Also the cell connection seems problematic. Like, 4 years ago I bought my uncle a phone, and I just got notice that I have to upgrade him because t-mobiles 3g is going away. How many of my cars fancy connected features will work in 4 years?
Also the cell connection seems problematic. Like, 4 years ago I bought my uncle a phone, and I just got notice that I have to upgrade him because t-mobiles 3g is going away. How many of my cars fancy connected features will work in 4 years?
In other words, they primarily care about the first owner, and then primarily the first three years of the first owner. Everything outside that first owner's first three years is only baked-in as a matter of "resale value" -- if the entire industry adopts stuff that goes obsolete after two years, there is no competitive advantage in being err, less-obsolete.
It hit me like a brick when I walked into a Toyota dealership to get some transmission oil from the parts department recently.
The saleroom was luxurious. You could eat off of the floor and check your teeth in it afterward, it was so shiny.
All of the sales people looked tip top.
I felt like I had just walked into a casino.
Then I found the parts desk... a dingy, tiny window in a cramped area in the back of the dealership where I had to stand (no chairs) for literally 10 minutes until somebody was able to even notice I was there.
Seemed pretty clear what their main goal was.
I would call up the dealership parts department and order something, they would either deliver it or let me know what the ETA was. All net-30 terms, and a stupidly low friction process. Even the chain parts stores have separate phone lines for commercial customers, I never had to hold when buying from Advance Auto b/c there was a different commercial number that they only gave to commercial customers. The garage mechanic isn't really the focus of even the chain parts stores, they make their money on commercial customers.
However, I'm glad they at least maintain the retail friendliness that they do. Try walking into your local Fastenal or Grainger without a commercial account, some of their stores just won't sell to the public. Dealer parts departments have a very similar model to a specialty industrial supplier, where retail sales aren't enough of a priority to really bother with.
And frankly, retail sales take a lot of time for them, since the customers need a lot more help. Half the time, if I was calling I already had the part number available and knew if they needed the last 8 of the VIN number and a $500 transaction only took 2 minutes of the parts managers time.
It isn't a conspiracy, they just prioritize their high value customers way more. Same applies in software. I get way better support from our specialty ERP provider than I do from Google. We pay decent money to Google, but they wouldn't notice losing us as a customer, while the ERP firm would.
It isn't some conspiracy to keep you from fixing your car. That conspiracy is their engineering management doesn't want the cars to be fixable at all, and they want any unfortunate mechanic who has to deal with the abomination to properly suffer. --insert stackoverflow post about using regex for html--
Simple fact is competition is fierce, a good shop is worth thousands per day, and don't tie up your time. Compared to Jim who wants to explain the sound his car makes, show terrible pictures of nothing important, and buy just one off brand sparkplug...well you see where this goes.
They provide tiered pricing -- If I tend to buy a lot of xyz, then I get better pricing on it, etc.
Being a reasonable folk, I only mark up a handful of % off my price -- I hunch many in my industry do a similar markup off retail.
Pricing is a very strange world.
As others pointed out, they require a minimum purchase volume typically.
We had one guy who wasn't a business per se, but we made him an account because he spent so much money. He was an enthusiast who was always working on other people's cars. We didn't deliver to him, though.
The parts dept does not want to sell to you directly, like autozone, they want to sell to you via your "service advisor" when you bring your car in for them to change your fluids for you
US makes (big 3, not Tesla) are just fine selling you parts. Not only are they fine with it they aren't marked up as insanely high as I remember with decades of Honda and Toyota ownership. In fact you can go to AC/Delco, Ford, or Mopar's website and just buy parts directly with lots of diagrams and cheap prices sent right to your home. If you go to the dealer parts dept desk its usually right behind the sales area and they share the same space for the most part. Displaying lots of fancy part upgrades and options you could be purchasing from their parts department.
Its a pretty different experience after 25 years of Japanese vehicles.
My Toyotas were built like tanks, they were virtually indestructible, in over 15 years, I had one major repair that I needed a shop for (and that was related to the seatbelt). Now, with my Ford (and arguably in homeoffice, meaning I do not drive that much anymore), it feels the car's more in the repair shop than on the road.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_used_vehicle_exportin...
Anyways, official sites:
* https://parts-catalog.acdelco.com
I'm not sure how all of them work but mopar the dealerships decide if they want to be part of it. If they do then the website is already made and maintained. If somebody buys parts off of it they will direct the sale to a given dealership based on some criteria I don't know. Maybe just whats closest and in stock according to their inventory.
It is telling that the "Big 3" have their own branding for their parts divisions, where I dont believe any of the other manufacturers do?
It’s like rockets. The cheapest bidder gets the contract, and they make the worst quality stuff that they possibly can, just enough to get them across the line.
If you want actual good quality parts, you have to go elsewhere.
The problem is that the industry works very hard to hide where that “elsewhere” might be, so that you can’t find them and work your way around the system.
e: also, whoever finances the car doesn't really care either, the financing will just be more expensive.
Resale value also affects the quality of the car as experienced in the first few years.
For these reasons, the brand is positively affected by being associated with a high resale value, assuming it wants to stand for quality.
Clog up downstream and it will affect upstream.
No, a consumer won’t do that kind of calculus, not directly, but a leasing firm sure will.
Turns out all I need is basic functionality, no infotainment and focus on driving experience and reliability. Sold my BMW, bought 2001 Mercedes-Benz Compressor, restored the hell out of it. After a year, repeated this with X308 Jag and Honda Civic R 2005. Now I have a fleet of cars with no problems and versatility for my use-case.
I will wait patiently for the option to electrify all of them. New cars are not exciting for me, to much "tech" for my taste. May be this is professional deformation, but I need a place in which I am in control all the time, with no distraction from the road and no "notifications", except the valuable ones related to the driving. I use a Garmin navigation and old iPod touch for infotainment needs.
Electronic injection control, ABS, suspension control, tire pressure sensors, near objects detection, backing monitor, automatic climate control etc.
The buggy stuff stands out while the careful done part doesn’t get much attention, as usual (and I think it should be so, we’re supposed to use as naturally as possible)
PS: most 20 years old cars are death traps compared to current cars, I’m not sure it’s a good advice to push people to keep using them for that long.
The only major safety feature it doesn’t have compared to current cars is side air bags and rear view camera. Calling them death traps is a little much.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29486093
It’s not just about feature checkboxes, there is gradual improvement on how the car handles impacts inside and outside the car.
https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/life-saving-benefits-of-esc...
Lane keeping assist and adaptive cruise control could be considered safety features also. I would rate them lower than the first two things I mentioned though, in terms of positive safety impact.
I've had lane assist try to slam me into a divider on a highway repeatedly. That definitely falls under the buggy part of the car.
VSC/ESC/TCS/VDC & etc. is like ABS as it uses the same wheel speed sensor, but instead of pulsing the calipers to prevent lock-up, it reduces the vehicle's engine output to prevent wheel slippage.
Its pretty good (especially in snow) but nowhere near as critical as good quality tires or ABS unless you drive like a maniac. Most of those older cars are still gonna be good in a crash, if you need some extra peace of mind consider a Volvo or an S-class MB for the crash stuff.
ESC/VSC is scattered around vehicles well into the 1990's.
Well that is very relative, especially in the case of a 2001 Honda Accord that had(/was designed for) Takata ammonium nitrate based airbags. So those have had to have One or more recalls, IDK whether the replacements are 'fixed' or if they still have a service life.
Broadly speaking, check the owners manual. Older cars (i.e. 10+ years old) are likely going to be more conservative in estimates the further back you go as the tech was newer.
> My experience is that all safety related items like airbags are treated as radioactive by independent shops and you have to go to the dealer to get them replaced.
I think this is a fear of liability; I think it might? be difficult for non-dealers to get proper-channel replacements. Ironically, the Takata incident only reinforces this mindset, as the potential liability exposure vs perceived competence if something does happen will cause most small shops to avoid them.
I know a guy who bought a 2007 (?) Toyota Tacoma and his frame cracked which was a recall but Toyota will not fix it now.
There were holes behind the steering, through which you can push a single steel wire clip going around at three points, and the whole horn pad comes off. Behind the pad was a soft steel frame sandwiched between the bag and the inflator by threaded rods from bag side.
A thick yellow cable and a ground wire was attached through steering “clockspring”/“spiral cable”. A tab cleverly designed locked it so as to never loosen from vibrations. Ground wire seemed to double as the horn switch wire.
The particular inflator I had removed was a charred metal can with a flange that looks a bit like a small sachertorte or a large Korean chocolate pie with dozen 2-3mm(~1/10”) gas holes punched along its circumference.
As far as I can see, the thermoplastic horn pad alone seems to be somewhat distribution controlled, but the whole bag with cover and frames is through dealerships for $300-600. There seems to be remarkable cost saving is going on, and there seems to be much less variations, to the wheel, the above-mentioned frame, and the inflator, than for cars and trims and horn pads, looking at internet auctioning websites. Some parts are just the same, it seems.
These nitrate or any of explosive charges in common uses generally has expiry date and even shelf lives at temperatures; X months at 100F, Y years at -30C, and so on, but rarely going as long as a decade or longer. Obvious intuition is that total energy must decrease over time, but often their peak pressure of explosion increases dramatically, especially after experiencing high heat and/or vibration. This is what lead to Takata recalls: the peak became so high that the can didn’t hold.
With these pieces of knowledges, I think that airbags ideally should be temperature monitored and regularly replaced once per few years. It’s almost trivial to do, at least for driver’s front airbag. It might even be possible for drivers to do. The heavy caveat to it is that replacing all airbags for a car would cost couple grands every year or two per car for tens of millions of cars on the road. That’s difficult.
He popped the airbag/horn assembly off the steering wheel by inserting a screwdriver in a hole I never noticed on the side of the steering wheel. He unplugged the whole assembly, plugged in the new one, clipped it in place and was done. Took maybe one minute.
This could EASILY be a service part, based on what I saw. I assume it isn’t for liability reasons. Presumably that is also why the parts are expensive. Not for manufacturing but for R&D and liability.
That means they can only be transported by vehicles classed to carry dangerous goods (with many regulations).
I would also assume that they have specialty storage requirements - the warehouse shelf for normal parts would not be regarded as safe.
I am in New Zealand, but I am guessing that the requirements in the US are probably more restrictive than here because we rarely sue over here.
Surely has a rear view mirror which does the same thing.
On the Kia, the first day I used it the radio just froze up. I had to get a tooth pick to push the hidden reboot button. Every time I start the car the volume on the radio is deafening even though I turned it off at a low volume. It also attempts to download my music off my phone even though Im using spotify. Every time. There are firmware updates... if you have the 2014 model. The worst thing it did is randomly dial 911 when my phone was connected despite absolutely nothing having happened.
My BRZ has a more modern setup, that absolutely does not work with apple car play. I had it working for ten minutes and then it just randomly stopped. This is a brand new car and a brand new phone. Also replacement keys are absurdly expensive in order to provide me the benefit of... not turning a key? Its a stick shift so remote start is pointless since someone has to press the clutch in.
Im basically better off with the aux port.
Yes the internal engine electronics are nice but my experience with anything in the cabin is that it quickly becomes trash. The thing that annoys me is that when I inevitably have to replace these things, Im certain its going to be incredibly overpriced and I will have used like zero of its broken features.
The car I used to have, a 2013 FRS... perfect. Very basic stereo. All analog guages. Nothing went wrong ever.
Sometimes the whole stereo just freezes up even when I'm not using Car Play, or the FM radio just stops with some Android error message.
Generally I find the Bluetooth is more reliable than Car Play so I just use that. I now keep my old iPhone around and tether it to my new iPhone and use the old one for navigation.
Unfortunately the car does not have an aux jack, so Bluetooth is the next best thing.
I've thought about replacing it but Crutchfield flatly says they don't recommend replacing it at all, which makes sense - the backup camera displays on there and the whole unit has controls on the steering wheel, which I doubt would work with a third-party replacement. If a company that sells car stereos recommends that I don't buy one, I'd be a fool not to listen.
I have rented newer cars that have better infotainment systems but they make other changes I'm not crazy about - they now have entertainment information in the main instrument panel, leading them to shrink the speedometer to make space for it. Speed is the most important thing I need to know when driving, so don't shrink the speedometer. So I'm just not convinced a new car will be any better on the whole (and it's hard to get a new car now anyway) so I'll just keep driving this one.
I have really wondered how fun they are to drive. They are super fun, right?
They seem really fun and they look great.
Also, Be honest: Initial D fan?
The built-in mapping/nav system is light years ahead of even the latest apps by Apple and Google. With just a couple taps of the iDrive knob I can add a stop for a rest area or gas station en-route. There is even a prompt for this when the gas reserve is reached. Maps are easy to read and convey useful information like street names and arterial/freeways even when navigation is disabled.
I have driven stick shift cars my whole life, and never encountered one where I had to press in the clutch to start the engine.
On the other hand my 1990 Honda motorcycle must be in neutral to start (there is no clutch position switch) and I don't use the clutch there. Very handy because people love to sit on it for selfies when I park it and they tend to jam it into gear while crawling on it. I assume it is in neutral (I always park that way) and if I hit the starter in gear it would shoot across the street. Thinking about it I suppose that protects me from bumping the starter while riding as well.
It had to be in neutral to park but no guarantee randos haven’t crawled on it. So far the switch did it’s job.
Every stick car I've owned (2.5 Saturns, 1 Subaru) has had some sort of interlock switch set up such that if the clutch pedal was not pressed in, turning the ignition would do nothing, whether or not the Car is in gear.
I think it's mostly a USA thing? Too many lawyers.
My 90s BMW (US market) didn't need the clutch pressed to start, but all my other cars have had that annoyance. I usually disable it so I can start the car normally.
Every car I've had since then has required me to depress the clutch before it will attempt to turn over the engine.
This was in the UK where driving a manual is the expectation for a test - if you take the test in an automatic you are issued a limited licence which prohibits driving manual cars (which is the large majority of cars in Europe).
I have noticed when driving/being driven in the US that handbrakes are hardly used. I have partly assumed as 'P' on an automatic is sufficient most of the time, and also that education seems to be different - lots of people call it the e(mergency)-brake, i.e. not something to be used regularly.
That all being said, all the manuals I've driven in the last ten or so years require the clutch depressed to start the engine, which always felt like a strange requirement as I knew it was in neutral. I've never driven a manual in the US so I have no idea what's standard there.
I was impressed by the tech package on the vehicle but had all the same concerns: What is this thing going to be like in a few years?
Well. I have a 2013 Golf which came with a pretty sweet 2 DIN media head unit. 250 dollars and I have an android replacement head unit which supports all the steering wheel buttons and shows various status info based on a direct connection to the CANBus.
Granted: my car is far simpler than a 2022 Sonata. However there is a bustling aftermarket which can future proof your vehicle (somewhat). Assuming the car companies do not manage to lobby congress into outlawing aftermarket parts (and you can bet they would love to).
That's very exagerated. 20 years is 2001 (2002 models, really). By then you had really good ABS, modern airbags (not the early 90s type), often good traction control, crash structures. Anything added since it's either mostly unnecessary or just asymptotically incremental.
20 years isn't "that long", the useful lifetime of a car is way more than that.
False, just because a car is "new" does not make it better. There is a global marketplace, and cars manufactured in China, Japan, India do not meet the same safety standards as if they were made in Japan for the USA market, or EU/USA manufactured cars.
Cars made by Japanese Manufacturers for Japan Domestic market do not have to meet much modern standards by EU/US (rightly so, becuase it isn't sold in those markets) but your statement itself is egregious.
I present to you:
Toyota Wigi/Agya/Ayla (Also badge engineering it's actually made by Daihatsu!)
I wrote so much about this car in another blog, because it's quite fascinating actually, you can buy the base, base, no ac vent model for new at $7,000 or 100,000,000 IDR - Indonesian Rupiah.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kzxn_Vob94
or
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGIZgVPvE1g
No Airbags, NO Radio, no ac vents, no real b or c pillars. Just a cheap mass manufactured car that has no need to pass true safety tests.
--
When I'm abroad, and I want to buy a car, I look for one that was manufactured and sold also in the USA market so that it meets NTHSA standards - Even if the car was assembled in the country, e.g. indonesia or Philippines, the chassis is 99% half assembled before entering due to tariff engineering - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariff_engineering (also why the Subaru Brat had seats in the truck bed that were, basically useless)
So that means a 10-20yr old Honda CR-V, Fit, etc is much more safer than a new car from a major manufacturer.
Then we get into the fun cars manufactured by Chinese companies. But that's another post. :)
If you stay within a category there will be progressive improvements that cumulate enough to be a big difference 20 years after.
I also totally agree that some cars don’t need to be built to handle getting crushed by a tank if they’re supposed to be lightweight low speed convenience vehicles. Now those still see enough improvement to be changed after a few decades IMO.
This seems like a super reliable way to purchase a totaled vehicle, no?
Manufacturers make different models. A and B.
A is sold in USA, EU, Rest of the World.
B is only sold in APAC market.
Due to economy of scales, it's much easier to manufacturer the same car that fits all standards as model A and not to remove or replace parts.
This means that there will be a general manufacturing plant of chassis, or that there are similar manufacturing plants around the world. This is common for Toyota, Subaru, Mercedes, BMW. BMW has plants in South AFrica, Germany and south Carolinia. You can see where the car was built by the first VIN number, if it's a number like 4 it's USA, if it's W it's Germany.
This means also if a car is sold in another country, it has tarrifs upon entering, so the manufacturer would semi build up the car in Country of origin, and then finish the assembly in Country where it's finally sold which usually has cheaper labor but since employs locals, has a lower tariff rate and sells for a lower price new.
This means that it will meet USA/EU safety standards because the assembly line in the country of origin is not going to defer to make cars that far from a base acceptable standard. This makes more sense if you know/read of the Toyota Production System, TPS - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Production_System basically Henry Ford and Assembly Line production x4.
tl;dr if car model/trim is sold in USA, EU - car companies save money by basing design/safety standards to meet US/EU and will give that away for rest of the world with no such standards because it's more expensive to deviate from the assembly line process or even from vehicle branding.
--
For car model B, that has no USA/EU release schedule, car manufacturers then will deliver a much cheaper car w/o the safety equipment because it isn't required. Most of APAC barely only requires a speedometer, seatbelt and wipers on windows with default lights. E.g. no reverse camera, no bumpers that can withstand 5-10mph incidents w/o impaling people, very small B and C pillars (less roll over protection(, no airbag, no side airbags, etc.
These small things add up to the BOM or build of material, reducing them reduces part cost, labor cost, manufacturing cost, shipping cost, and reaches the goal of more sales in APAC Where people are much more price sensitive. The average car purchase price in APAC is $13,000, e.g. Suzuki Carry, Mitsubishi Mirage G4, Toyota Wigo and in certain parts of Asia, less than $8000.
Which is why this example works - I'm buying a car that was marketed and sold in the USA but not necessarily "FROM" the USA. So it would not be crashed or totaled or that insurance video/car max tactics of fear.
It would be a car that was imported by the manufacturer as NEW, sold as NEW in the country and then go through deprecation, but since it meets USA/EU spec, it can very much be a better car than a "new" car because it has more safety built in, alongside other better creature comforts like power seats, actual HEAT (most cars in Asia do not include heat, only A/C - no heater core.) ABS, (still pretty rare in Asia), rear camera, etc - the thing is it has airbags, enforced B and C pillars, proper seat belts and also a bigger engine over 2L. Most Asian cars made for Asia market are sub 2L because of tariffs anyway.
tl;dr buying basic USA/EU cars in Asia is a luxury all around. You'll live if you have a roll over accident.
Death traps? No.
So I know when my tire pressure is low? Roads have hazards on them, I'd prefer to know something is causing my tire to slowly leak well before it starts to cause a problem.
Also TPMSs aren't critical path tech, if they break down the car still runs fine.
> ABS? Learn to brake.
Is this a joke? ABS has saved countless lives. In emergency situations higher order thinking goes out the window. ABS is a "do what needs to be done to save my life right now" system.
Heck even automatic climate control is pretty damn simple. While I don't prefer using it, a thermostat that turns a heater on or off is not exactly new technology. Setting up a feedback loop to narrow in on "how hot" the heater should be set to for the fan to kept continuously while keeping ambient air at a constant temperature is also quite simple. This is 40-50+ year old tech.
My car has a full blown ECU for my seat memory. And a second one for the passenger seat memory. Another one for my soft close trunk. One for my HUD. One for my gauge cluster. One that exists entire for... playing fake engine sounds. One for the head unit, which is a separate ECU from the one for the amplifier, which is in turn separate from the DVD changer ECU. One climate control... but only in the rear! Front gets a separate ECU for AC. One for interior accent lighting (not lighting your dashboard, I mean dim lights around your door handle).
And if you think ECU is a stretch here, these are individually versioned ECUs all residing on a shared bus. If my amplifier ECU dies, the optical fiber ring it's connected to might go down. Things connected to that bus include 911 emergency dialing the headunit's RTC...
I never said that.
I said the examples pointer out by the GP post were all terrible examples to demonstrate too many computers in a car.
Also ECU is Engine Control Unit. Your seat probably has a tiny microcontroller in it, MCU.
And yes, your examples are all great examples of complexity that can break.
Anti-lock breaks, bad example. Tire Pressure Monitors, bad example.
Computer controlled LED accent lighting, good example.
I mean they're mostly right in their comment, a large number of people don't even know what the tpms light is (https://www.aftermarketnews.com/forty-two-percent-of-drivers...)
Climate control is a largely overcomplicated system in many cars, using everything from humidity sensors to skin temp scans and then refusing to work when any one part stops working
Adaptive suspensions have left entire generations of vehicles pretty much unusable as they slowly fail and essentially "total" perfectly good cars
Even if they're wrong on one or two counts, the point is clear enough...
-
Also anyone who knows cars knows when ECU is referring to an Electronic Control Unit from context...
It's been a few decades since anyone really got confused by that one.
The ECU in charge of the engine in this car is called the "Digital Motor Electronics" ECU or DME.
They are proper ECUs with a lot more complexity than a single MCU. Every single one is a node interconnected with separate firmware versions that need to sync up in certain ways.
The DME in charge of the engine is treated with exactly the same as the ECU in charge of accent lighting when it comes to manufacturer tooling, the tooling simply enumerates over these ECUs and provides an identical interface to them.
1. ABS is banned in Formula 1. That should tell you everything you need to know about whether humans brake as well as a computer
2. You only have one brake pedal. How can you achieve maximum braking effort without ABS if not all wheels have equal traction?
Not at all. It tells you something about whether Formula 1 drivers brake as well as a computer. Most humans driving cars have a very different level of driving skill from a Formula 1 driver -- especially when it comes to handling extreme conditions that they don't often encounter.
Memory leaks? No.”
No onboard wifi, no remote start, no infotainment, no over the air updates. The simplicity also makes the parts super cheap. When I bought it, the headlights were very foggy and I considered taking it somewhere to have them re-polished. I assumed new headlights would cost several hundred dollars each but when I looked i was able to find a pair of headlights and new bulbs for under $250 (for comparison, one enclosure for a Stinger is like $600).
I think what I like most about the old SUV is the idea of self-reliance. Get into a modern car and you're reliant on the towers for WiFi, servers for OTA updates, service centers to work on your car, I could go on. My 4Runner is the opposite, it's not reliant on anything except my attention to it's care.
We are upto some finance offering 84 mo;s now for a new car purchase, 7 years
Image buying a car today, still making payments on it 5 years from now, and many of the core features stop working because cell network drops support
>> the longer loan gives you way more financial flexibility with very little downside.. so yeah.
Yea if there is no prepayment mentalities, it make sense to get the longest loan you can as long as they are not massively increasing the rate with length. never know when something else in your life (job loss, medical, etc) may make it necessary to have that lower payment.
When I bought my car three months ago, the dealer said (and thought it was as insane as I did) that they had multiple lenders who would write 96 and 108 month loans.
I just bought some LED headlights, and Ima gonna replace the old dim halogens with them next week. Already replaced the tail lights with LEDs, and what a nice improvement!
I refuse to drive at night anymore. Headlights are way too bright and a big reason is people putting poorly made and poorly aimed aftermarket headlights on.
The LED headlights come with a shade so they shouldn't shine upwards into traffic.
But a Prius is effectively an electric car with a gas engine bolted onto the drive train.
You only notice it when it's buggy, that it saves you a lot of mpg, makes the car behave better, ... one hardly notices.
As soon as I replaced the battery, the car went back to normal. I had no idea how many electric systems were factoring into my every day experience, even with a manual transmission.