So how much do the electronics in a modern vehicle cost?

I'm cruising the vastness of the internet today when I stumble upon a 2015 F-150 for sale within reasonable driving distance. It has 16,000 miles, the 3.5 ecoboost, 4WD, and other than a missing glove box panel, zero obvious damage. The price should be much higher, so I start to dig deeper and notice the truck has a salvage title. I continue to read until I find the part that mentions the vehicle was struck by lightning.

So, a truck that would be worth around $40k otherwise, was totaled by the insurance company due to a lightning strike when it has essentially no visible damage. Going by general assumptions, I'm told that the line for most insurance companies that determines if a vehicle is totaled or not is around 70-75% of it's value. So this truck has at least 30k in damage to electronics only? Any of the insurance guys here have some input into what might've gone into the decision to total a truck for a lightning strike? How fast should I run away from this thing? I'm considering throwing out a lowball offer to see if it works.

$30k in damage might be just right assuming you're paying dealership parts replacement prices. Now if you can find a crunched one in the junkyard, you might get all the electronics for a few hundred bucks...

But you probably shouldn't assume that only the electrical/electronic stuff is damaged. The current of a lightning strike can warp metal. I remember seeing a documentary about a sailplane that crashed because its control rods were re-shaped into modern art by the current - not heat - of a lightning strike.

Replacing a complete electrical system on a modern car would require pretty much a total disassembly of the vehicle. That's a lot of labor for the insurance company to pay for. I suspect it was totalled for the same reason that flood and theft recovery cars are often totalled, it's not worth the financial risk for them.

I think part of that isn't just the expensive electronics, which can be very pervasive judging from some recent threads, But the labor involved in testing and replacing everything.

Some evs have their lights tied to the ecu, those "hellcat motor on a pallet" have all kinds of random crap on them in addition to the motor.

For something so new, probably half is the cost of electronics the other half is calibration, installation, and testing.

I'm just guessing, obviously I'm not well versed in modern vehicles, but with computers controlling far more than just fuel and timing these days, it doesn't seem to crazy that it would be totaled out for a lightening strike.

Although for the right price, with maybe a motor swap, mega squirt or carburetors could make an interesting build.

A fair amount of those parts might need to be "married" to the vehicle by a dealer after replacement too. Saab was terrible about this.

Speaking of totals and electronics..... one of the last follies I watched before leaving the dealership was a small lot that picked up a year old (2013 at the time) RDX flood car. Being a year old, there were no salvage parts available anywhere. They bought the thing for $12k. I sold them $11k in parts and it was still not functioning. They towed it in, and found something else, which led to something else yadda yadda yadda.... When I left, it had been 6 months, they were in it for $15k in parts/labor plus $12k purchase on a car that was on our lot for $25k without a salvage title.

Moral of the story: if it's that new, and is fried electrically, walk away. Best case would be to purchase and use for parts.

Keith is right on track. As far as how much electrical components go, they definitely aren't cheap. A wiring harness, and modern cars have several, can be a grand (some are significantly less, some are more). Then add the computers and sensors. Sum up all the labor to strip the interior and redo it, and it's costly.

The biggest factor is the risk. The insurance company doesn't want to "live" with that car for the next 3, 4, 5, 8 years. Every time anything electrical goes wrong with it, the owner will go back to the insurance company and say it's related to the lightning strike. Same holds true with a flood vehicle. Any car that gets a significant amount of water in the passenger compartment is generally an instant total loss. It could wind up being perfectly fine, it depends on the type of water, how quick it was removed, how well, etc... But it's just not worth the risk. It could have electrical problems for years, and insurance companies don't want to deal with it. They'll get a decent return on salvage, so the net loss isn't that bad.

70% is general ballpark for totaling a car, but it can be totaled at 10% if the insurance company wants. That's an extreme example, and typically doesn't happen, but they can call a car a total loss at any dollar amount. I've totaled many Prius at around 50%, simply because I know the salvage value will be really high.

Had a friend call me up and ask where the ECU is on an ND Miata. He'd found a flood car that had only gone up to the bottom of the seat. I laughed. It made me realize how much of a conceptual leap I'd made with cars and computers - he was assuming there was only one.

In case you're wondering, it looks like all the various computers were clear other than the steering rack which should be fairly well waterproofed. But you've now flooded the throttle pedal and the airbag connectors on the seats.

Klayfish wrote: The biggest factor is the risk. The insurance company doesn't want to "live" with that car for the next 3, 4, 5, 8 years. Every time anything electrical goes wrong with it, the owner will go back to the insurance company and say it's related to the lightning strike. Same holds true with a flood vehicle.

This, right here, 100%.

If they can't define a bottom line, this fixed everything guaranteed, they don't want to deal with it! Cheaper to just pay out than the potential for additional claims later down the road.

Thanks for the input. Pretty much what I expected regarding parts cost from a dealer and extensive labor. The part about the insurance company wanting to avoid all risk of chronic issues makes sense too. Still tempted to throw out a lowball offer just to see what happens. We'll see if I can get any clearer info about it.

How much would it cost to run a standalone controller for a turbo motor and convert it to a manual or trans controller? Add a painless wiring kit for a 196? truck and let er rip.

akylekoz wrote: How much would it cost to run a standalone controller for a turbo motor and convert it to a manual or trans controller? Add a painless wiring kit for a 196? truck and let er rip.

I believe an ecoboost is a direct injection motor, that's still pretty exotic by aftermarket ECU standards.

You need an OE scan tool, a subscription to the Ford service website, the ability to operate those two things and diagnose, and enough cash to buy all the modules that are toast. I'd be willing to bet a well trained Ford tech would be nervous heading down that road.

Its do-able, but not in a grassroots way. There is just too much interconnectedness...after adding the megasquirt, you might be able to get the transmission to shift, but how do you make the windows roll up? And I'm not kidding, either.

akylekoz wrote: How much would it cost to run a standalone controller for a turbo motor and convert it to a manual or trans controller? Add a painless wiring kit for a 196? truck and let er rip.

You'd need more than a "wiring kit", you'd need all of the switches and stuff too, since modern cars' switchgear is all either low-current signals to the BCM/GEM/whichever and the heavy lifting is all done there, or it's multiplexed where, say, a control stalk has only two wires coming out of it and different switches on that stalk just have different resistances. That the BCM/GEM/whichever interprets and then does all the heavy lifting...

So you're talking a complete steering column, new window switches, find a place to bung door switches in the doorjambs 'cos everything in the last 20+ years has a microswitch in the door latch... everything would need to be changed.

This is most of why modern cars are so reliable, there's no high current contacts arcing and sparking and wearing out everywhere.

Oh and I'm fairly sure the new Fords are electric power steering, too.

Streetwiseguy wrote: You need an OE scan tool, a subscription to the Ford service website, the ability to operate those two things and diagnose, and enough cash to buy all the modules that are toast. I'd be willing to bet a well trained Ford tech would be nervous heading down that road.

I wouldn't be afraid of it. Should be pretty easy, actually, just possibly time consuming. Yeah, you need a proper scantool, but you could get something useful for as little as $1500 or so. See what isn't talking to what. Maybe you also need a scope if you can't communicate with ANYTHING because a bad module is pulling a network down. That's what your handy breakout box to the DLC is for, unplug modules until a given network isn't railed high or low...

The old-fashioned sniff test also tends to work well for electronic components. Burnt is burnt

akylekoz wrote: How much would it cost to run a standalone controller for a turbo motor and convert it to a manual or trans controller? Add a painless wiring kit for a 196? truck and let er rip.

Ford Racing sells a standalone ECU/harness for the 3.5 Ecoboost that retails for $1900. It wouldn't do much for the chassis modules, etc but could get the engine running if it's not currently.

Honestly, if I could get the truck for the right price, it wouldn't matter to me what was functional or not. Obviously I'd try to get it running/driving properly if it isn't already capable of that, but if it got too complex or the situation looked dire it could probably be parted out and still come out ahead. It all depends on the purchase price.

The other problem is that, if the truck has a salvage title, that would most likely complicate things when trying to get it back on the road. Depending on state, you'd need to provide receipts for all of the parts you used to repair it, and many/most/all? junkyards refuse to sell parts for salvage-title cars because of the paperwork required.

"Gone in 60 Seconds" (1974) was part documentary. You know how they bought the wrecked Challenger, stole a similar one, and swapped the salvage car VIN/lock cylinders/odometer/etc onto the stolen car? That is why we have strict laws regarding that whole business and a paper trail is required.

I've never heard of a junkyard askibg if you were going to fix a car or truck with a salvage title.. why would they care?

Regarding this truck: if it could be picked up cheap enough, you could gut it out, sell the interior/HVAC/door guts and use the cash to buy the standalone engine controller and build an offroad toy for next to nothing..

novaderrik wrote: I've never heard of a junkyard askibg if you were going to fix a car or truck with a salvage title.. why would they care?

Every single junkyard I have ever been to had a sign right by the counter that said they would not sell parts for salvage title cars.

I assume that is because they'd have to provide some sort of affadavit for chain of ownership.

Maybe it's an Ohio thing. When I scrapped my dead VW, they needed the title (normal) but they also photographed me and took a scan of my driver's license. And this was for an engineless shell.

Hey, if it makes it harder for corrupt tow truck drivers to grab cars off the street and haul them in for scrap value, I'm okay with it.