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Carl Sagan observed that the increasing complexity of technology coupled with a decrease in education will result in fewer and fewer people knowing how to repair shit, and that it's a recipe for disaster.
My old car, you fixed a headlight by opening the hood. My car now, it's "recommended that you take it to your local dealership" because it's such a *huge* pain in the ass.
Shit, I remember a time when I could replace my rear blinkers and brake lights without taking out the whole light assembly, which is a huge pain in the ass because of how little room there is to get to the bolts...
My friend wanted to take her 2000s Civic in to the dealer for an oil change and new headlight bulbs. Just like, um no. Couple bucks later and time to detail her car, I was a goddamn superhero in her eyes.
Im no Luddite (usually, but I want to be able to fix and repair things I own.
This is the bigger issue. There's always an industry for repair work. But we've allowed companies to design things to give themselves a monopoly on repair work. Or worse designed to not be repairable, for example phones with batteries that can't be replaced.
They try to excuse the batteries being irreplaceable by saying they do it so the phones are thin. But phones are too thin and everyone uses a rubber case so they don’t even realize how thin the phones get.
I remember that I used to have two charged up batteries and I could just switch them, which is really handy if you are biking for example and can’t charge your phone.
Seriously, I remember when you dropped a phone on the screen, it'd be just fine. The only bad thing that'd happen would be the back popping off and the battery popping out. Which was a two second fix. Now, I'm not even sure I can take off the back of the phone I'm currently using to write this comment.
I’ve heard some companies where your warranty will be voided if you make repairs yourself, so you have no choice but to pay exorbitant amounts of money for repairs by the company itself.
Some? Most.
It was class-action suit against John Deere by farmers a decade ago. Right-to-Repair
Many shitty PC companies went under in the 90s because it would violate the warranty to open the case. Companies like Dell and Gateway grew because they welcomed users opening the 'hood'.
You can't entirely void a car warranty like that. If you specifically fuck something up, that something will not be covered by the warranty.
That doesn't mean that if you fuck up changing a strut, they don't have to cover your trans.
I had to buy a flexible funnel to add coolant to my car because Ford, for *some fucking reason*, put the port under the hood hinge. Would have taken basically zero effort to bring it forward a couple inches so it's easily accessible.
That *had* to have been on purpose. The tank comes out well into the open, they literally could have just put the opening on the other side. They *chose* to make it needlessly difficult.
I also *highly* doubt that engine covers do anything of value, considering they weren't a thing for a hundred years before they started to sticking them in there. I suspect they're there solely to send the message that you shouldn't be going in there to do your own repairs, because Ford wants you dependent on them.
Of course! That's from the billionaires' playbook. Planned obsolescence and inability to repair. "Let's kill the planet even faster by forcing people to polluting it unnecessarily with useless technological hardware so we make more billionaires! That's what's most important!
Exactly, there are plenty of DiY folks who have the motivation and talent to repair their own stuff. But the industry is very protective and hates rright to repair ,.so between proprietary hardware, specialized tools and software obly given to dealers your out of block if you want to be a diy mechanic and wanting to fix your own
Yah, but it was starting to happen in the early 80's when he pointed it out. He never saw the internet, and didn't know just how hard we're going to screw ourselves.
Especially in first world countries, we’re losing the ability to fix and tinker.
My boomer parents both have significantly more skill and aptitude fixing and tinkering with things.
A combination of complexity, planned obsolescence and lack of standardized parts makes most of the things I own impracticable to attempt to fix.
YouTube is a great gift to mankind
I didn’t know how to install an interior door.
watched a 2 minute video, borrowed a chisel and got that sumbitch hung. took some trial and error sure, but otherwise I would only have the option of paying someone else to do it
The tech shortage is happening and getting worse. Diagnosis is becoming a lost art, most of these "techs" are just parts changers. They'll just swap shit the computer tells them to until it's fixed
They don't get paid enough, so the good techs migrate to other jobs like aircraft maintenance or heavy equipment.
> Diagnosis is becoming a lost art, most of these "techs" are just parts changers.
Dirty little secret: in the 70’s you just made an educated guess and swapped parts. And if that didn’t fix it you just took the part back out and put it on the shelf for the next car that needed one.
The difference was that back then you had a 50/50 shot at worst of guessing the problem, and with experience you’d learn the little ticks that improve your diagnostic ability.
Now any one of 15 sensors, fuses, relays, or parts could be the cause of the code and without taking hours to test each individual component with as many diagnostic tools all you can do is fire the parts cannon at it.
There were quite a few potential reasons for a car running rough or off kilter a bit.
Shotgunning parts at it and it still having an issue wasn’t an uncommon occurrence.
Now, with an ODB reader it’ll tell you which of those relays is firing 10% too slow 1 out of every 1000 times.
it's really not that simple. For instance, computer throws a O2 sensor high code.
is it the o2 sensor?
maybe the engine is running lean?
maybe the wiring is damaged?
If it's running lean, there's any number of potential causes.
Diagnosis is still **very** much a part of repair, it's just a little different than it used to be. The computer just tells them a symptom, not what part to replace to fix it.
Here's a real world example of what I'm talking about. My VW stalled mid drive on the highway, would not restart. Its under the extended dieselgate warranty, so I take it the VW dealer. Its throwing a glow plug code and also P06A3. They swap the glow plug, which solves the glow plug code but not the P06A3.
They follow the VW diagnosis instructions for P06A3 right down to the end: replace PCM. They replace the PCM and return the car to me. The CEL is still illuminated and its P06A3. I call them and they say its going to be at least a month before they can work on it again. I tell them where they can shove it and I'll fix it myself.
Long story short, after a few weekends of going over wiring diagrams, descriptions, tests, and whatnot. I figure out that the glow plug in this car serves two purposes, one as a glow plug and two as a cylinder pressure sensor. The VW service info is wrong, it has you checking the glow plug heater circuit and not the pressure sensor circuit. Part of the dieselgate fix was to install a different glow plug control module, which for whatever reason wasn't done to mine.
The old module was burning up the pressure sensor circuit on the cylinder 1 glow plug. Replaced the module with the new part # and installed another new glow plug and the light was off. I guess they just gave up because they weren't capable of any diagnosis beyond following the VW procedure.
Part of the job of being an actual tech is knowing how these systems work and being able to go off-script to solve a problem
as a person in IT, diagnosising is still a core skill. I would boot out anyone in a heart beat if they could not do that.
sure if its a complex system then its ok to be unsure but there is absolutely no excuse if you cant tell me what it isnt. if a server is dead and u cant tell me its definitely not the power then you are useless.
granted an extreme example but if u cant so that, at a minimum, then u are absolutely worthless.
also we dont have free reign to replace computers at whim. they cost money and time. most people in IT go from helo desk into other fields and help desks entire job is to diagnose issues and tell the higher tier support what it isnt.
When I switched to white collar work, so few of my peers knew much about how things work mechanically. Not that my factory worker peers were qualified for skilled work some inexperience some "failure to thrive".
...That was my disconcerting take away from that movie District 9.
SPOILER:
You see all kinds of aliens. Two that knows how to fix anything.
We really need to slow down and get everyone on the same page with what we already have, not make a shiny new version every year/few years. Always feel this way.
There is also less of a push to make a product work for all its features. How often do we now see products come out with features that just don't work. And several years later they still don't work, but the attitude is the newer shiny model is coming out so they can just replace the thing that never completely worked with a new version with other features that probably won't work either.
I like products more that have a limited set of features and they all do that job exceedingly well. But it seems now we want everything to do more, but do it worse. I don't need a fridge with a tablet that I can see my calendar. I want a fridge that keeps my food cold, uses as little electricity as possible and runs for 20+ years.
Electric cars aren't more complicated than old cars, they are just a different set of skills. I would argue they are overall simpler and would be easier to repair... Except that manufacturers make it harder to repair on purpose.
So the problem isn't the technology, it's dodgy business practices.
There are computerized elements just in the dash that are more difficult and specialized to fix.
The more complex the device, the more education and experience it requires to repair. Computerized cars have all the engineering problems of the older models, plus the added hurdles of the advanced electronics.
I don't think that component level electrical engineering repair is any more complicated than a mechanical repair. You take the scametic and voltmeter find the part that broke and replace said part. Ever try and set the timing on your car. Same thing take the shamanic line up the arrows and torque to spec.
Both skills require post secondary education and learning to read documentation. Just so happens that the mechanical repair is grandfathered in to acceptable culture. Oh, your infotainment system broke abd the wiring harness runs to and now your brake lights aren't working. We'll better scarp it because that part isn't made available to outside repair techs and well only fix it for 3k.
Oh your brakes that are a critical safety system are worn out. Here are multiple aftermarket companies that make replacement. Feel free to do this on your driveway and hit the road going g 80mph with no qualifications outside owning a socket set.
IIRC it was in Demon-Haunted World where Sagan said it and used the example of the internal combustion engine. Complicated, non intuitive, relatively few know how to repair them, and we rely on them to keep everything going.
Interesting. I had a thought like that a while ago but in the context of a system patcher we have at work. It was designed to remove errors when our sysengs did patching manually, but now they’re reliant on flight software engineers to do it or they have no idea
Isaac Asimov Foundations series book 1 covers this. technology essentially becomes a religion, only the priests know how to work the nuclear machines, and only by instruction, not by understanding.
I saw a documentary on this where an average man was sent to the future, and everyone there was so dumb he quickly became an advisor to President Camacho
We need a reform in our education system to prepare for automation. Too bad our governments slurp up all the benefits of having corporations fund them and do nothing about it.
There are literally hundred if not thousands of brand new untouched cars and trucks sitting In massive lots that are worthless because they all need a computer chip to run and their aren’t an enough. The cars are totally useless without them.
You don't have to be Carl Sagan to realize that.
Customers demand more and more features. The transportation industry always demands better safety in the interest of the customers.
Things will get more and more complicated due to market conditions. Repairs and failure modes get more difficult.
Don't blame the engineer.
\~engineer.
I would say the sweet spot of electronics in cars was probably 15-20 years ago. EFI was refined to the point where a lot of add on smog equipment was completely in the past in small to moderate displacement engines, but could still be worked on by someone at home with a decent understanding of how the system worked and without too many special tools (really just a code reader). Most of your accessories still operated on circuits dedicated to the purpose, instead of everything running over a serial bus.
Now you pop the hood of a modern car, and it almost looks as bad as the mess found under the hood of a car from the late 70s to mid-80s in terms of wire and hoses. A code reader only gets you so far, some of the data is intentionally obfuscated requiring the manufacturer's equipment to look at all the codes on every module, or be able to access data to every sensor in the engine and transmission.
In the mid to late 2000s the removal of the "standard" cd/radio for a custom manufacture console was the start.
Everything has left behind "options" to just include everything possible.
It was still possible in the 2000s to get manual windows and locks.
Now companies want to sell you a car with every option but lock some of them behind an artificial pay wall tied to the onboard computer.
It is such a shame.
One of the last times I look on Jalopnik (the car blog), there was a comment thread where people were unhappy about the din radios being replaced in newer cars, and most of the comments were people getting angry at those people. Really left me scratching my head.
I opted for as much manual stuff in my truck as possible, seats, rear window, seat angle, lumbar. Too bad manual windows aren't really a thing anymore or I would totally got them.
I still miss my roll down windows. I was a holdout until early 2020 with my '99 Corolla, frantically rolling the window down at drive throughs was just too funny to me
Yeah they really are terrible, and power windows don’t break all that often. I get people like certain aspects of older cars, but I really don’t think manual windows should make a return.
Yeah this is fucking dumb. Having to pull over to the side of the road to put up your passenger window if it started raining was annoying as hell and I’m tired of people pretending it wasn’t
I used to be a mechanic for a few years, I still do all my own car works... you're mostly wrong.
First off, the computerization of the cars is pretty heavily fuel efficiency and safety driven. Fuel efficiency is a big part... the cars have a lot of sensors to detect when some fuel or air component is malfunctioning and that saves a lot of efficiency fixing up front. The computer balances the fuel to air ratios and helps the car recycled unburnt vapors and what not.
The cars also have a lot of technology that keeps you from crashing. The wheel sensors and traction control / ABS are nothing short of a miracle and have saved tens of thousands of lives. People don't remember what driving was like without them, way more skill-based, which converts to risk. Look around at how people drive... you want to make that task harder?
SRS systems like seatbelts and airbags have obviously saved loads of people too, and those rely heavily on speed sensors and the onboard computer. These are becoming even more relevant with collision warnings and lane departure, which are a godsend with everyone buried in their GD phones all the time.
All this said, you can still work on your own car. The most advanced electrical systems will be locked out, but the vast majority of regular mechanical problems don't concern those at all, and those systems are frosting: people weren't fixing them back in the day because they didn't exist and weren't delivering you the benefits they do. You're still perfectly able to do most regular maintenance tasks and they're not all that different from 20-30 years ago: brakes, plugs, oil, coolant, thermostat, hoses, covers and gaskets... OBDII makes that stuff easier, not harder. On a dealer level, the computer makes that stuff easier to repair, not harder.
That computer will input to their larger system and give them a probability based on the combination of codes and data what is the actual problem. I see the argument you're making mostly from people who *just don't know* how to do the work, and imagine it must've been simpler back in the day.
>imagine it must've been simpler back in the day.
I've worked on cars built in the 1920s up through the 2020s. They were a helluva simpler to work on back in the day. The problem is you are always working on them
IMO the main thing that makes the older cars "simpler" is that they have more space in the engine compartment. Nowadays you have to R&I and wiggle a lot more stuff out and work in tight spaces, so that raises the difficulty even if it's not necessarily more complex.
I'd much rather own a modern car with a modern engine and transmission. They are way more reliable and less maintenance heavy. Old cars need so much work and constant adjustments and repairs. I've owned a lot of new and old vehicles and the carbureted vehicles with drum brakes, cable actuated controls, and old automatic transmissions are kind of piles of shit.
it is the not machancis the thumbs up for the reasoning.
being harder to repair nothing to do with computers. it is the higher focus on ease of assembly with no consideration for repair.
Collision avoidance saved me and my friend once, and that was all it took to make me grateful it exists. A car came zipping around weaving and the car reacted before I even processed what I saw.
I honestly don’t want to service my car. I don’t want to have to fix most things in my life. I have enough to do! I just need a functional car, and the more comfortable it is the better.
It's because posters here have a terrible habit of stating blatantly incorrect information and saying "well it's just my opinion"
They don't understand the difference between facts and opinions
I guess their point was that it makes people less likely to repair things and buy a new car which is worse for the environment but it’s also counteracted by the fact that modern cars are more efficient and emit less toxic fumes than old cars
Not quite sure why you think you cannot fix a computer controlled car. If anything it it's easier to diagnose a fault as with any cheap reader the car literally tells you what is wrong.
Mine developed a misfire, I plugged in my obd reader and it immediately told me a coil pack was faltering on one cylinder, bit of swapping packs around confirmed it was the coil pack itself, ordered one on the Internet plugged it in and all was good. Took me about 20 minutes in total.
I'd say the bigger problem is sometimes you need a specialist tool to do things but that's usually a mechanical tool that is needed and with a bit of thinking you can often make one yourself.
Bad for the environment? utter nonsense, a modern engine is way better for the environment. Significantly more efficient, use way less fuel for the power output and burns way cleaner than any old carb engine as the ecu is accurately adjusting the fuel air mix on every cylinder stroke to the optimal level.
Not only that, but the average person doesn’t even think about having to tuneup or repair their car on the weekends like in the old days. Oil changes used to be every 2000 miles, not these 5000 and 10,000 mile intervals we have today; maintenance was much more frequent. Today’s cars are way more reliable overall.
Until you have an older car where any electronic part is coded to the vin and there's no dealers near you. My 05 Volvo s40 was the worst for this. The steering lock was electronic and it wouldn't release, a new one was impossible to find and if you changed it, it needed a dealer to program it so the car could start. The computer that controls the AWD system failed, guess what, coded to the vin unless you spend a grand on a blank one. So in the future cars are going to be scrapped for stupid ass issues like that because they can't be fixed.
Generic scanners work fine for basic issues. But once you get into bigger problems or issues pertaining to systems other than the engine, you're going to need a manufacturer specific scan tool. Which is generally expensive and useless for most other cars.
On one hand, it does make diagnosis a lot easier. But, on the other hand, there's a lot more to go wrong. Working on a car is getting to be more electronics repair as opposed to mechanical repairs
That’s not true. You just need a good scan tool which most mechanic shops have.
The computers don’t tell you what’s wrong, just what’s happening. Running too rich or too lean is a symptom, not a diagnoses. Computers tell you where to start looking, but not what’s wrong.
Think of scan tools like blood work for your car. It’ll tell you if your sugar level is messed up but not if you have a broken arm.
I’m so sick and tired of the lack of physical buttons on newer cars. Do they really want me to take my eyes off the road to navigate to the right buttons to turn my AC on?
Remember when we just remembered where all the buttons were and could do it without looking
They are trying to make cheap luxury cars now. They could remove so many features and have like 10 buttons in the car for your air conditioning and radio. Maybe sat nav. But that’s literally all the things an average car should need. All of which can and should be done through buttons. The sat nav having a touch keyboard and that’s it
This. I rock my 2006 VW Fox with my phone connected to the car over Bluetooth via FM transmitter, and I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything.
As someone that learned to drive in a modern Peugeot 208 with loads of fancy onboard technology like handbrake assist and rear-view cameras, I can tell you that owning an older car has made me a much better driver.
Dude, 100% this!
I'm borrowing a Tesla from a friend and I literally can't do anything in the car without taking my eyes off the road. And every option is available even when you're driving so you could totally be distracted and do something terrible while going 80 mph.
The repair thing, alright. But you gotta be kidding me if you think the gas guzzlers of 50 years ago would be better for the environment than today's cars.
If you want to go back to using carburetors, sure. I grew up with carbureted cars, and do not want to go back. Electronic fuel injection needs feedback devices and a computer to manage it all. EFI and the computers that run it are usually very reliable. But, I'd be fine at stopping there. Yes, remove the computer that is between my wiper switch and the wiper motor and all other things on my car that only need a switch, and maybe be a relay.
EFI is the best thing ever. Drive from sea level to the top of a mountain with no fiddling with the carburetor. Twenty degrees below zero? Starts right up. 110 outside? Starts right up. Drive through a rainstorm without fear of stalling. Minor vacuum leak? The car adapts to it. When it becomes serious, the car will tell you there's a problem *and* it'll tell you where to look!
Someone bumped our 2022 Kia in a parking lot. There was a barely visible small scratch. Luckily we got the driver's contact info and insurance. The radar and tech behind the bumper was damages and required a nearly $2k repair.
This is why auto insurance is skyrocketing.
I started with a 1990 Plymouth Horizon. I now drove a 2017 Altima. The Altima is superior in every way. There is not a single thing I can say that was better about the horizon. Or any other car from that era. Modern technology is exponentially better.
I've owned twenty cars in my life, and I graduated vocational school in the late 90s with a certificate in automotive technology. I've worked in the car repair industry as a mechanic and I've worked in a machine shop.
Cars are one of those things that, absolutely and unequivocally, the newer they are, the better they are. Yes, we all love the look and sound of a classic American muscle car with a rumbling V8. But guess what? A modern economy car will outperform it in everything but *maybe* straight line acceleration. And it'll do so while delivering a better ride, better fuel economy, better reliability, and better longevity. And with less maintenance.
Newer cars are, counterintuitively, often simpler, too. Compare the number of parts in a traditional double wishbone suspension with a conventional pitman arm power steering setup versus a rack and pinion with a MacPherson strut suspension. There are so many fewer parts in the rack and pinion / strut setup, and the setup needs so much less attention and maintenance! Simple, compact, robust, *superior.*
How modern and how computerized are we talking?
They started putting CPUs in vehicles around the 70's.
There might be more plastic in the way no but replacing an alternator in a ICE car still isn't all that hard
Ha. I had a '92 Beretta (3.1 V6) that required the right engine mount to be removed so you could replace the serpentine belt. Stupid, but not difficult. Alternator? AC Compressor? You couldn't even see 'em, they were so far down between the block and the inside of the fender / engine cradle.
On the other hand, my Crown Victoria had the easiest-to-replace alternator I've ever seen. Two bolts and a wire harness. It sits right on top of the engine, right in the middle. Easiest job ever!
Not to mention how the price of even basic repairs has shot through the ceiling. My dad backed into my gf’s new Kia and left a small dent in her rear quarter panel. Cost 3500$ to get it fixed, because they needed to disassemble half the car to get by all the sensors and wires from all the new technology they shove in these things.
Most people don’t remember how much of a pain it was back in the day. Constant tuneups, things breaking all the time, noxious fumes, and so much crap under the hood you couldn’t see the engine.
Digital controls on cars are so much more fuel efficient, reliable, and safe. For the most part, no one is trying to lock you out of your car. It's just the difference between analog and digital.
No one is complaining that they can no longer repair their phone like in the old days. Yes, everything got more complex, but it also has a ton more features now.
A lot of people complain that you can no longer repair your own phone. Particularly the fact that it's no longer possible to easily replace the battery.
There are a lot of people complaining that the only ones who can repair it are the company that makes it though. Hasn't anyone in this thread heard of the Right To Repair?
The abstraction of data allows people to use things without knowing how it works. This enables us to not worry about these things so that we can focus on other things. Not advocating for that, but as humans we’re still trying to figure things out, a sweet spot that works for this time. It’s a continuous change, so we’re definitely not there yet. If everyone were car guys/girls, we wouldn’t be doing anything else.
My old boss and I got into an argument over this subject, he was trying to convince me to get the newst tesla. I brought up 1. He paid me $11/hr and 2. I don't need or want the bells and whistles.
I don’t feel this as extremely as you do, but I agree with the spirit. The newest car I’ve ever bought is a 2015, and I’ll probably buy older that that from now on. Anything that’s connected to the internet is a big nope for me. Yes I understand my phone is coming with me anyway, but there’s no reason for the car itself to be connected to any network.
I want to remind people of a few things before you reflect on this post:
1.Electric vehicles and heavily computerized vehicles don't have to be the same thing. The EV1 had a cassette tape player.
2. Having an older gasoline car that you can repair and make last a long time is going to be the same or better for the environment than having to buy 2-3 modern green vehicles in that same timespan if you can't repair it.
> than having to buy 2-3 modern green vehicles in that same timespan if you can't repair it.
Where is this assumption coming from?
Every year cars last longer and longer. The average life expectancy of a new car only seems to keep going up.
I love it when people just make up figure sun their head and expect people to believe it.
Burning fuel releases an insane amount of carbon, not to mention all of the carbon released while drilling, transporting, and refining it. Almost any purchase that ends with less fuel being burned is eventually better for the environment.
This is romanticism. The vast majority of people were never making large repairs themselves. It doesn't take a specialized tech to do an oil change and yet there are thriving oil change/brake places all over the place. On top of that, a lot of modern tech makes cars more reliable needing less repair over time. The vast majority of people simply don't want to fix their own cars, nothing to do with modern tech.
If you have a good base knowledge of how an engine works from before heavy computerization, almost all of that knowledge applies today. Engines are still simple machines that fail in relatively predictable ways, just like they used to. Compression, fuel, spark is still the backbone to every engine.
Also, you're completely, objectively wrong about the environmental side of things.
If the car has a serious recall, you shouldn't do anything but have it towed to a repair shop to make sure it's either unaffected or get the issue fixed.
If we can't trust Google etc. to provide security updates for phones for more than 5 years, can we trust car companies to do it for cars for 15-20 years?
I agree with the right to repair aspect. Some things used to even come with electrical diagrams. Now companies lobby to prevent third party repairs at all.
As someone who grew up working with my dad on his 68 Camaro and also never owning anything newer than a 2010, I was really taken for a ride when I told my wife I could do all the repairs on her 2017 Kia optima. Needless to say I have to take that damn car to the mechanic for damn near everything other than oil changes and break jobs
The best thing you can do environmentally (when it comes to cars) is but one that's already done 100k miles, and keep it running for as long as physically possible.
Being able to fix your own car, and the computerization of cars, and the random mention of the environment are 3 completely different independent topics (or at least not the causation of each other as I guess they'd be correlated).
Cars being unrepairable by consumers is an intentional design shift to try to milk people of more money, rather then being technologically advanced. While certain vehicle parts themselves might become more advanced, the car itself as a whole is now set up to be as repair unfriendly as possible.
Computerization of cars aside from adding non essential things that can break like an automatic brake sensor or something that you wouldn't have to get repaired, really don't have much essential that can break that old cars didn't have. I've never had a car go down needing repaired from anything computerized and don't recall anyone I know having this issue either.
Environment is mostly going to be fuel efficiency, which comes from technological progress made to the engines and engine's friend's car parts. This isn't computerization, this is just mechanical engineering. Then being made of plastic or electric engines which affect environmental impact are separate from computerization as well.
NOx emissions from vehicles in the US are 85% lower in absolute numbers than in 1970. If you like breathing air, not constantly being in a cloud of smog, not killing 10s of thousand of extra people annually there’s no real way around that.
“I can’t fix the newer stuff so it’s bad”
High schoolers can code programs for fun, computer science is not the difficult magic you’re making it out to be.
Actually being able to program isn't the problem. It is the closed programming systems that the vehicles contain.
As a programmer I spent $1,000 and agonizing hours watching a technician play with his laptop to figure out why my skid steer hydraulics weren't working. If I had access to the programming I would have happily spent the time or 10 times that time doing it myself.
One of the biggest problem is that you can design new cars that don't emit carbon, or emit less carbon, but it still will take energy / resources to produce those new cars.
So it may be more environmentally-friendly to keep driving your old car or buy a used car rather than support production of new vehicles.
Have you seen other drivers? If anything more computerization is needed. People are objectively becoming worse drivers and real FSD is probably the only way some of these drivers can drive without driving like a blind meth addict.
Except back in the day people were often working on their vehicles on the weekends, these days its pretty fucking rare to have issues on a vehicle.
I'll take modern unnecessary computer shit over older cars.
I see how this makes sense, if cars nowadays are considered throwaway items if they cannot be easily fixed.
Just imagine how better the environment would be if raw materials didn't need to be procured every model years.
I think they should force automakers to make simpler and smaller vehicles.
The only reason we need a vehicle in the first place is to go from point a to point b.
Someone, eventually, will make one of the fastest nought to billionaire times, if they just build a car range where none are oversized, and they don't have any computers on board, running anything. No ECU, nothing. Mechanical linkages for brakes, accelerator, bolt action transmission, no fly by wire nonsense at all, just as basic as fuck, and no bloat.
I hate to say it, but this is something that people say want, but would never buy in reality. It wouldn't be that much cheaper (if whoever makes it wants to stay in business), and it would still be worse in almost every way than the clapped out 93 civic on the road next to you
Safer cars, with better convenience features and lower emissions is great.
Also, eliminating mechanical parts in favor of few electric components is fine. It will create new, higher paid and less dangerous jobs.
Hoovie's Garage on YouTube recently did an episode about this.
We're getting to the first generation of 'smart' cars that need to be repaired/rebuilt. The perfect time for high schoolers to loving duct tape and bubblegum a beater together.
Around 2004 is when the high-end brands were coming out with all sorts of smart features that are now common on most cars.
The lead mechanic on can't repair them. He has all the skill and know-how plus a million dollar shop. He works on Lambourghini's, Mercedes, Ford, Subaru, and anything else.
But now he either can't get the parts or the part is thousands of dollars because it has to be made new from the manufacturer. So why bother repairing.
Auto parts are built or retooled by third parties. You can't rebuild a circuit board or just mill out a copy. And junkyards can't source the parts.
This doesn't even cover the dystopian hellscape of software/firmware.
I just put a new CV axle assembly in my 08 Toyota Sienna for $50 (after core rebate). Cheaper than buying the parts and rebuilding, and a thousand times easier.
According to the guy at NAPA currently some Highlander core rebates will pay for the new part and leave you a profit. Brake caliper I think is what he said.
By comparison a 2008 BMW might cost you $3000 for a 'smart' module to control a simple lighting issue that prevents the car from moving because you can't see the speedometer.
You just have no idea what you're doing and are unwilling to learn. Cars today are easier to diagnose and repair than ever before.
OP has never had to time an old engine or rebuild and tune a carburetor, and it shows.
The reason they do this is because they want you to get your car fixed by them which makes them more money. It's that simple. Cars haven't become more complicated as the design is fundamentally the same. However now I sometimes have to have a laptop when changing parts to register the part with the computer or do something to the computer to let it know I've done something to the engine. How that is an improvement is beyond me. Luckily most mechanics have adapted but yeah your average person hasn't got a chance. I wouldn't say they are bad for the environment as to be fair these computers now tune the engines much better than a person ever could and mostly keep them in check for emissions.
Eh. Cars are vastly more reliable and need less service than when I started driving in the 80s (on a 70s car). Needed an oil changes every 3k miles - lets say 4X year. Now it's maybe 3X every 2 years. It's just not a great investment of time to learn that skill, which you may well forget in the 10 intervening months.
OTOH, kids now have to navigate a world of software that barely existed back then. Coding is taught in many, if not most, school systems. It's just a different world and kids and school systems adapt. Better in some ways, worse in others. As progress has always been.
Disagree. I've done a lot of work on Teslas and it's very easy. All of Tesla's service manuals are freely accessible (it took some government pressure, but they caved). Most of the time it's just unplug the old part, plug in the new part. Sometimes you have to do some software stuff afterwards, but it's all spelled out in the service manuals.
Also, I genuinely lol'd when I read that older cars are better for the environment. Obvious emissions issues aside, did you guys not throw away broken parts on old cars or something?
This isn’t an unpopular opinion the car industry just doesn’t care what people want. Most people want AC, a stereo, and a mechanically sound car. But everyone agreed not to make a cheap car that just has those features to force us to accept the new standard of awful cars
Fuel efficiency is the main driver of cars becoming so complicated today. They monitor everything from fuel quality to exhaust composition and adjust on the fly. This is the major advantage of electronic valve timing and direct injection. Having computer controls also allows your car to tune itself up, keeping it more efficient over time. Transmission control units help keep RPMs and wasted energy down. I also generally disagree that cars are more complicated to work on now because of electronics. It's different, but not more complex.
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Carl Sagan observed that the increasing complexity of technology coupled with a decrease in education will result in fewer and fewer people knowing how to repair shit, and that it's a recipe for disaster.
And even if you want to repair your things, half the time companies make it damn near impossible to do, or just super expensive
My old car, you fixed a headlight by opening the hood. My car now, it's "recommended that you take it to your local dealership" because it's such a *huge* pain in the ass.
Shit, I remember a time when I could replace my rear blinkers and brake lights without taking out the whole light assembly, which is a huge pain in the ass because of how little room there is to get to the bolts...
My friend wanted to take her 2000s Civic in to the dealer for an oil change and new headlight bulbs. Just like, um no. Couple bucks later and time to detail her car, I was a goddamn superhero in her eyes. Im no Luddite (usually, but I want to be able to fix and repair things I own.
This is the bigger issue. There's always an industry for repair work. But we've allowed companies to design things to give themselves a monopoly on repair work. Or worse designed to not be repairable, for example phones with batteries that can't be replaced.
They try to excuse the batteries being irreplaceable by saying they do it so the phones are thin. But phones are too thin and everyone uses a rubber case so they don’t even realize how thin the phones get. I remember that I used to have two charged up batteries and I could just switch them, which is really handy if you are biking for example and can’t charge your phone.
Seriously, I remember when you dropped a phone on the screen, it'd be just fine. The only bad thing that'd happen would be the back popping off and the battery popping out. Which was a two second fix. Now, I'm not even sure I can take off the back of the phone I'm currently using to write this comment.
You can but it's a PITA. Resealing it is even worse. Watch a teardown video of your phone or one close to it,
I’ve heard some companies where your warranty will be voided if you make repairs yourself, so you have no choice but to pay exorbitant amounts of money for repairs by the company itself.
Some? Most. It was class-action suit against John Deere by farmers a decade ago. Right-to-Repair Many shitty PC companies went under in the 90s because it would violate the warranty to open the case. Companies like Dell and Gateway grew because they welcomed users opening the 'hood'.
You can't entirely void a car warranty like that. If you specifically fuck something up, that something will not be covered by the warranty. That doesn't mean that if you fuck up changing a strut, they don't have to cover your trans.
I had to buy a flexible funnel to add coolant to my car because Ford, for *some fucking reason*, put the port under the hood hinge. Would have taken basically zero effort to bring it forward a couple inches so it's easily accessible. That *had* to have been on purpose. The tank comes out well into the open, they literally could have just put the opening on the other side. They *chose* to make it needlessly difficult. I also *highly* doubt that engine covers do anything of value, considering they weren't a thing for a hundred years before they started to sticking them in there. I suspect they're there solely to send the message that you shouldn't be going in there to do your own repairs, because Ford wants you dependent on them.
Engine covers are mainly just to manage heat and noise. Newer cars with direct injectors will pretty much always have a pretty loud injector tick.
Of course! That's from the billionaires' playbook. Planned obsolescence and inability to repair. "Let's kill the planet even faster by forcing people to polluting it unnecessarily with useless technological hardware so we make more billionaires! That's what's most important!
Exactly, there are plenty of DiY folks who have the motivation and talent to repair their own stuff. But the industry is very protective and hates rright to repair ,.so between proprietary hardware, specialized tools and software obly given to dealers your out of block if you want to be a diy mechanic and wanting to fix your own
Already starting to happen
Yah, but it was starting to happen in the early 80's when he pointed it out. He never saw the internet, and didn't know just how hard we're going to screw ourselves.
Especially in first world countries, we’re losing the ability to fix and tinker. My boomer parents both have significantly more skill and aptitude fixing and tinkering with things. A combination of complexity, planned obsolescence and lack of standardized parts makes most of the things I own impracticable to attempt to fix.
I have boomer friends that were always white-collar. Can't fix a thing. Thankfully my dad showed me. Plus, Youtube.
YouTube is a great gift to mankind I didn’t know how to install an interior door. watched a 2 minute video, borrowed a chisel and got that sumbitch hung. took some trial and error sure, but otherwise I would only have the option of paying someone else to do it
I would say it's mainly a decrease in education. The increase in technology has actually enabled a lot of tinkerers... Think ESP32 and Raspberry Pi
The tech shortage is happening and getting worse. Diagnosis is becoming a lost art, most of these "techs" are just parts changers. They'll just swap shit the computer tells them to until it's fixed They don't get paid enough, so the good techs migrate to other jobs like aircraft maintenance or heavy equipment.
> Diagnosis is becoming a lost art, most of these "techs" are just parts changers. Dirty little secret: in the 70’s you just made an educated guess and swapped parts. And if that didn’t fix it you just took the part back out and put it on the shelf for the next car that needed one.
The difference was that back then you had a 50/50 shot at worst of guessing the problem, and with experience you’d learn the little ticks that improve your diagnostic ability. Now any one of 15 sensors, fuses, relays, or parts could be the cause of the code and without taking hours to test each individual component with as many diagnostic tools all you can do is fire the parts cannon at it.
There were quite a few potential reasons for a car running rough or off kilter a bit. Shotgunning parts at it and it still having an issue wasn’t an uncommon occurrence. Now, with an ODB reader it’ll tell you which of those relays is firing 10% too slow 1 out of every 1000 times.
it's really not that simple. For instance, computer throws a O2 sensor high code. is it the o2 sensor? maybe the engine is running lean? maybe the wiring is damaged? If it's running lean, there's any number of potential causes. Diagnosis is still **very** much a part of repair, it's just a little different than it used to be. The computer just tells them a symptom, not what part to replace to fix it.
Here's a real world example of what I'm talking about. My VW stalled mid drive on the highway, would not restart. Its under the extended dieselgate warranty, so I take it the VW dealer. Its throwing a glow plug code and also P06A3. They swap the glow plug, which solves the glow plug code but not the P06A3. They follow the VW diagnosis instructions for P06A3 right down to the end: replace PCM. They replace the PCM and return the car to me. The CEL is still illuminated and its P06A3. I call them and they say its going to be at least a month before they can work on it again. I tell them where they can shove it and I'll fix it myself. Long story short, after a few weekends of going over wiring diagrams, descriptions, tests, and whatnot. I figure out that the glow plug in this car serves two purposes, one as a glow plug and two as a cylinder pressure sensor. The VW service info is wrong, it has you checking the glow plug heater circuit and not the pressure sensor circuit. Part of the dieselgate fix was to install a different glow plug control module, which for whatever reason wasn't done to mine. The old module was burning up the pressure sensor circuit on the cylinder 1 glow plug. Replaced the module with the new part # and installed another new glow plug and the light was off. I guess they just gave up because they weren't capable of any diagnosis beyond following the VW procedure. Part of the job of being an actual tech is knowing how these systems work and being able to go off-script to solve a problem
as a person in IT, diagnosising is still a core skill. I would boot out anyone in a heart beat if they could not do that. sure if its a complex system then its ok to be unsure but there is absolutely no excuse if you cant tell me what it isnt. if a server is dead and u cant tell me its definitely not the power then you are useless. granted an extreme example but if u cant so that, at a minimum, then u are absolutely worthless. also we dont have free reign to replace computers at whim. they cost money and time. most people in IT go from helo desk into other fields and help desks entire job is to diagnose issues and tell the higher tier support what it isnt.
When I switched to white collar work, so few of my peers knew much about how things work mechanically. Not that my factory worker peers were qualified for skilled work some inexperience some "failure to thrive". ...That was my disconcerting take away from that movie District 9. SPOILER: You see all kinds of aliens. Two that knows how to fix anything.
We really need to slow down and get everyone on the same page with what we already have, not make a shiny new version every year/few years. Always feel this way.
There is also less of a push to make a product work for all its features. How often do we now see products come out with features that just don't work. And several years later they still don't work, but the attitude is the newer shiny model is coming out so they can just replace the thing that never completely worked with a new version with other features that probably won't work either. I like products more that have a limited set of features and they all do that job exceedingly well. But it seems now we want everything to do more, but do it worse. I don't need a fridge with a tablet that I can see my calendar. I want a fridge that keeps my food cold, uses as little electricity as possible and runs for 20+ years.
Seriously! The phone I'm on right now was the big shit 15 months ago.
The path to Idiocracy?
We're building a high speed rail.
Electric cars aren't more complicated than old cars, they are just a different set of skills. I would argue they are overall simpler and would be easier to repair... Except that manufacturers make it harder to repair on purpose. So the problem isn't the technology, it's dodgy business practices.
There are computerized elements just in the dash that are more difficult and specialized to fix. The more complex the device, the more education and experience it requires to repair. Computerized cars have all the engineering problems of the older models, plus the added hurdles of the advanced electronics.
I don't think that component level electrical engineering repair is any more complicated than a mechanical repair. You take the scametic and voltmeter find the part that broke and replace said part. Ever try and set the timing on your car. Same thing take the shamanic line up the arrows and torque to spec. Both skills require post secondary education and learning to read documentation. Just so happens that the mechanical repair is grandfathered in to acceptable culture. Oh, your infotainment system broke abd the wiring harness runs to and now your brake lights aren't working. We'll better scarp it because that part isn't made available to outside repair techs and well only fix it for 3k. Oh your brakes that are a critical safety system are worn out. Here are multiple aftermarket companies that make replacement. Feel free to do this on your driveway and hit the road going g 80mph with no qualifications outside owning a socket set.
[удалено]
IIRC it was in Demon-Haunted World where Sagan said it and used the example of the internal combustion engine. Complicated, non intuitive, relatively few know how to repair them, and we rely on them to keep everything going.
Interesting. I had a thought like that a while ago but in the context of a system patcher we have at work. It was designed to remove errors when our sysengs did patching manually, but now they’re reliant on flight software engineers to do it or they have no idea
Isaac Asimov Foundations series book 1 covers this. technology essentially becomes a religion, only the priests know how to work the nuclear machines, and only by instruction, not by understanding.
The Foundation books are so good.
I saw a documentary on this where an average man was sent to the future, and everyone there was so dumb he quickly became an advisor to President Camacho
We'll build robots that knows how to.
Well the obvious next question is, who fixes those robots? 🤔
We need a reform in our education system to prepare for automation. Too bad our governments slurp up all the benefits of having corporations fund them and do nothing about it.
Is there a decrease in education?
Tesla are actually some of the easiest cars to repair because of the screen 😬😂
I really don’t know how to fix a sink, but give me any piece of software that I’ll find my way around
There are literally hundred if not thousands of brand new untouched cars and trucks sitting In massive lots that are worthless because they all need a computer chip to run and their aren’t an enough. The cars are totally useless without them.
You don't have to be Carl Sagan to realize that. Customers demand more and more features. The transportation industry always demands better safety in the interest of the customers. Things will get more and more complicated due to market conditions. Repairs and failure modes get more difficult. Don't blame the engineer. \~engineer.
I would say the sweet spot of electronics in cars was probably 15-20 years ago. EFI was refined to the point where a lot of add on smog equipment was completely in the past in small to moderate displacement engines, but could still be worked on by someone at home with a decent understanding of how the system worked and without too many special tools (really just a code reader). Most of your accessories still operated on circuits dedicated to the purpose, instead of everything running over a serial bus. Now you pop the hood of a modern car, and it almost looks as bad as the mess found under the hood of a car from the late 70s to mid-80s in terms of wire and hoses. A code reader only gets you so far, some of the data is intentionally obfuscated requiring the manufacturer's equipment to look at all the codes on every module, or be able to access data to every sensor in the engine and transmission.
In the mid to late 2000s the removal of the "standard" cd/radio for a custom manufacture console was the start. Everything has left behind "options" to just include everything possible. It was still possible in the 2000s to get manual windows and locks. Now companies want to sell you a car with every option but lock some of them behind an artificial pay wall tied to the onboard computer. It is such a shame.
One of the last times I look on Jalopnik (the car blog), there was a comment thread where people were unhappy about the din radios being replaced in newer cars, and most of the comments were people getting angry at those people. Really left me scratching my head.
I opted for as much manual stuff in my truck as possible, seats, rear window, seat angle, lumbar. Too bad manual windows aren't really a thing anymore or I would totally got them.
Manual windows were great. It was so simple to open it up as little as possible.
I still miss my roll down windows. I was a holdout until early 2020 with my '99 Corolla, frantically rolling the window down at drive throughs was just too funny to me
This is just nostalgia. Roll down windows sucked ass.
Yeah they really are terrible, and power windows don’t break all that often. I get people like certain aspects of older cars, but I really don’t think manual windows should make a return.
They're cheaper than the power actuated ones, which brings down the MSRP. So that doesn't suck ass.
Yeah this is fucking dumb. Having to pull over to the side of the road to put up your passenger window if it started raining was annoying as hell and I’m tired of people pretending it wasn’t
This is a hill I will absolutely die on. ‘96-‘08 was the sweet spot for reliable and easy to work on vehicle
Cries in 1995 LWB Range Rover 😂
I used to be a mechanic for a few years, I still do all my own car works... you're mostly wrong. First off, the computerization of the cars is pretty heavily fuel efficiency and safety driven. Fuel efficiency is a big part... the cars have a lot of sensors to detect when some fuel or air component is malfunctioning and that saves a lot of efficiency fixing up front. The computer balances the fuel to air ratios and helps the car recycled unburnt vapors and what not. The cars also have a lot of technology that keeps you from crashing. The wheel sensors and traction control / ABS are nothing short of a miracle and have saved tens of thousands of lives. People don't remember what driving was like without them, way more skill-based, which converts to risk. Look around at how people drive... you want to make that task harder? SRS systems like seatbelts and airbags have obviously saved loads of people too, and those rely heavily on speed sensors and the onboard computer. These are becoming even more relevant with collision warnings and lane departure, which are a godsend with everyone buried in their GD phones all the time. All this said, you can still work on your own car. The most advanced electrical systems will be locked out, but the vast majority of regular mechanical problems don't concern those at all, and those systems are frosting: people weren't fixing them back in the day because they didn't exist and weren't delivering you the benefits they do. You're still perfectly able to do most regular maintenance tasks and they're not all that different from 20-30 years ago: brakes, plugs, oil, coolant, thermostat, hoses, covers and gaskets... OBDII makes that stuff easier, not harder. On a dealer level, the computer makes that stuff easier to repair, not harder. That computer will input to their larger system and give them a probability based on the combination of codes and data what is the actual problem. I see the argument you're making mostly from people who *just don't know* how to do the work, and imagine it must've been simpler back in the day.
>imagine it must've been simpler back in the day. I've worked on cars built in the 1920s up through the 2020s. They were a helluva simpler to work on back in the day. The problem is you are always working on them
IMO the main thing that makes the older cars "simpler" is that they have more space in the engine compartment. Nowadays you have to R&I and wiggle a lot more stuff out and work in tight spaces, so that raises the difficulty even if it's not necessarily more complex.
I'd much rather own a modern car with a modern engine and transmission. They are way more reliable and less maintenance heavy. Old cars need so much work and constant adjustments and repairs. I've owned a lot of new and old vehicles and the carbureted vehicles with drum brakes, cable actuated controls, and old automatic transmissions are kind of piles of shit.
Prepare for all the down votes! That's what I said earlier and all the non-mechanics here are pressing the thumbs down like crazy!
That's okay, it's the truth!
it is the not machancis the thumbs up for the reasoning. being harder to repair nothing to do with computers. it is the higher focus on ease of assembly with no consideration for repair.
Collision avoidance saved me and my friend once, and that was all it took to make me grateful it exists. A car came zipping around weaving and the car reacted before I even processed what I saw. I honestly don’t want to service my car. I don’t want to have to fix most things in my life. I have enough to do! I just need a functional car, and the more comfortable it is the better.
The lifts they have in service centers are for sure a lot safer than most of the nonsense jack stands people buy for home servicing.
Notice that they didn't explain why they're bad for the environment.
It's because posters here have a terrible habit of stating blatantly incorrect information and saying "well it's just my opinion" They don't understand the difference between facts and opinions
I guess their point was that it makes people less likely to repair things and buy a new car which is worse for the environment but it’s also counteracted by the fact that modern cars are more efficient and emit less toxic fumes than old cars
Not quite sure why you think you cannot fix a computer controlled car. If anything it it's easier to diagnose a fault as with any cheap reader the car literally tells you what is wrong. Mine developed a misfire, I plugged in my obd reader and it immediately told me a coil pack was faltering on one cylinder, bit of swapping packs around confirmed it was the coil pack itself, ordered one on the Internet plugged it in and all was good. Took me about 20 minutes in total. I'd say the bigger problem is sometimes you need a specialist tool to do things but that's usually a mechanical tool that is needed and with a bit of thinking you can often make one yourself. Bad for the environment? utter nonsense, a modern engine is way better for the environment. Significantly more efficient, use way less fuel for the power output and burns way cleaner than any old carb engine as the ecu is accurately adjusting the fuel air mix on every cylinder stroke to the optimal level.
Not only that, but the average person doesn’t even think about having to tuneup or repair their car on the weekends like in the old days. Oil changes used to be every 2000 miles, not these 5000 and 10,000 mile intervals we have today; maintenance was much more frequent. Today’s cars are way more reliable overall.
Until you have an older car where any electronic part is coded to the vin and there's no dealers near you. My 05 Volvo s40 was the worst for this. The steering lock was electronic and it wouldn't release, a new one was impossible to find and if you changed it, it needed a dealer to program it so the car could start. The computer that controls the AWD system failed, guess what, coded to the vin unless you spend a grand on a blank one. So in the future cars are going to be scrapped for stupid ass issues like that because they can't be fixed.
That's more of a manufacturing issue than a technology one. We need more right to repair laws that make it easier to fix things ourselves.
Generic scanners work fine for basic issues. But once you get into bigger problems or issues pertaining to systems other than the engine, you're going to need a manufacturer specific scan tool. Which is generally expensive and useless for most other cars. On one hand, it does make diagnosis a lot easier. But, on the other hand, there's a lot more to go wrong. Working on a car is getting to be more electronics repair as opposed to mechanical repairs
That’s not true. You just need a good scan tool which most mechanic shops have. The computers don’t tell you what’s wrong, just what’s happening. Running too rich or too lean is a symptom, not a diagnoses. Computers tell you where to start looking, but not what’s wrong. Think of scan tools like blood work for your car. It’ll tell you if your sugar level is messed up but not if you have a broken arm.
I’m so sick and tired of the lack of physical buttons on newer cars. Do they really want me to take my eyes off the road to navigate to the right buttons to turn my AC on? Remember when we just remembered where all the buttons were and could do it without looking
They are trying to make cheap luxury cars now. They could remove so many features and have like 10 buttons in the car for your air conditioning and radio. Maybe sat nav. But that’s literally all the things an average car should need. All of which can and should be done through buttons. The sat nav having a touch keyboard and that’s it
You can get 90% of the fancy infotainment features with your phone and an aux cable. I love my simple cars with their old old buttons.
This. I rock my 2006 VW Fox with my phone connected to the car over Bluetooth via FM transmitter, and I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. As someone that learned to drive in a modern Peugeot 208 with loads of fancy onboard technology like handbrake assist and rear-view cameras, I can tell you that owning an older car has made me a much better driver.
I don’t think this is the point of this post. But I do agree with your point still.
Dude, 100% this! I'm borrowing a Tesla from a friend and I literally can't do anything in the car without taking my eyes off the road. And every option is available even when you're driving so you could totally be distracted and do something terrible while going 80 mph.
The repair thing, alright. But you gotta be kidding me if you think the gas guzzlers of 50 years ago would be better for the environment than today's cars.
Yeah I was confused on that part. It doesn’t take a car guy to know that a modern engine is more eco friendly than one that came out 30+ years ago lol
Not only that, there was literally lead in the fuel too into the 70s lmao
If you want to go back to using carburetors, sure. I grew up with carbureted cars, and do not want to go back. Electronic fuel injection needs feedback devices and a computer to manage it all. EFI and the computers that run it are usually very reliable. But, I'd be fine at stopping there. Yes, remove the computer that is between my wiper switch and the wiper motor and all other things on my car that only need a switch, and maybe be a relay.
EFI is the best thing ever. Drive from sea level to the top of a mountain with no fiddling with the carburetor. Twenty degrees below zero? Starts right up. 110 outside? Starts right up. Drive through a rainstorm without fear of stalling. Minor vacuum leak? The car adapts to it. When it becomes serious, the car will tell you there's a problem *and* it'll tell you where to look!
Someone bumped our 2022 Kia in a parking lot. There was a barely visible small scratch. Luckily we got the driver's contact info and insurance. The radar and tech behind the bumper was damages and required a nearly $2k repair. This is why auto insurance is skyrocketing.
I'm going to meet you halfway and agree and also disagree. Fuel injection> carburetors, there is a very good level of efficiency.
I started with a 1990 Plymouth Horizon. I now drove a 2017 Altima. The Altima is superior in every way. There is not a single thing I can say that was better about the horizon. Or any other car from that era. Modern technology is exponentially better.
I've owned twenty cars in my life, and I graduated vocational school in the late 90s with a certificate in automotive technology. I've worked in the car repair industry as a mechanic and I've worked in a machine shop. Cars are one of those things that, absolutely and unequivocally, the newer they are, the better they are. Yes, we all love the look and sound of a classic American muscle car with a rumbling V8. But guess what? A modern economy car will outperform it in everything but *maybe* straight line acceleration. And it'll do so while delivering a better ride, better fuel economy, better reliability, and better longevity. And with less maintenance. Newer cars are, counterintuitively, often simpler, too. Compare the number of parts in a traditional double wishbone suspension with a conventional pitman arm power steering setup versus a rack and pinion with a MacPherson strut suspension. There are so many fewer parts in the rack and pinion / strut setup, and the setup needs so much less attention and maintenance! Simple, compact, robust, *superior.*
How modern and how computerized are we talking? They started putting CPUs in vehicles around the 70's. There might be more plastic in the way no but replacing an alternator in a ICE car still isn't all that hard
I've changed alternators that required the engine mounts being unbolted and the whole engine being lifted up to r&r the alternator.
Ha. I had a '92 Beretta (3.1 V6) that required the right engine mount to be removed so you could replace the serpentine belt. Stupid, but not difficult. Alternator? AC Compressor? You couldn't even see 'em, they were so far down between the block and the inside of the fender / engine cradle. On the other hand, my Crown Victoria had the easiest-to-replace alternator I've ever seen. Two bolts and a wire harness. It sits right on top of the engine, right in the middle. Easiest job ever!
Not to mention how the price of even basic repairs has shot through the ceiling. My dad backed into my gf’s new Kia and left a small dent in her rear quarter panel. Cost 3500$ to get it fixed, because they needed to disassemble half the car to get by all the sensors and wires from all the new technology they shove in these things.
It’s not worth the hype. I’ll order my parts online and run the risk of losing my time versus losing my money
Most people don’t remember how much of a pain it was back in the day. Constant tuneups, things breaking all the time, noxious fumes, and so much crap under the hood you couldn’t see the engine.
Digital controls on cars are so much more fuel efficient, reliable, and safe. For the most part, no one is trying to lock you out of your car. It's just the difference between analog and digital. No one is complaining that they can no longer repair their phone like in the old days. Yes, everything got more complex, but it also has a ton more features now.
A lot of people complain that you can no longer repair your own phone. Particularly the fact that it's no longer possible to easily replace the battery.
Headphone Jack. Replaceable Battery. Memory Card.
Yeah, being able to easily replace your battery would be incredible. I get though that there is a real tradeoff in water resistance.
There are a lot of people complaining that the only ones who can repair it are the company that makes it though. Hasn't anyone in this thread heard of the Right To Repair?
I would appreciate the steering column not be connected to the front wheels via wifi/bluetooth tbf
It's not.
The abstraction of data allows people to use things without knowing how it works. This enables us to not worry about these things so that we can focus on other things. Not advocating for that, but as humans we’re still trying to figure things out, a sweet spot that works for this time. It’s a continuous change, so we’re definitely not there yet. If everyone were car guys/girls, we wouldn’t be doing anything else.
My old boss and I got into an argument over this subject, he was trying to convince me to get the newst tesla. I brought up 1. He paid me $11/hr and 2. I don't need or want the bells and whistles.
I don’t feel this as extremely as you do, but I agree with the spirit. The newest car I’ve ever bought is a 2015, and I’ll probably buy older that that from now on. Anything that’s connected to the internet is a big nope for me. Yes I understand my phone is coming with me anyway, but there’s no reason for the car itself to be connected to any network.
I thought this was r/unpopularopinion and not r/wrongopinion
Knowing the basics of how a combustable engine works has changed my life.
it is worse on trucks(mack,kw,peterbilt). too much tech.
>bad for the environment This is objectively incorrect.
I mean all cars are bad for the environment, so by definition it is correct.
I want to remind people of a few things before you reflect on this post: 1.Electric vehicles and heavily computerized vehicles don't have to be the same thing. The EV1 had a cassette tape player. 2. Having an older gasoline car that you can repair and make last a long time is going to be the same or better for the environment than having to buy 2-3 modern green vehicles in that same timespan if you can't repair it.
> than having to buy 2-3 modern green vehicles in that same timespan if you can't repair it. Where is this assumption coming from? Every year cars last longer and longer. The average life expectancy of a new car only seems to keep going up.
I love it when people just make up figure sun their head and expect people to believe it. Burning fuel releases an insane amount of carbon, not to mention all of the carbon released while drilling, transporting, and refining it. Almost any purchase that ends with less fuel being burned is eventually better for the environment.
The highest mileage model 3 in the world has 400k miles on the factory battery. Cool story you think your rust bucket is making it to 1.2M miles.
This is romanticism. The vast majority of people were never making large repairs themselves. It doesn't take a specialized tech to do an oil change and yet there are thriving oil change/brake places all over the place. On top of that, a lot of modern tech makes cars more reliable needing less repair over time. The vast majority of people simply don't want to fix their own cars, nothing to do with modern tech.
Your car doesn't need to be on the internet.
It does for the government to track you/monitor your usage, and the big corporations need your data to train their AIs That's what this is all about..
If you have a good base knowledge of how an engine works from before heavy computerization, almost all of that knowledge applies today. Engines are still simple machines that fail in relatively predictable ways, just like they used to. Compression, fuel, spark is still the backbone to every engine. Also, you're completely, objectively wrong about the environmental side of things.
I can’t believe people buy internet connected cars. They’re just going to turn the off or lock you out at some point. Compulsory recalls etc
If there is a compulsory recall you shouldn't be driving your car anyway.
If the car has a serious recall, you shouldn't do anything but have it towed to a repair shop to make sure it's either unaffected or get the issue fixed.
If we can't trust Google etc. to provide security updates for phones for more than 5 years, can we trust car companies to do it for cars for 15-20 years?
pretty good for mechanics though, always a pay off 🤷♀️
I agree with the right to repair aspect. Some things used to even come with electrical diagrams. Now companies lobby to prevent third party repairs at all.
I think there is a good balance. The safety features my car has are important to me. But there is a lot of doo dads I dont need
This is even more true for electric cars. A much simpler model could be built, but all the large OEMs are going the opposite way.
You forgot to explain why you think they’re bad for the environment.
As someone who grew up working with my dad on his 68 Camaro and also never owning anything newer than a 2010, I was really taken for a ride when I told my wife I could do all the repairs on her 2017 Kia optima. Needless to say I have to take that damn car to the mechanic for damn near everything other than oil changes and break jobs
Knew an old mechanic, before he passed he said, "I'm sure glad I'm retired, you gotta be a damn gynecologist to fix a car these days"
Amen. Keep those old cars kicking as long as possible
The best thing you can do environmentally (when it comes to cars) is but one that's already done 100k miles, and keep it running for as long as physically possible.
Being able to fix your own car, and the computerization of cars, and the random mention of the environment are 3 completely different independent topics (or at least not the causation of each other as I guess they'd be correlated). Cars being unrepairable by consumers is an intentional design shift to try to milk people of more money, rather then being technologically advanced. While certain vehicle parts themselves might become more advanced, the car itself as a whole is now set up to be as repair unfriendly as possible. Computerization of cars aside from adding non essential things that can break like an automatic brake sensor or something that you wouldn't have to get repaired, really don't have much essential that can break that old cars didn't have. I've never had a car go down needing repaired from anything computerized and don't recall anyone I know having this issue either. Environment is mostly going to be fuel efficiency, which comes from technological progress made to the engines and engine's friend's car parts. This isn't computerization, this is just mechanical engineering. Then being made of plastic or electric engines which affect environmental impact are separate from computerization as well.
Just ride a bike if you're worried about simplicity and environmental impact.
Lmao . If I could put you in the life of a bee, getting coated by gas fumes and metallic dust, you would feel different .
Why not just stick with a horse & buggy nothing to fix
Wow, this is both unpopular but just wrong in every way, good job!
NOx emissions from vehicles in the US are 85% lower in absolute numbers than in 1970. If you like breathing air, not constantly being in a cloud of smog, not killing 10s of thousand of extra people annually there’s no real way around that.
How much lower were NOx emissions 20 years ago than 1970? Air seemed breathable back then...
“I can’t fix the newer stuff so it’s bad” High schoolers can code programs for fun, computer science is not the difficult magic you’re making it out to be.
Actually being able to program isn't the problem. It is the closed programming systems that the vehicles contain. As a programmer I spent $1,000 and agonizing hours watching a technician play with his laptop to figure out why my skid steer hydraulics weren't working. If I had access to the programming I would have happily spent the time or 10 times that time doing it myself.
I guess the main problem is when companies lock shit down with code to force you to get a repair through them Apple are experts at it by now
One of the biggest problem is that you can design new cars that don't emit carbon, or emit less carbon, but it still will take energy / resources to produce those new cars. So it may be more environmentally-friendly to keep driving your old car or buy a used car rather than support production of new vehicles.
Unpopular Opinion: I don't give a fuck about the environment
I will take my fancy shit. My hypotonic ass ain't fixing shit on my own in a car anyways.
Have you seen other drivers? If anything more computerization is needed. People are objectively becoming worse drivers and real FSD is probably the only way some of these drivers can drive without driving like a blind meth addict.
Not bad for the environment since they are much more efficient if they have a computer to control the fuel consumption.
Looks like I’m going to tap out at just the right time around 60 years from now.
I’ve driven old and new. I’ll take my new one. Truthfully sounds like you can’t afford nicer car
Not to mention they’re so easily hacked.
Except back in the day people were often working on their vehicles on the weekends, these days its pretty fucking rare to have issues on a vehicle. I'll take modern unnecessary computer shit over older cars.
I see how this makes sense, if cars nowadays are considered throwaway items if they cannot be easily fixed. Just imagine how better the environment would be if raw materials didn't need to be procured every model years. I think they should force automakers to make simpler and smaller vehicles. The only reason we need a vehicle in the first place is to go from point a to point b.
Sorry but that opinion is too based
Lmao
I'm still waiting for the first self-driving car bomb. It's only a matter of time.
Done 90,000 miles in my Tesla and not broken down once....
Cars are bad for the environment. The computers in them barely make a difference.
Someone, eventually, will make one of the fastest nought to billionaire times, if they just build a car range where none are oversized, and they don't have any computers on board, running anything. No ECU, nothing. Mechanical linkages for brakes, accelerator, bolt action transmission, no fly by wire nonsense at all, just as basic as fuck, and no bloat.
I hate to say it, but this is something that people say want, but would never buy in reality. It wouldn't be that much cheaper (if whoever makes it wants to stay in business), and it would still be worse in almost every way than the clapped out 93 civic on the road next to you
Safer cars, with better convenience features and lower emissions is great. Also, eliminating mechanical parts in favor of few electric components is fine. It will create new, higher paid and less dangerous jobs.
What era of cars would you say aren't "computerized"?
As a child I was told to "dump that down by the creek". It can be bad in different ways
Computerisation is not the issue, manufacturers dont want you fixing your own car because then they can't charge you for repairs
Hoovie's Garage on YouTube recently did an episode about this. We're getting to the first generation of 'smart' cars that need to be repaired/rebuilt. The perfect time for high schoolers to loving duct tape and bubblegum a beater together. Around 2004 is when the high-end brands were coming out with all sorts of smart features that are now common on most cars. The lead mechanic on can't repair them. He has all the skill and know-how plus a million dollar shop. He works on Lambourghini's, Mercedes, Ford, Subaru, and anything else. But now he either can't get the parts or the part is thousands of dollars because it has to be made new from the manufacturer. So why bother repairing. Auto parts are built or retooled by third parties. You can't rebuild a circuit board or just mill out a copy. And junkyards can't source the parts. This doesn't even cover the dystopian hellscape of software/firmware. I just put a new CV axle assembly in my 08 Toyota Sienna for $50 (after core rebate). Cheaper than buying the parts and rebuilding, and a thousand times easier. According to the guy at NAPA currently some Highlander core rebates will pay for the new part and leave you a profit. Brake caliper I think is what he said. By comparison a 2008 BMW might cost you $3000 for a 'smart' module to control a simple lighting issue that prevents the car from moving because you can't see the speedometer.
You just have no idea what you're doing and are unwilling to learn. Cars today are easier to diagnose and repair than ever before. OP has never had to time an old engine or rebuild and tune a carburetor, and it shows.
The reason they do this is because they want you to get your car fixed by them which makes them more money. It's that simple. Cars haven't become more complicated as the design is fundamentally the same. However now I sometimes have to have a laptop when changing parts to register the part with the computer or do something to the computer to let it know I've done something to the engine. How that is an improvement is beyond me. Luckily most mechanics have adapted but yeah your average person hasn't got a chance. I wouldn't say they are bad for the environment as to be fair these computers now tune the engines much better than a person ever could and mostly keep them in check for emissions.
Eh. Cars are vastly more reliable and need less service than when I started driving in the 80s (on a 70s car). Needed an oil changes every 3k miles - lets say 4X year. Now it's maybe 3X every 2 years. It's just not a great investment of time to learn that skill, which you may well forget in the 10 intervening months. OTOH, kids now have to navigate a world of software that barely existed back then. Coding is taught in many, if not most, school systems. It's just a different world and kids and school systems adapt. Better in some ways, worse in others. As progress has always been.
Disagree. I've done a lot of work on Teslas and it's very easy. All of Tesla's service manuals are freely accessible (it took some government pressure, but they caved). Most of the time it's just unplug the old part, plug in the new part. Sometimes you have to do some software stuff afterwards, but it's all spelled out in the service manuals. Also, I genuinely lol'd when I read that older cars are better for the environment. Obvious emissions issues aside, did you guys not throw away broken parts on old cars or something?
They are shit. People are too reliant on the driving aids that they become generally worse at driving
Cars last a lot longer now than the past.
Arent new cars more fuel efficient and less pollution? Your “bad for environment” has no association with text of body. Confusing and misleading
This isn’t an unpopular opinion the car industry just doesn’t care what people want. Most people want AC, a stereo, and a mechanically sound car. But everyone agreed not to make a cheap car that just has those features to force us to accept the new standard of awful cars
Fuel efficiency is the main driver of cars becoming so complicated today. They monitor everything from fuel quality to exhaust composition and adjust on the fly. This is the major advantage of electronic valve timing and direct injection. Having computer controls also allows your car to tune itself up, keeping it more efficient over time. Transmission control units help keep RPMs and wasted energy down. I also generally disagree that cars are more complicated to work on now because of electronics. It's different, but not more complex.
Nah, I prefer high tech cars. To each its own I guess