The future of our current overly-complex automobiles?

OldGray320i wrote: He said stuff.......The younger crowd is more tech savy, but the younger crowd generally has less money than the older crowd, so I would think on average there are fewer people modding their cars. .......He siad more stuff

I think this is an often miss quoted 'truth'. Twenty years ago I certainly earned less money that now, but in absolute $$'s and most certainly in % terms I had more disposable income to spend on cars than I do now with a family, kids in school, saving for retirement and family holiday means a week in the Caribbean not a week at Solo Nationals. Now it's taken me months of selling left over crap from past projects to fund a $750 toy. I may be unusual for the GRM crowed in this respect, but when I look at my 'car' friends in general, it's absolutely true of most of them too. From what I can see the % of income doesn't start going back up for toys for at least another 10 years.

Adrian_Thompson wrote:

Aeromoto wrote: I bought my first new car in 1989 for $12,000- Mustang LX 5.0 hatch. The payments to Ford Motor Credit were $160 per month, and when the warranty was up, you could damn near fix anything with a pair of vice grips and a hammer.

Yes but in the 80's people were complaining that this new efi crap was going to be too complicated to fix, yet it turned out to be easy in the long run.

I read an article that said the exact same sentiment.

It was written in the 50's.

fast_eddie_72 wrote: I don't know why we don't, as a society, demand simple, reliable, safe, inexpensive cars.

Because a few of those things are mutually exclusive. Especially the "safe" part. Multiple aribags, safety cages built in, anti-lock braking, traction control and stability control, all the things to make the car safer are mandated and cost money and cost in weight and cost in compexity. Once you're going down that path, adding convenience items is easy and doesn't cost that much (for example, power windows mechanisms these days don't weigh more than manual window mechanisms did and aren't really more complex).

I want to address a couple things that have been said. First off, whoever said "its great because now the car diagnoses itself and you can plug in a scanner and it tells you whats wrong!" well, thats great if you have a scanner or access to one, and sure, eventually maybe your phone will be able to do it. Thats great for the common man. But when I talk about a simple car I'm going back further than 1996 obdII. My '78 F150 doesn't need to tell me when a sensor is bad because it doesn't have one. It either runs or it doesn't, and when it doesn't, you only have fuel, spark, and compression to test. It doesn't "tell" me whats wrong with it but its easier and cheaper to work on. And when a new car does tell you which sensor it thinks is bad, you still have to buy a new sensor and fix it, which can be challenging. My excursion has a bad transmission temperature sensor. This sends the transmission into limp mode, where it wont' shift into 5th gear and it bangs all the shifts, and often hangs up between shifts. there is NOTHING wrong with the transmission right now, just a bad sensor, but it makes the truck drive like crap. The sensor itself is only $25, but you have to drop the pan and 6 quarts of expensive ATF to change it. Not very practical for the average home mechanic. The point is that my '78 doesn't have all the features my torqshift transmission in the excursion does, but there are NO SENSORS in it to disable the vehicle.

Secondly, someone else said they hate the way the manufacturers are "throwing technology" at new cars... and this is a lot of what I'm talking about. Like all these new cars that have electronic E brakes where you flip a switch on the dash. This is not a feature anyone wanted or needed, is it??? I want my e brake to be mechanical, especially with newer drive by wire cars that don't shut off when you turn the key (if it has one) off. I want that to be the one thing I can count on to mechanically actuate a mechanism that slows the vehicle even if zombies attack, meteors fall from the sky, russia hits us with an EMP attack, and all electronics fail. but, no, now its electric, and I have no idea why. Its just like the auto climate control. all the vehicles I've owned that had it, it didn't work very well and its always prone to failure and expensive to replace or repair when it finally does. My excursion has it and it doesnt' always work right and apparently its completely different than the mechanical system so its difficult to retrofit. I'd take a temperature knob and a fan speed knob any day. No reason to make that stuff electronic.

I am not trying to come off as a caveman. New cars are GREAT. they get good fuel economy and make good power, they are safe, and lots lots lots more comfortable. But I would not consider buying a new truck right now, I just don't think the reliability in the long term is going to be very good. If someone came out with a simple truck where everything was easy to access under the hood, the bed had nice tie down points, and it was a simple, rugged design, I'd buy it. I was excited about the mahindra products, though we all know how that ended. But the reality is that it would be nearly impossible to make the vehicle I just described and still meet federal standards. I don't like to jump on the jeep bandwagon (those guys don't need the help) but jeep has done a pretty good job keeping their vehicles spartan and easy to repair.

There will not be a shortage of good used "modules" to throw in until people stop totalling ten million cars per year in crashes.

That $800-at-the-dealer, program-with-a-computer module is gonna be $99 at the junkyard, plus $20 for the "FixMyBimmer" phone app.

ah the good old days....

lol.

Fear not. The reality is that computers also bring pretty amazing diagnostic abilities, and any modern competent tech can plug in and view a whole plethora of real time outputs from various sensors on the vehicle. It still takes some diagnostic capabilities and knowledge of what ranges sensors "should" see for a tech to make a correct root cause analysis, but the basics are still the same. suck, squish, bang, blow.

From an engineering standpoint, manufacturing capabilities have never been more precise or accurate. Despite the complaints that cars are "disposable" now, in reality it's pretty normal for a car to go 150K+, 200K+ with fairly basic maintenance. Was that the case in the '60's? It seems 100K used to be a bigger milestone, and major overhauls (i.e. engine being opened up) were needed to keep a car on the road.

...and lastly from a GRM'ers perspective, I LOVE high depreciation/forefront of technology cars. As noted, they've always depreciated like crazy. Plus, they make for some pretty phenomenal donors when they fall down the ladder to the self service yards. Big pricey repairs = not worth fixing = junkyard time. Last weekend at our local flat rate you-pull-it I saw a '90's BMW 7-series, Alfa 164S, multiple 5-series VW's, Audi All-Road, etc.

Not to mention the price per horsepower available now. swaps! never been so cheap to go so fast.

I have a co-worker who was, until recently, driving an E46 330i. It's up for sale because it needs the outside mirrors replaced at a cost of $800 , some minor gasket @ $300, etc, etc.

We heard all the "doomsday prophecies" about EFI, ABS, etc. because we are "car guys". As has been pointed out most people never heard them or couldn't care less. My first encounter was with the early attempts at emissions stuff (air pumps, etc.) that really did make cars run like E36 M3. That only lasted untill we discovered we could take all that stuff off and the car ran fine. Point being that every time something new comes out it only takes a year or so till someone figures out the answer.

Yes, the future "GRMers" will probably spend more time with a computer and a soldering iron than with wrenches. Yes, it will be expensive but modifying cars has never really been cheap. Adjusted for inflation I spent as much modifying my 58 Ford 6 cylinder back in 62 as I did on my 2001 Focus that I have now.

IMO, the future is bright for the person who is willing to keep up with the "new way" of doing things. With the accelerated depreciation, etc. us "car guys" can have vehicles now that we only dreamed about 20-30 years ago.

Yeah, but electronics just fail over time. its life. I can rewire the critical circuits on my 78 F150 in a weekend. when the wiring starts to get dry and cracked in my excursion, and solder joints fail, well, its berkeleyed. lol. Its probably got 100 lbs of wiring in it, from bumper to bumper. My '78 f150 was sitting in a field for 6 years when I bought it. changed oil and spark plugs, put fresh gas in, started right up and drove around. Does anyone think that a new car will still be running at all in 30 years, let alone after sitting in a field for the better part of a decade?

chaparral wrote: There will not be a shortage of good used "modules" to throw in until people stop totalling ten million cars per year in crashes. That $800-at-the-dealer, program-with-a-computer module is gonna be $99 at the junkyard, plus $20 for the "FixMyBimmer" phone app.

That's how I see this going too. As the cars get older, you'll have a bigger supply of junkyard parts to draw on, and it's also likely that there will be aftermarket replacement parts and tools bringing the cost down - both for DIYers and for independent mechanics. I picked up an airbag code scanner for my E36 on eBay for half what the dealer wanted to scan the airbag system for codes.

One thing about the vehicles that would "just run" without computers, sensors, etc... They might run, but run badly; churning out many, many times as much in the way of pollutants compared to something running correctly.

I'm reminded of "save the planet" bumper stickers on VW buses which hurt to breathe near.

A lot of cars on the the road for a long time. It's not much good them getting cleaner and cleaner if their cleanliness goes out the window a quarter of the way through the car's life.

I've thought about this a bit as I've been getting the rough edges and sitting problems taken care of on my recently-purchased 2001 Dodge van. It was a little frustrating to spend time switching out parts to get it through smog inspection when it seemed to run just fine... But without the sensors I wouldn't have known the cat was dying. For a decade-old vehicle with 140k miles on it, a new cat and a couple of oxygen sensors is reasonable maintenance.

I agree with you Ransom.. the quest for cleaner air has led us to a brand new and bigger HP war. It was only 40 years ago that a Chevy Impala with a 350 could put out a weezy 120hp.. Now a new one, with 216 ci engine.. does 300.

I am not even going to get into how much cleaner that new car is. My friend's 1973 impala would make your eyes water if you stood behind it while it was idling

jstein77 wrote: I have a co-worker who was, until recently, driving an E46 330i. It's up for sale because it needs the outside mirrors replaced at a cost of $800 , some minor gasket @ $300, etc, etc.

Tell your friend I'll give him $700 for the 330i as it needs all this work.......I bet I'll have everything fixed and on the road for under $400.....you can buy new e46 mirrors from fleabay for $60/pr. Facepalms

mad_machine wrote: I am not even going to get into how much cleaner that new car is. My friend's 1973 impala would make your eyes water if you stood behind it while it was idling

Don't stand behind my sho then......It'll make your eyes water. Screw the enviroment, screw catalyst.....that car has close to 30 more whp for losing those.

ransom wrote: A lot of cars on the the road for a long time. It's not much good them getting cleaner and cleaner if their cleanliness goes out the window a quarter of the way through the car's life.

Hey, if you looked at the total carbon footprint of taking raw bulk goods, transporting them, refining them into steel/plastic etc, transporting them, manufacturing them into products, transporting them, turning them into subassemblies, transporting them, assembling them into completed vehicles, transporting them to distributers then to dealers and etc, just the entire step of the way to build a new car, you would be SO far ahead to keep old "gas guzzlers" on the road versus everyone buying a new prius every 3 or 4 years.

z31maniac wrote:

ronholm wrote: I ain't that old... 32...

You had a pretty awesome memory at 3-4 years old.

He is from MO (me too) and that time, here, was much less than 28 years ago. Try 20 years or less.

I am gonna go with the "progress is good as long as you keep up" crowd. I remember an article when I was younger that was mentioning how a 91 escort GT was faster around the Mont-Tremblant circuit then a Mustang Shelby GT350.

But I will say that the electronics on cars right now are a major problem because they have to work on the olde 12V system. They have been talking about switching to 24V or even 48V for at least ten years, but the old crowd isn't interested in upgrading all the testing/charging/etc... equipment. But once the switch is made, you will see a great improvement in the integration, size and reliability of the electronics in cars.

Yeah, but they have been talking about that for years and years and years. I remember an article in 1996 in a car electronics magazine I used to subscribe to talking about how it was imminent that we would have 32 or 48 volt electrical systems within the next 10 years. hey, hasn't happened yet. once cars are so complicated that the entire thing is run by one computer that doubles as the entertainment and navigation, you won't be able to integrate aftermarket things anyway, so they might as well go ahead and step em up. It would improve things in so many ways.

andrave wrote:

ransom wrote: A lot of cars on the the road for a long time. It's not much good them getting cleaner and cleaner if their cleanliness goes out the window a quarter of the way through the car's life.

Hey, if you looked at the total carbon footprint of taking raw bulk goods, transporting them, refining them into steel/plastic etc, transporting them, manufacturing them into products, transporting them, turning them into subassemblies, transporting them, assembling them into completed vehicles, transporting them to distributers then to dealers and etc, just the entire step of the way to build a new car, you would be SO far ahead to keep old "gas guzzlers" on the road versus everyone buying a new prius every 3 or 4 years.

My point is that my ten year old van is much closer to being as clean as it was new than it would be if it had no sensors to tell me what state it was in. So I get to keep my old van on the road, AND drive a non-gross-polluter. Win/win.

Right, thats true for your 10 year old van. But when the van thats new now is 10 years old (or, really, 15 or 20 years old, when things start really messing up) and it needs new sensors for the wipers and abs systems to work correctly and you can't figure out which ones and the dealer wants $300 just to scan it and you have to diassemble something to replace the sensors, you'll probably be like "well, I sure wish this thing didn't have so many goddamn sensors so I could drive it, because now its scrap even though the motor itself is probably mechanically sound and the body is in good shape."

Sorry, I can't get that pessimistic. I know some manufacturers are being pretty awful about access to tools (cough VW cough), but the terror over OBD-II was there as well, and yet here I am reading the codes on my decade-old van with a $23 bluetooth adapter and my phone.

Are you really certain that cars will keep getting more complicated but the ability to scan them at home will never, ever catch up and we've gone over the event horizon and this is really the big one, the manufacturers have trumped the makers of home scan stuff?

If so, I can get you some links to DVD ripping software if you'd like further research on the efforts of OEMs to out-technology the masses

In the end, I don't know. Things like electric parking brakes just torque me off. There's certainly some stuff happening that does just seem stupid. It's just that I don't think any of it is The End Of Tinkering.

I think I'm out of defenses for my viewpoint, and I seriously doubt I've convinced you of anything. Fair enough.

ransom wrote: Sorry, I can't get that pessimistic. I know some manufacturers are being pretty awful about access to tools (*cough* VW *cough*), but the terror over OBD-II was there as well, and yet here I am reading the codes on my decade-old van with a $23 bluetooth adapter and my phone.

I need to get me one of those...

and I do agree.. 12 volts is not enough power to handle a modern car. A step up to 24 would go a long way to making things more efficently and reliable.

I wonder if they felt the same way about going from 6 to 12 volts?

mad_machine said: I wonder if they felt the same way about going from 6 to 12 volts?

Yeah, it probably went something like: "Can you imagine the shock you will get with 12V?" or "We won`t be able to afford batteries anymore". etc...

The world keeps moving on and people keep complaining about it.

I am eagerly awaiting the standardization of the modern automobile. Like how all the PCs, printers, faxes, phones, etc in your office all talk to each other on a common standard, hopefully soon automakers will realize it benefits all of them to share a standard for inter-module communication. Diagnostics then becomes very simple. Use a diagnostic tool to verify proper inputs and outputs, and a door module is a door module, just needs to have the ROM in the door module reflashed to work in the manner your chassis expects it to. Ideally just read the ROM on the old, bad module, and flash it to the new, blank module. Failing that, hop on the system of tubes and download the new flash, or maybe the manufacturer of the module has a repository available of all the ROMs that work on that module and you just pick the one you want.

Diagnosing issues on modern cars is super easy. I hook my TechII into the OBDII port on my Corvette and go to the door control module screen. From there, I can view the status of all inputs and outputs, test switches, and command inputs to the module to see if the outputs are working well. Instead of diagnosing 1 million feet of wire, switches, etc, I only need a power, ground, and signal wires run to the door, all the intra-door communication and function is handled by the door module. The wire runs are short, less failure-prone, and easy to check. The modules, while by themselves seem expensive, keep in mind this is a world I can buy a touchscreen tablet for $100, a standardized module with a few relays and transistors is not an expensive item. Plug it in, talk to the module, load the ROM, and you are in business!

This also opens up a huge opportunity for customization. Want auto-roll-down windows? Open up the rom, change a few lines of code, load your new custom rom, and boom! Auto roll down windows with no hardware changes whatsoever. Want your windows to be able to be rolled up when you hit the remote on your lock fob? A few lines of code referencing the status of the keyless entry module and you have it!

xflowgolf wrote: ah the good old days.... lol. Fear not. The reality is that computers also bring pretty amazing diagnostic abilities, and any modern competent tech can plug in and view a whole plethora of real time outputs from various sensors on the vehicle. It still takes some diagnostic capabilities and knowledge of what ranges sensors "should" see for a tech to make a correct root cause analysis, but the basics are still the same. suck, squish, bang, blow.

back in the day there were such diagnostic systems as well.

they were referred to as "gauges other than a speedo/tach/fuel" and they could tell most any competent mechanic or garage wrencher most of what could be wrong with their engine...

I will note that I do appreciate the advantages of modern car electronics.

To get +20hp and +30tq on my stock WRX, it was as easy as plugging in my accessport and pressing a button.

To get +20hp and +30tq on my e30, it required me to swap a different engine in. Slightly more of a hassle. Though +15hp more with a Conforti chip :)

I also appreciate that said 300hp 3300lbs AWD WRX gets better fuel mileage than said 100hp, 2300lbs RWD e30 does.......

Then again, a newer WRX is a fairly bare-bones car compared to most modern vehicles. Doesn't even have power seats.