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The Age of the Disposable Car Is Here
Mr_Shiftright
Member Posts: 64,481
I was reading the technical information on the new BMW 745i. It is a beautiful, awesome, expensive and really, really complex machine.
And I got to thinking........
Who the HELL is going to fix this car when something major happens to it out of warranty, and who is going to pay for it?
Here in California, shop rates are already at $90/hr and heading fast for $100. Can you imagine pulling the V12 engine out of an early 90s BMW 850 coupe and what that would cost? Or even the engine on a 560SL Mercedes, when the car is worth $22K and the engine rebuild alone will cost $15K?
Can you imagine even a electrical harness fire in a '97 Corvette that say wiped out just the wiring, the computers and melted a bit of fiberglass? Or a blown engine on a Chrysler Sebring 5-6 years from now? Worse yet, all these scenarios 10 years from now?
I really think manufacturers are aware of this, and this is why we are getting more and more toward a very precisely built, very low-maintenance "please don't touch it yourself" type of car with extended service intervals, 100K tune ups and 7,500 mile oil changes.
What the automakers are planning for, I think, is the eventuality of building a car designed to go about 150K trouble-free miles, that is then junked at the first major repair, regardless of condition.
Doing major repairs on just about any 2001 car will be prohibitively expensive in 5-6 years. The technology will be obsolete, the labor rates even higher, the complexity staggering, and the talent pool to fix them smaller than even today (how many bright young people you know declare at age 18 that they want to forego college and study to be automotive technicians?)
You are still skeptical? Well, think about how dealers are struggling to fix almost NEW cars? How will they deal with old ones? Who's going to remember all the specs and TBS bulletins and keep all the old scanners, once we've gone on to OBD-V, 48 volt electrics and component multiplexing?
And I got to thinking........
Who the HELL is going to fix this car when something major happens to it out of warranty, and who is going to pay for it?
Here in California, shop rates are already at $90/hr and heading fast for $100. Can you imagine pulling the V12 engine out of an early 90s BMW 850 coupe and what that would cost? Or even the engine on a 560SL Mercedes, when the car is worth $22K and the engine rebuild alone will cost $15K?
Can you imagine even a electrical harness fire in a '97 Corvette that say wiped out just the wiring, the computers and melted a bit of fiberglass? Or a blown engine on a Chrysler Sebring 5-6 years from now? Worse yet, all these scenarios 10 years from now?
I really think manufacturers are aware of this, and this is why we are getting more and more toward a very precisely built, very low-maintenance "please don't touch it yourself" type of car with extended service intervals, 100K tune ups and 7,500 mile oil changes.
What the automakers are planning for, I think, is the eventuality of building a car designed to go about 150K trouble-free miles, that is then junked at the first major repair, regardless of condition.
Doing major repairs on just about any 2001 car will be prohibitively expensive in 5-6 years. The technology will be obsolete, the labor rates even higher, the complexity staggering, and the talent pool to fix them smaller than even today (how many bright young people you know declare at age 18 that they want to forego college and study to be automotive technicians?)
You are still skeptical? Well, think about how dealers are struggling to fix almost NEW cars? How will they deal with old ones? Who's going to remember all the specs and TBS bulletins and keep all the old scanners, once we've gone on to OBD-V, 48 volt electrics and component multiplexing?
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It happened to me already with a '91 S10 4X4 TAHOE 4-door 4.3L V6. In 1996 the Vehicle at 79,000 miles had the ABS system self destructed to the tune of $1700 big ones. Iam fairley mechanically inclined, however when i inquired about replacing the burned up ABS housing module, all the parts houses, stores said it was a dealer item. Go see the Dealer. The Dealer was very sympathetic. Of course Consumer's Union had already adivsed to avoid buying these vehicles...
Regards to all vehicle loving people...
"The un-mechanically inclined will be at the mercy of the repair shops, dealers and scam artists and get gouged in a big way."
This will happen to some people. Others will have their vehicles serviced/repaired by qualified professional tech's at a price commensurate with the complexity of the repair. Please do not make derogatory blanket statements like that. They offend all honest, competent tech's.
"In 1996 the Vehicle at 79,000 miles had the ABS system self destructed to the tune of $1700 big ones."
How many times had the moisture contaminated brake fluid been flushed prior to the failure? My guess would be zero.
Another startling reading: A noted Ferrari expert is advising people that the ten-year old or so, mass-produced Ferraris, (Testarossas) once they hit about 60,000 miles and need a major service, are best thought of as "parts cars" worth maybe $35K for the pieces.
Some 1994 & 95 cars are already worth less than their engines.
When your ride needs a major repair, fix it as it can't be worth much needing the repair when trading it in. After it is repaired following your having traded it in, someone else is driving it so it might as well be you doing the driving.
the shop can use it as training time for some newbies at wherever the auction house sells the truck to, or somebody could buy it as a mechanics' special and do it for two doctors' visits for stitches and shots and maybe $400 of parts and some machine time at a full-service machine shop, and have a good deal.
for me, no shop and no second car to get to work in, it made no sense. for Bob Boltworth out there in shop at County Vo-Tech, it's a major find, and he's making out like a bandit on my trade-in. we both win, and I do like my exploder.
to make the 2002 Belchfire unrepairable in practical terms is a crime that needs to be exposed.
Now I understand the California is not the United States, but someday the rest of the US will catch up to these labor rates (some places are equivalent).
So do the math.....pulling an engine on a complex modern car, fixing it or getting a rebuilt short block ready for installation and then reinstallation is a LOT of hours, at $90-100 per parts + machine shop work. And remember, once the engine goes in, every little electrical part will work perfectly first time, right? HAH!
There may be some hope if we move to serial hybrid cars because it's possible to design those modularly.
My last car i treated as a throwaway.. It got to almost 100,000 with no major repairs, but there were a bunch looming, and the car was no longer tight, burned a lot of oil, etc, so i dumped it and moved on.
Really, if cars could generally reach 150,000 trouble-free and low-cost, i'd think it's fine to chuck it and get a new one.
dave
The two cars I replaced trannies on were an $800.00 Cutlass Supreme and a $250 Newport. Throwing another $650-700 into them wasn't too big of a risk...if I got two months out of them, I figured I'd roughly break even compared to a typical car payment. But now once I get my Intrepid to the age and point where it's only worth a few hundred $, it's going to be really hard to justify dumping $2500 into it.
It's not just transmissions that brought us into this age, but they were a big help!
Had a friend who bought one brand new. Had nothing but trouble with it since the day he drove it off the lot. Repairs he figured cost more than the car and that is when he had it towed away. He had to pay someone $50.00 to tow it away since no junk yard wanted it.
They left out front U-joints on the drive shafts to save a few pennies and the drive shaft would shake the engine mounts loose.
But then it was an air cooled 2 cylinder motor.
How about mechanical brkes with a "floating band" of friction material between the brake drum and apply shoes?
Even the roads these cars had to travel back then were rougher on cars than they are today. Dirt and gravel roads were much more plentiful, and those old hard concrete highways where you'd hear the thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump as you passed over all those expansion joints at high speed. Homes with garages were more of a luxury item back then too, so the typical car sat outside all year-round, exposed to the sun's rays, rain, dampness, leaves, etc.
Also, back then, just because styles and stuff changed so much more quickly, a car that was 8-10 years old actually looked old and outdated. In the late 50's, nobody wanted a car with an inline engine and a split windshield, but then in the mid 60's, nobody wanted a car with tailfins. But today, cars don't change that much stylistically. While a lot of engineering improvements have gone on underneath, for the most part, cars don't look much different than they did 8-10 years ago.
The upside would be that until then it would need very little investment and no repair. Maybe tires and 1 or 2 cheap brake jobs.
Price is in line with normal modern cars.
Would you get one?
Seems like fron a pure financial experiment it makes sense, because many people buy new and sell for less then 1/2 of the new cost at under 75K miles.
dave
From a financial standpoint, a self-destructing car at 10 years/150000 miles may make sense for a lot of people, but at the rate I drive, my Intrepid would blow up not too long after I make the last payment. I sometimes joke about it doing that, anyway though!
These newer cars can maybe be kept on the road after major failures at a reasonable cost, but I can't see people taking the time to restore one. Is anyone going to want to painstakingly restore the ABS system of a Mustang Cobra in 20 years even if parts are available? How long would it take to "restore" a car like that, and at what cost?
As a side note, recently on ebay I saw a 96ish Jaguar with 150K miles on it listed as being "restored" completely. I am sure that they meant that it has new tires, a new alternator, and recovered seats, or something of that nature. It got me to thinking that it would be pretty hard and cost prohibitive to restore a modern car that had been thoroughly used and/or abused.
I'd love to have a car that you can easily swap out things..... not possible in this day and age though...
Well, you could rip all that stuff out and throw in just about any Chevy smallblock/automatic tranny combo. Heck, replace the tranny at the same time, and your choices are just about limitless. Just about any GM-made V-8 in the last 40 years or so will fit in the engine bay of a B-body. I know for a fact a 454 will, and so will a Cadillac 500.
As for safety stuff like dual master cylinders and collapsible steering columns, that stuff has been around since 1967 or 1968. I'd guess that the advent of the shoulder belt, padded steering column, and collapsible steering wheel were probably some of the biggest advances in vehicle safety. I think two of the most common causes of death in the old days were being thrown from the vehicle (not wearing your seatbelt) or being impaled by the steering column.
But some systems should be engineerable as commodities in the system. For example, the A/C. No reason a car A/C should cost any more than a home A/C if it's modular and you can make a lot of 'em. So maybe $200 for the whole A/C, and maybe $30 for a recharge.
dave
...
But back to the original discussion, I don't think a disposable car would be realistic, mainly because of its quick depreciation. You couldn't provide reasonable long-term loans and the residuals for leases would be fairly low, leaving the car buyer with comparatively high payments.
Or you'd have to be able to produce it cheaper without making it less reliable. But, haven't we been there before ?
I think a big part of the problem with modularity would be convincing the manufacturers to open themselves up to competition for high-margin parts.
Back to the original car mentioned, i had the 745i described to me at a BMW-CCA tech session last night. I'm amazed that the car is supposed to sell for only a few hundred more than the old 7-series. It's amazing technologically.
dave
I work for a company that specializes in marketplace and sourcing solutions for certain industry groups. Believe me, as a manufacturer, you should be able to save money.
I would agree. The 745i is an amazing car, even though I still can't bring myself to look at it.
Most electronics are in fact disposable items. Since cars are becoming more and more electronic, maybe they too will be treated like 6 year old TV sets that start to make funny noises...into the dumpster or to Good Will.
I have a friend who is developing automotive sensors for Bosch in Germany. And I can tell you that they those specs include an open-ended lifetime of the component. (At least for the Benz components that his team works on.)
I've discarded TVs after about 15 years, but mostly because the technology itself advanced. I own 20-year-old pocket calculators, my dad's electric lawn mower has been in service for 35 years. (Okay, that thing is just plain electric.) My mother just junked her 30-year-old washing machine. It was still in perfect working condition, but my mother found an excuse, of course. All of those items were of good quality to begin with.
All I'm trying to say: As far as the expected lifetime is concerned, electronics are no different than most mechanical components. You have different levels or quality with different expected lifetimes, and you get what you pay for.
Cars that are used daily have a finite life and I dont EVER want to own then at the end of it. I did that when I was a kid and I dont do that any more.
I certianly don't expect to keep any of my cars past 200K-250K miles. Does that mean i think of them as disposable?
dave
defects, which overall is pretty good, but the design life is ....10 years!!! We don't care if the product breaks after 10 years. The hope is that customers will buy the same brand again, but the keyword is "BUY AGAIN". I don't know what kind of reliability assumptions are used in car industry, but modern products are not designed to last forever! Companies want you to stay in the market - buy, buy, buy!!!
Muflers, common parts will never be standartized among different companies - they end up loosing money!
Are those appliances more costly ? Yes, they surely are. And they are clearly not for everybody. Most people like to change their appliances more often. But there is also a market for products with an extended lifetime.
Come to think of it, her furnace dates back to 1958, and still runs fine. She's getting it replaced next week though, for something more efficient. I guess this means that we won't be getting another 40 years out of the next one,though?
But others are on the other side of the spectrum -"post design life" - that's why you hear stories of some Geo Metro dying at 200K mi, while most of them get thrown out at 70K. I very much doubt you that you will find a 1990's refrigerator intact in somebody's house in 2050 (unless you keep fixing it, which can make anything last forever).
I'd like to hear what other people in manufacturing industry have to say about it?
I think it's ridiculous how much stuff people throw away that really shouldn't be thrown away. The town next to the one I live in is extremely wealthy, and they have a twice-annual big trash day, where eveybody puts out their old appliances and electronics. So I drive over there on those days and creep down all the side streets at 5 mph, looking for good stuff :-) I got a near new working VCR once, as well as assorted computer parts and other stuff. Never buy what you can get for free out of somebody's trash :-)
-Andrew L
That is disproven by history. I remember reading the same thing in an old Ralph Stein Classic Cars column in Motor Trend in the 60s.His reply to the guy who wanted to moth ball a then brand new "Car of The Year" 67 Cougar for 25 years or so then bring it out of hiding as a valuable antique was predictable. The answer was as sneering and arrogant as you can imagine [as it was in columns I've read about cars from the 50s beoming special interest or collectible items]: "You COULD,but WHO WOULD WANT TO?" And "Modern cars are so poorly built with lots of pot metal etc etc etc,and their systems so complicated they'd be a nightmare to restore."And people do it all the time today on cars of the 50s and 60s and 70s.
That cars will be junked because the computer systems are so complex or whatever system fails, dismisses the opportunity inherent in providing rebuilt or new repro that someone with a little ingenuity will parlay into a very profitable after market business. Witness the Layson's the company that offers NOS,Repro,out of production for decades parts for early Mopar A Bodies[60-66]. Their catalog has doubled in size in just one year.Or the nice little business turbo rebuilding became.What you WILL see I believe is more modular and more easily replaced subsystems that can be quickly upgraded if an older part is no longer available.
I also believe that we asked for all this complexity. Beyond what is required by law for safety and emissions;who has fueled the demand for more bigger better best more complex sophisticated "refined", but the consumer.
Unless there is a demand for more simple vehicles,or a boycott of kitchen sink school of options packaging, repair bills WILL continue to climb.
People want to have bragging rights at the water cooler: heated mirrors, seats, navigation systems,power windows brakes locks 5 speed automatics electronic steering and suspensions, digital odometers [on a CAVALIER for J^&%(U~ sake!]traction control ABS DOHC MPFI.The list goes on.And yet when people try to buy the simplest vehicle they can find for ease of repair and to avoid all the problems inherent in all those sophisticated systems, the cars tehmselves are laughed at derided and put down for being "unrefined" and crude. What price have we all paid for incremental increases in "refinement" [which has become such a buzz word it has lost all it's meaning]. I think we may have reached the area of "diminishing returns".
Once cars become so complex they're impossible to fix--what did we gain??? I'll bet the guy with the Tres Ultra V6 would be happy to have a Metro after 6 weeks of his dealer being unable to figure out why the electronic steering freezes in the middle of a turn.
Great post. I agree completely. We shouldn't discourage people from preserving old stuff if they want to, because we will always want to look at it in the future. People think I'm weird for meticulously maintaining my 1986 Pontiac, but it looks brand new compared to most other 1986 cars still in existence, and its uniqueness will only increase over the years.
As for the extra electronic options, sometimes I don't get it either. My Pontiac has power locks, which are helpful, but not much else in that category. The only things I miss are air conditioning (I have it, but it blows warm air...that's the only problem with the car!) and a tape or CD player (I only have a radio). Other than those two things which are both standard in virtually every new car, I don't feel that I need any additional electronics.
-Andrew L
It's funny; I get excited when I come across a new car with NO options.[a Malibu once...but it's fully equipped anyway, a Hyundai Accent, a Cavalier], but I am honest enough to admit that no one wants those cars unless they are a little bit off!!!
Amenities are nice.I had no power steering, power brakes and a 3 speed manual trans[on the column!] as a daily driver for 10 years.But comes a time..... Auto. trans reduced my stress level by 1000% [L.A. Traffic!].I don't think I will EVER need [nor want] power windows, mirrors locks etc.
The least complicated I could find [a 99 Cavalier...yeah I know the ULTIMATE THROW AWAY CAR!!!]came with 4 speed auto.ABS, traction control, power steering, power brakes,air, etc.[and that damned digital odometer!!!]. But I can still recognize whats under the hood, anyone can work on one and parts are cheap and plentiful should I need them [I haven't], which will keep it on the road for a LONG time.
All theory at this point, we'll see what happens, but the oil gets changed every 3 months and other service is by the book...but there's still a part of me that wonders how a new Altima would feel, or Impala, or Saturn L Series or the new Camry..... Different strokes, eh????
Re: power options, I think two cars right now with that can be had with the bare minimum of options is the Accord DX (manual windows and locks, 5 speed manual trans, etc.) and the Saturn SL. I've never had a manual window break on me, and I wonder what will happen with my Ford's power everything down the road.
Very interesting about the design life of appliances. Cars are probably also designed with certain perameters. I've suddenly notices that Honda Accords of the 86-89 generation, which a few years ago were everywhere, are suddenly very rare. Did they all reach their design life and die on cue?
GM J-bodies are pretty solid cars. My friend's dad drives a 1986 Cavalier TYPE-10 that still runs even after having been sideswiped by a school bus! It now has the "yellow accent paint" accessory :-) The new Cavalier is pretty much unchanged from the 1980s versions except for the styling, so I would expect it to last a long time.
Benjaminh-
Interesting observation about the Accords...I have to say you're right, I don't see too many of those. There is someone at my college who has an older generation Accord SE-i (I believe it's a 1989), but it's not exactly mint. They have a brick duct taped to the top of the trunk lid to keep it closed. I still see plenty of the 1990-1993 Accords on the road, though even some of those are starting to look a bit clapped out. The GM 1977-1990 B-body station wagons like my Pontiac are becoming quite rare, as most of them were high mileage vehicles that either fell apart after many hundreds of thousands of miles, or were bought cheap and entered in demo derbies. I'm starting to get a lot of compliments on my "mint" wagon :-)
-Andrew L