Is it really true that ICE has been stable? Cars seem to have been getting many innovations, especially with power, torque, and reliability. We probably don't hear much about it because it is low profile stuff and a mature product.
The newest vehicle reliability advances are _less_ reliability via:
- cylinder deactivation
- ubiquitous turbos
- gasoline direction injection
- more computers
- generally higher cost of repairs (eg: if a car from 2023 needed a headlight it would cost much more than a car from 1998 needing a headlight, and even if they both had the same failure rate the reliability of the new car would be worse from cost alone)
For example, for the longest time Nissan CVTs were "nonrebuildable, send it back and buy a reman" now any idiot can rebuild one for under a grand in parts.
4L60 and E4OD rebuilds were also $$$ for a long time now they're dirt cheap too.
I'm not writing about 50+ year old platforms, around which a huge market of suppliers and technicians has evolved. The ICE transmissions GM sells today are vastly more complex, with zero design commonality with the classic stuff, and enjoy none of the benefit of long adoption that make the classic stuff cost effective. Further, and this is the important part, because the lifecycle of everything ICE is much shorter now, measured in years as opposed to decades, they never will.
So ten years from now, when your circa 2020 10L60 dies, there won't be a transmission shop in every town that's equipped and stocked to deal with it cheaply. The cost will be greater than the value of the vehicle. And that's my point: these vehicles are not going to be economic to operate out of warranty.
My ass.
You can trace all these designs back forever. It's more "inspired by" than actual incremental revision in most cases. There is just about nothing but some vague shapes that look similar and maybe some bolt lengths that are common between a 4L60 and the TH350 era stuff.
>Further, and this is the important part, because the lifecycle of everything ICE is much shorter now, measured in years as opposed to decades, they never will.
The average car on the road is lasting longer as the years go on. People said the same things when fuel injection came out.
>So ten years from now, when your circa 2020 10L60 dies, there won't be a transmission shop in every town that's equipped and stocked to deal with it cheaply. The cost will be greater than the value of the vehicle.
I'll take that bet. Modern transmissions are stupidly easy to rebuild from a skills point of view because they replace all sorts of mechanical adjustment with "hurr hurr we just PWM the solenoid to make it go BRRT and if the BRRT is too rough the computer algorithm will turn it down". Yeah there's more components, but those are easi.
i don't agree, my friend has been driving the same Toyota LandCruiser for 20 years. I will have no problems handing my 2016 4runner down to my kid who turns 16 this December. The 4runner will last another 10 years easy.
Respectfully I specifically wrote "new." 20 year old SUVs predate the issues of new vehicles.
> my 2016 4runner
Even a 2016 vehicle predates what I'm pointing out. A 2016 4runner likely has a 270hp naturally aspirated V6 with modest power and a relatively basic 5 speed auto transmission. A 2025 4runner is a turbo charged 4 cylinder making nearly 2hp/cu in. and an 8 speed transmission. The former is much simpler and thus economic to maintain and repair compared to the latter.
ICE vehicle drivetrains have changed radically in only the last few years. They're almost universally using forced induction, integrated into unserviceable castings, to attain far higher volumetric efficiency, equivalent to high performance engines of not long ago. Gone are the 4-5 speed transmissions and transaxles: 8-10+ speed is the norm, and the complexity follows here as well. They are absolutely intolerant of neglect and abuse. Repairs are complex and likely to fail: manufacturers have taken to replacing major assemblies in leu of attempting repairs as they would have in the past. Part of that is due to the unserviceable nature of these components. Another part is the lack of dealer talent to deal with their own products. Another part is that the manufacturing lifecycle of major assemblies is now extremely short: only a couple years, whereas 10+ years was normal for common platforms as recently as the the 2010s.
What this means is: when these new products are no longer supported by manufacturers, who will drop their supply obligations rapidly as they legally can due to short lifecycles, parts will be fabulously expensive and difficult to obtain and the skills and tools necessary to repair them will be rarified and also expensive. Post-warranty ICE vehicles will be uneconomic, full stop.
- tons of sensors with limited lifespans
- more complicated transmissions with more gears
- auto start/stop
Pretty much all of these reliability reducers are manufacturers trying to eek a little more MPGs by throwing lots of complicated technology at the problem, which introduces a lot more failure points.
Headlights and taillights on my current vehicle are supposedly around $1500 each, mostly due to a bunch of sophisticated sensors being built in.
Back in the 80s headlights were standardized (in the US at least) - you either had rectangular or circular. They were available at every auto parts store. Now they're a special order item from the dealer.
There are oil tests that confirm this. Also, 10,000+ mile oil changes are not new, and there are tons of used vehicles on the market, running around with long oil change intervals, and high mileage.
But also, if you have a vehicle with a sealed headlight, you're probably not having to change it every other winter.
Perhaps you're not into cars much but if you compare top cars on track days etc. you will know there have definitely been huge changes. Though during the last 20 years repairability and reliability also took a hit.
But are they fun? My main experience of powerful cars is you hit the speed limit or a traffic jam within about 10 seconds.
I have more fun on my 1/3 hp ebike than my 200 hp car which suffers from the above.
I did the same mountain pass in my Subaru recently and didn't even notice I was going 20mph over the speed limit. The engine was silent and still responsive.
How about the transmission lol
And it'll only weigh 4,500 lbs.
How so? Are those not improvements?
Said no pedestrian hidden behind my A-pillar (just kidding I still drive a 1980s minivan, one of the poor people ones, not the hipster one, don't get your hopes up).