the fact that there were deals for ages for "0 percent financing". So free money. So people can borrow huge amounts. So they can afford more car. Car makers respond with, here have more car, and it will be expensive, but don't worry you can afford it just get an interest free loan for 8 years, etc...
and here we are.
Water cooled VWs have _always_ sucked. But they reached amazing new levels of suck about 20 years ago with the new beetle.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Neons of all kinds are still limping around.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Wow, that is really ugly bigoted classism. You're what's wrong with America. How's that go, comfort the afflicted? You're not supposed to afflict the afflicted and comfort the comfortable. Speak truth to the powerful, not the powerless. Wait, you're one of Putin's trolls, aren't you? You're here to start fights and divide us. Well it's not going to work, Ivan.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
The King Ranch version is not the version that people who buy a truck to do work purchase. The King Ranch version is basically the 2010's version of the "personal luxury vehicles" of the 60's-70's like the Cadillac Eldorado. Big, garish, over the top, not particularly fuel efficient, and all about image. A person buying a truck like that isn't going to look at vans.
Also, the problem with the E-Series is that Ford discontinued them (well, they still make the cabs for things like box trucks, but no more vans). You can get a Transit van though, or try to buy used. Problem with used ones is that these vans live hard lives, and people who have them tend to hold onto them until they have pretty much used them up. Though the thing nowadays is to buy a used conversion van for cheap since they tend to live easier lives and have horrible resale value, and then rip out the interior.
Actually, my daughter plans on studying in China and then hoping to get a job with a western company and a western salary... then she can live in China, work at the world's top tech companies and live in a place where prices are cheap... at least until the Chinese decide to simply crash the world economy to further communism. ...So, yeh... cheaper housing would make perfect sense.
If she works in any place where Western companies operate, she won't be living cheap - far from it. Most of the places that Western companies operate are on the coast, be it Suzhou, Fujien, Guangzhou, et al. It's only if one moves to places like Inner Mongolia, Ganzu or Xinxiang that things could get cheaper, but I doubt that those places get WiFi, and I also doubt that any Western company operates there.
FWIW the wikipedia article for Pickup Truck cites that "by the 1990s, less than 15% of owners reported use in work as the pickup truck's primary purpose" (Mueller, Mike. The American Pickup Truck. p. 9)
I started reading what you wrote... I think it's the first time in years I ever felt as if I honestly didn't understand something that wasn't gibberish. I believe everything you said would make a lot more sense to someone with a clue about trucks. I'm greatly thankful to you for using good punctuation and capitalization. I think the moment you write liftgate, I was already tempted to Google. By the time you made references to Hellwig and Timbren, I was wondering how Harry Potter's owl would wear canvas boots.
I really enjoy the rare occasions where someone clearly confuses the shit out of me when I know they're speaking perfectly clear.
Thanks... I'll smile all day because of this.
I'm actually originally a New Yorker a long long time ago. I now live in Oslo, Norway. My parents live in Florida and I'm in perpetual shock by the enormous vehicles people drive. They're like land boats. I've wanted a Renault Twizzy for a while. If they ever upgrade the design to include real doors, heat and a better battery, I'll go straight to the dealer... it would also help if it weren't French.
And I can highly recommend against ever owning a BMW i3. It's a truly awful vehicle... but it's dirt cheap and it's only until self-driving taxis happen... so I won't get rid of it.