Everyone has heard "All those electronic gimmicks in a car will just break on you over time!" - but do they?
Posted by eckhaaard@reddit | cars | View on Reddit | 89 comments
Ever since cars have become more electronically complex, cautious people have recommended to go for simpler cars, claiming "All those electronic gimmicks in a car will just break on you over time!" But now with several decades of this exponential increase of electronic gimmicks, luxury features, asisstance and entertainment systems behind us... were those warnings warranted at all? What are your experiences?
knowledgeable_diablo@reddit
Most of the issues now are the multimedia systems. Either the screens failing or the firmware screwing out. And as they route more and more through the screen, any little screw up on the system can render the whole vehicle inoperable.
ManBearKwik@reddit
They do not. New cars are much more reliable than older ones, require less maintenance and electronics barely break. We’re not supplying them from Lucas Electronics.
SupposablyAtTheZoo@reddit
In Audi's, yes.
spacetimebear@reddit
I've never had an analogue dash fail on me. I'm constantly in fear of my Audi's digital dash one day just not working and the ££££ repair bill that'll have.
162630594@reddit
I think some tech is needlessly complex and makes repairs exponentially more expensive or stupid. So when something does break, even if its less frequent than an older car, it leads to a catastrophic domino effect of failures. A lot of electronics on 90s-2000s cars were their own separate systems that worked individually. But theres a lot more interconnection of tech in newer cars.
Electronic door handles, electronic parking brakes, so many functions only accessible through the infotainment, that scandal of the f150 tail light bricking the whole truck and costing thousands to replace, high strung turbo engines with tight tolerances.
Academic_Ad_9326@reddit
Yes, they will fail, and they will cause headaches.
Let's take a very simple example. A car from 1960 and a car from 2015. Both have automatic transmissions. The old car's shifts are controlled by vacuum. The modern one has a sensor that reads info from the throttle position sensor.
The vacuum hose fails, the car won't shift. Hose is 25 cents and a little bit or work to replace.
A sensor fails, the car won't shift, or it may shift wrong. Which sensor is messing up? Is it the TPS? Is it the sensor inside the transmission? Better have a few hundred bucks ready for an OEM sensor and maybe more.
How many times have you had your phone get an update and suddenly it's having issues? Theres nothing you can do to fix it apart from getting a new phone.
Sure innovation is great, and the new technology can be cool - but new tech will fail like anything. And unfortunately new tech is much more complicated and tied into several systems that may cripple your car DESPITE the one thing that's messed up isn't necessary to drive (except the computer says it is, so enjoy limp mode)
partumvir@reddit
Is this a serious response? It has no comparisons and strictly anecdotal evidence to support its own argument, but then doesn't provide its own anecdotes and instead demands the reader to provide them? This sounds like angry grandpa
Academic_Ad_9326@reddit
It was a simplified example. The more moving parts something has, the better chance that something will break. Simple as that.
t001_t1m3@reddit
Most electronics are solid state thought and literally don’t move.
Technomnom@reddit
Man, that's a dumb thought. More failure points, doesn't mean MORE likely to fail. My paper airplane has less of a chance of wrecking, than a 747.
Astramael@reddit
MTBF goes down as you add more serialized components to a system.
Academic_Ad_9326@reddit
It's simple statistics. The more moving parts something has, the more likely SOMETHING will fail. That's why those super complex Audi/BMW motors seem to outlast the archaic LS motors, right?
eckhaaard@reddit (OP)
Not really an issue in my experience, with the proper diagnostics equipment and a knowledgeable (not as in expert, but as in ordinary properly trained staff) mechanic to utilize it. You can pinpoint a failure in a modern car much more easily than in an old car, if you're worth your money as a mechanic. The vacuum lines you mentioned are a perfect example of "things weren't always better in the past"... finding and fixing a well hidden vacuum leak was a terrible, difficult job to do and sometimes left a car stranded in a workshop for weeks, racking up terrible bills.
Also, sensors aren't that expensive or complicated to make, giving incentive for OEMs and 3rd parties to manufacture them over long times. So far I haven't encounctered a single case of a failed sensor which couldn't be readily replaced, even on 20-30 year old cars... despite people saying this would indeed become a problem.
Anecdotal: My wife's cousin had a mid 90s BMW 7 series which needed some new sensor and had a fuel leak... in the end he had to get rid of the car. But not because of the sensor though, that was a 20 bucks, next day available part installed within minutes! Because of the fuel leak, caused by the tank... which neither BMW nor 3rd parties offer a replacement for.
hoogin89@reddit
This is um, how do I say, very very incorrect. The problem with modern vehicle tech is that it is segregated into modules. These modules can malfunction independently, but they can also cause malfunctions in other modules causing false positives.
For example, let's say the head lights turn with the steering wheel and they throw an error. But that module is connected to the steering module. That now throws an error because it's reading an error. The tc is connected to the steering input and that error is causing the tc to default to off. Etc etc etc. This isn't a guaranteed scenario but it gives an idea. At the end of the day only the headlight module needs replacing but it's popping codes for the other three. Maybe it's the exact opposite though and your reader just says hey error here and here.
Sometimes there are bulletins for common causes, sometimes you can trial and error it out and other times you just have to shotgun replace until it goes away.
I have family who are mechanics at Ford and Chevy. Both experience these problems on old and brand new vehicles. And I know that Dodge has also had a stint of severe electrical problems. (See electronic disconnecting sway bar and the head units bricking themselves randomly). I believe the head unit in the Tahoe was known to brick during updates and turned the car into a paperweight because all the modules in the car went through it.
Now then... Vacuum leak.... Blow smoke through it. Done.
The crush zones and safety of crash tests, seatbelts, airbags (questionable after takata hand grenade ones) and that stuff is fine. I'll even go as far to say abs and tc are fine as well as long as I can turn off tc. All the other stuff is gimmicky, unnecessary, dangerous in a lot of cases and overall packing tech for no reason. Tablets in cars need to go away. Screens for media and nav, sure what ever. Buttons for everything else
eckhaaard@reddit (OP)
I've got friends and family who are mechanics themselves, also I know the process of fault finding very well, including the false positives. If you know what you're doing, weeding those out isn't that difficult.
In the scenario you mentioned, a properly trained mechanic would automatically ignore 90% of the other errors thrown, since they can easily tell which of these are consequential faults and which are actually possible causes. From an outside view, it looks much more complicated than it actually is.
Good diagnostic software in a modern shop enables you to quickly identify which signal sources could throw an error even though they seem unrelated. It shows you flow charts of how stuff interconnects through bus systems, dependencies of system parts among another, even all electric diagrams needed for tracing, down to telling you the colour of the individual wire carrying the signal you're looking for, where its cable runs and how to get to it.
hoogin89@reddit
And yet they both have done all of that, fought ground faults, fought back tracing wires, and still fought modules that were throwing errors for completely unrelated modules. It happens. More often than many let on.
Yes there are wire diagrams, yes the diagnostics give you good info most of the time. Doesn't mean it's always correct, it's not always the problem and I know both of them would argue that it's not as easy as computer tells you exactly what to fix and it's always accurate and it always works. They fight electrical problems more than they fight mechanical problems.
Diagnostic software and code readers do just that. They tell you the code the ECU or module is throwing. Nothing else. The software does not tell you hey this one particular sensor has a wire that is slightly frayed 10 ft down the loom and it's causing a voltage error that is making the sensor freak out under these very particular circumstances. Next thing you know, you're a sensor and module deep and three visits to the shop because of a phantom problem that is super difficult to replicate and the error has been defeated and cleared multiple times.
Or how about a module that after an update to the head unit sees more voltage then it's supposed to and literally kills itself. Or what about various car cameras that throw no errors, have no breaks in the wires but only work intermittently at completely random times. These are real problems that they've fought. No bulletins, no software with errors, tons of wire probing, module checking etc etc etc all to come up with an idk why. It's much more complicated than you are making it out to be and it's much more difficult and time consuming.
As another aside, books and software diagrams have been around for decades. Back even to your vacuum line argument. And my point is this, you say it's so very easy to diagnose electrical and a pain to diagnose mechanical. I need one tool to diagnose a vacuum line. I need at minimum three to diagnose electrical. Computer, code reader, volt meter. Electronics don't generally make noise or inform me of their problems without extensive testing. Mechanical problems to a "good mechanic" are a drive, look and listen away from a diagnosis most of the time.
Bullet4g@reddit
Yeah and with a car from 1960 you had to have with you a few common spare parts so you wont remain stranded somewhere , or you had to live with the fact that you must tune your carburator often to keep the car running as it should .
Or if someone hits you might have an engine instead of a torso and your legs under the backseat.
importfanboy@reddit
And given how many models the manufacturers have nowadays it will be interesting to see if we can still get every single sensor for every single car in 15-20 years.
Im also worried about the big infotainment systems cars have nowadays.
VirginRumAndCoke@reddit
Double DIN conversion kits are your friend. I pretty much won't touch a car unless one exists for that model. If it ever goes bad on you a drop in replacement is only ever an eBay purchase away.
mustangfan12@reddit
Double Din conversion really only works with mid 2010s and below cars. Cars in the later 2010's started having a lot of things being integrated into the infotainment system
eckhaaard@reddit (OP)
Interesting point, which I guess will heavily depend on a manufacturer's policy in this regard. We already see this with ordinary mechanical spare parts - some companies stock or remanufacture every nut and bolt for even 40 year old cars, but some leave you SOL once your car is 10 or so years old, leaving you just hope that some third party manufacturer offers a solution.
Academic_Ad_9326@reddit
Touch screen is nice for radio and maps, but I don't want to lose my AC because the touch screen fucked up. Ford SYNC has definitely made me rethink tech
voucher420@reddit
New cars go 100,000 miles between spark plugs. They go 10,000 to 20,000 miles between oil changes (which I don’t think is a good idea, but they have engineers and I’m just a shade tree mechanic these days), they easily last 300,000 miles. Coolant every five years.
Old cars needed plugs every year at one point and needed to be tuned for the weather. Oil changes every three months. No safety devices short of maybe seat belts and maybe a collapsible steering column. Three or more belts that needed to be adjusted or replaced frequently.
They don’t build them like they used to and thank god they don’t.
Conscious-Lobster60@reddit
Do you want modern crash technology or cheap vacuum hoses and getting Cauda Equina from the lap belt after a crash?
Academic_Ad_9326@reddit
I do not want modern crash tech. Lane assistance, self driving, emergency braking is leading to more drivers not paying attention "because the car will do it". Plus, it's more sensors and computers which makes the car bigger, heavier, more expensive, and just something else that'll cost to fix.
VirginRumAndCoke@reddit
I think they're referring to crumple zones and other passive safety systems that are baked into structural design or similar.
I agree with the social impacts of "safety technologies" being misplaced but the way to fix that is more rigorous drivers license exams but good luck getting that passed anywhere in the United States.
Insofar as cars getting heavier and larger you actually have loopholes being exploited by the auto manufacturers to thank for that. EPA requirements for safety and fuel economy are related to vehicle footprint, so the larger a vehicle is, the less fuel efficient it's required to be. That and the fact that data shows that people are willing to pay more for a larger vehicle at a rate that outpaces the increased material cost of building a bigger vehicle. That is to say, auto manufacturers make more profit per dollar of material/processing cost on a larger vehicle than a smaller one.
psaux_grep@reddit
Zero. Literally zero. I’ve had a smartphone since 2008 and never has there been updates that introduced something broken that wasn’t fixed by the next update. Certainly never had to replace the phone due to one.
But yes, electronics fail every now and then, but in my experience generally less now than it used to. I feel like I used to see cars made in the early 2000’s break down more than I see modern cars do so, but I honestly have no data to back up this feeling.
The science of making robust electronics certainly has come a long way, but it isn’t to say that inferior products don’t still make it to production.
My biggest issue with modern ICE vehicles are plastic components that should have been made in other materials that ultimately wear out or otherwise break.
Academic_Ad_9326@reddit
Oh ya, totally agree. My 2004 Silverado was a manual. Where the clutch pedal connects to the firewall is plastic. The part that takes all of the force of the pedal and holds it in place... Is plastic. And of course it's ripping out half the dash to replace it.
AdventurousDress576@reddit
Modern cars are more reliable. That's an indisputed fact, proven each year by industry studies.
King_in_a_castle_84@reddit
On average, perhaps. There's still some duds (albeit fewer per 1,000 cars than 40 years ago.
trolololoz@reddit
Yea “more reliable” implies that
Joooooooosh@reddit
Until they aren’t and repairing them is MUCH more.
My father’s Volvo just had a £2500 repair bill due to a faulty electric brake vacuum pump, a remote locking module failure and an o2 sensor fail.
80% of mechanics wouldn’t touch the brake pump as it’s part of the hybrid system of the car. Severely limiting who was comfortable working on it.
Reliability isn’t about how often something breaks down but about how easy it is to keep on the road.
I had a minor fender bender recently and the guy who hit us was very lucky.
Each headlight cluster on the car is £1200 to replace and just re-aligning a bend radar sensor is 100’s, god knows the cost of replacing on. Lucky it was just a cracked bumper.
its_an_armoire@reddit
This is why I get annoyed when people try to convince me modern BMWs are more reliable than modern Toyotas.
Makaloff95@reddit
My worry isnt so much as breaking but the cost to replace certain things that no longer are under warranty
Dyep1@reddit
Watch one matarmstarong video about rebuilding a Lamborghini urus and you will know.
King_in_a_castle_84@reddit
Some don't and some definitely do.
xjeanie@reddit
I remember going with my father to buy a car in 1982. He kept trying to steer me away from power windows and locks. His reason was they would break easily. Ended up buying an 82 Camaro Berlinetta with both features.
Now I will say after an accident where the car would have been declared a total loss nowadays, it wasn’t then and was “repaired “. I had massive electrical problems with the car. Basically everything that could have a mechanical problem did. Shame too it was a nice car.
bindermichi@reddit
Yes they will. Just look at cars from the 90s and how much of their electronics are broken beyond repair.
Kaufland_enthusiast9@reddit
Friend has like a 8 year old Audi Q7 with them electronics(tablet and digital dashboard) . All looks pristine, never ever had a problem with it. No bubbles no glitches no bs. But yeah if you accidentally break it or it lemons itself i believe it will be costly
brutal_maximum@reddit
I’ve had mostly mechanical failures for whole time I’ve owned cars. Super rarely anything with electronics, maybe more with late 90 and early 00 cars
unmanipinfo@reddit
Yes, so in another 30 years the cars from today will have random electrical failures, relays and modules randomly going haywire, cracked solder, dying transistors and so on - except today's cars will be much more complicated to track down and repair those issues, not to mention parts, and god forbid if proprietary software is involved.
PRSArchon@reddit
The average person does not drive 30 year old cars. Most western countries drive cars on average 7 to 15 years old.
unmanipinfo@reddit
The west is not an average for the globe, far from it.
eckhaaard@reddit (OP)
Well, you don't have to wait another 30 years to see heavily computerized cars fail with exactly those symptoms you mentioned, including proprietary software - that was a thing in the early 90s already with flagship cars. Those also pioneered many technologies, built on no prior experience, and the customers were first adopters. However, those cars can still be repaired today, despite everyone claiming it'd be a nightmare.
For example, take a 1990s Alfa Romeo 164 Q4. Their absolut flagship, Italian electronics, with computerized everything and a high-tech electronically aided all wheel drive system. Of course those systems fail due to cracked solder or fried ICs and both the diagnostic and operational system is Alfa proprietary. Fixing it these days is just a matter of calling one of the companies who restores those electronic modules and have developed a diagnostic system that can talk to the ancient high-tech dinosaur electronics in the Alfa. Doesn't even cost an arm and a leg - a coworker went through the process with his 164 and while I can't remember the exact price, it wasn't bad; engine work costed significantly more to bring up to factory spec.
brutal_maximum@reddit
I worded bit unclearly, the electrical problems were on cars when those were “new” or somewhat similar age than cars from 2010-2020 that I have now
unmanipinfo@reddit
Oh yeah I can concede that. Definitely had some teething pains in the initial move to efi and emissions regulations and all the elctronics that brought with it. Some manufacturers more so, and for longer than others lol.
boomerangchampion@reddit
Yeah mechanical problems are by far the most common. I've had some electric motor and sensor troubles (windows, seats etc) but I'm yet to have a computer problem myself. I really thought computers in cars were going to be a headache, but here I am driving a 2002 relic with perfectly working satnav and everything.
Maybe it's changing again now that software updates are a thing, but I wouldn't know.
Dinosbacsi@reddit
2002 is not relic, lol. Try something from the 80s.
Though electronics wise my 80s shitboxes are also keeping up pretty fine. Airflow sensor and ECU still holding up in my '89 Nissan Sunny.
In my other car, an '84 Nissan Laurel all the other electronics are fine as well (windows, mirrors, sunroof).
My colleague had an old late-90s Lexus with touch screens and all the electric gismos and surprisingly everything still works even after almost 30 years.
858adam@reddit
Automotive Electronics hit Peak efficiency around 2000 when OBD2 got really good for engine control and management but before the electronics took over everything else. 1996 Honda you can pull check engine codes with a paper clip if you don't have a scanner.
2020 bmw, there is no oil dipstick you can only check your oil level through the interior idrive system. If your dashboard screen or I drive system fails (very common) then you no longer have any idea how much or how little oil is in your engine.
tikitourer@reddit
35 years of BMWs ..I think 18 and counting, with only one electronic fault over the years. And that was on a 2007 1 series where a sensor at base of the steering wheel played up..replaced under warranty 6 months.from new I have a 2021 3 Series..no dipstick. Idrive failure is very very rare. So is the failure of the sensors that read the oil level. Oh and I can also read it by a few presses of the lower button on the indicator stalk. Electronic units generally follow the industry bath-tub curve. Some early life failures in the first few months , then many years of minimal.failure then increasing again after 15 years or so.. I have a friend with a 1987 Mitsubishi Galant Sigma .digital dash board...still works perfectly after 37 years. I prefer today's electronic systems in cars to the old electrical systems. Infinitely more reliable, and have enabled huge safety improvements. Yeah if something breaks it can be more expensive to fix ..but imo that's an ok.price to pay.
eckhaaard@reddit (OP)
What? Owner of a 2020 BMW without a dipstick here - which I think was a f'in stupid decision on BMWs part, just for the record. However I could alternatively check oil level without iDrive through the simple service menu of the instrument cluster and through OBD2, down to a tenth of a mm!
Also I'd argue iDrive failures aren't "very common". Do they happen? Yes. But the people whose issues you read about in forums represent a tiny percentage of all BMWs on the road.
darti_me@reddit
In most cases, they don't. But what I hate with the modern car shopping experience is how distasteful and bloated top trims can be. Like no, I don't want a sunroof, I don't want a shitty 5 year old tablet as infotainment, I don't want 20" rims with 2" rubber, I don't want 2" less ground clearance because of your shitty front lip and side skirts, I don't want crappy dealer tints, I don't want the AWD powertrain.
Astramael@reddit
In my experience it has less to do with what systems are electronic and more to do with how many systems there are. Simple cars with less stuff break less on average because there is less to break.
These things are accidentally correlated because simple cars also have less electronic stuff.
For example: my car has no parking sensors, no sunroof, no 360 degree cameras, no automatic transmission, no rain sensing wipers, no HUD, no power seats, no swivelling headlights, and so on.
There is less stuff to break than my partner’s car which has all of these things and more. That’s fewer control modules, fewer connections, fewer motors, and fewer sensors.
The real problem here is the addiction to “features”, even ones you don’t need. The best example of this is sunroofs. Many people never open them or don’t like them, but almost all cars come with one. Why? Because it is a feature that simply became expected. Everybody wants all of the features whether or not they’re going to use them, and not realizing that those features do have a complexity cost.
Hop-Dizzle-Drizzle@reddit
I've certainly had more electronics and software issues with my more recent vehicles than I did with any of my older ones. '21 challenger, '14 Sierra, '11 Taurus.
My older cars did have more mechanical issues. But I was able to repair those myself with cheap and simple replacement parts. '91 Lumina, '95 S10 blazer, '97 cavalier, '97 Dakota, '98 Silverado. Zero electronics issues with any of those, save for a 4x4 actuator on the S10, which was also as easy as swapping the part.
My newer cars have been more mechanically reliable, more comfortable, and more efficient. But the simpler older cars definitely did not have any kind of software issues that require more specialized knowledge or tools to diagnose and repair.
StraightStackin@reddit
My concern is how quickly manufacturers abandon making parts for their older models. "Oh your car is 7 years old? Good luck finding that sensor you need for the wiper! We stopped making it and you can't it anywhere else!" If that happens with any piece of electronics inside an outdated infotainment center that your car relies on to operate, yeah, good luck driving a brick.
Shmokesshweed@reddit
Very little is specific to just one car across a lineup these days.
JoshJLMG@reddit
Same is true about my Chevrolet Sprints. They were rebadged under a million different nameplates, and sold across all major continents. Yet, finding any parts at all is a chore.
jdore8@reddit
Manufacturers shop their part needs to the cheapest supplier.
HeyItsPanda69@reddit
My 2004 Jaguar XJR had 150k miles when I got rid of it, and the adaptive cruise and front collision warning, as was all the DVD player and nav all still worked. Most of which felt like driving in the future in 2004. The only thing that broke was the sunroof lol
TheDirtDude117@reddit
It depends.
Electric windows, power mirrors, or seats are all fine.
A power folding sunshade for a Panoramic roof, 37 modules from different suppliers, and a touch screen climate control+radio...
Yeah those are going to be big issues.
Chevy right now doesn't have Battery Management Modules for the Volt! And they don't make EGR valves anymore either.
Both are required in emissions states.
PRSArchon@reddit
I have worked 10 years in quality assurance of electronics, including automotive (also industrial, semicon, medical). Electronics are much more robust than mechanics because there are very little wear out mechanisms at play. Power electronics are more prone to this but digital electronics can work for decades with no issue as long as there are no manufacturing defects.
Based on the data i have i can safely say that electronics that have been used 5 years and older are more reliable than electronics that are younger. And i am not talking about maturity of technology, i am talking about years of use. Manyfacturing defects will be visible within the warranty period, if it survives the warranty period it will survive the next decade(s) as well.
a_cool_t-rex@reddit
Depends on who’s making em.
DrunkRespondent@reddit
My Jaguar gives me a big ole SOS malfunction warning light whenever I go over 5k rpm. Then it goes away after the next light. No one can figure it out and I don't even know what sos malfunction even does.
Throwback75@reddit
It's part of the telematics system , if you have a crash and press the sos button it sends your location, if you're still subscribed to the jaguar recovery services
Quick_Coyote_7649@reddit
And how new the tech is to the brand. A lot of brands are down in reliability because tech innovations they’ve never used before and because of tech no brands have used it before. Also some brand Reliability ratings have dropped because refreshes for their lineup or almost all of their lineup haven’t been released yet with improvements to those features and refinement to the interior
InevitableOne8421@reddit
Yup, made especially worse when you have large panoramic sunroofs that eventually leak and let water rot out parts of the wiring harness and short electronics. Had an 11K bill luckily covered by Toyota for tiny 25 cent seals that went bad where the roof rack rails attach to the roof. Had to strip the interior, drop the headliner, replace the wiring harness, replace various other electronics and then put it all back together. Can't even imagine how someone would cope with that kind of bill if the automaker doesn't own up to the issue.
One-Butterscotch4332@reddit
They all almost always leak because the drains clog. Gotta get in there every so often and check em.
MilkyGoatNipples@reddit
They clean out out the rails and check the seals on my GTi at every service, I figured that was normal everywhere? In Southern Africa btw
One-Butterscotch4332@reddit
I think around me people will park under a tree for 10 years and expect everything to be fine without ever checking anything
SoCalChrisW@reddit
Modern Hondas have a shit reputation with the stereo system, which also happens to run a lot of the other systems in the car.
And roughly once a week in the Odyssey subreddit someone is asking why they get half a dozen errors when they start the car. There's tons of the camera modules failing very early on the current Gen Odyssey. That disables cruise control, lane keep assist, emergency auto braking, auto high beams and a few other things.
Shienvien@reddit
I've definitely had more electronic failures than mechanical ones. Sensors, wires, computer.
Joooooooosh@reddit
Everything breaks eventually and the problem with modern cars is that repair costs can be astronomical.
My golf had a gearbox issue not long after buying it.
Turns out the mechatronic module inside the gearbox had a problem.
A regular automatic or manual transmission could be removed from a car and likely repaired by most mechanics.
This unit had to be replaced, requiring a garage with VW software able to put the DSG gearbox into service mode, to drain all the oil through like a 10 step process, then the mechatronics unit had to be ordered from Germany. Put in the car and then we had to send the spare car key so both keys could be programmed to the new unit.
The fault was roughly a £5000 repair ($6500) 25% value of the whole car. Luckily was under warranty still but all that for a car that just wouldn’t go into gear.
My father’s hybrid Volvo’s brake vacuum pump has failed. A fairly simple part but because it’s part of the hybrid system, 90% of mechanics won’t touch it.
New cars are good when new but older higher mileage examples are a terrifyingly expensive proposition.
I’m now shopping for a 15 year old diesel Volvo as a cheap second car because parts and repair costs are just normal. Anyone can fix it.
I love hybrid cars but this one will be our last, the potential repair hills are just too much of a headache. Keeping a car more than 10 years old is just too scary.
One-Butterscotch4332@reddit
I mean, a $300 vag com and a mechatronics unit from a junk yard or fcp euro would have been just fine for that VW. Shops in the US just like to charge a ton because it's "an import" and that means it's "fancy".
Joooooooosh@reddit
You might have missed me using £, as I’m in the UK.
Diagnosing the fault was difficult enough as the fault codes were not showing up on a regular OBD II reader and required connecting to some obscenely expensive VW diagnostic machine. We initially went to a private VAG specialist to diagnose the issues regular mechanics couldn’t get to the useful fault codes.
The gearbox itself is a huge hassle as VW repurposed the Golf R gearbox to build the electric motor inside. Most mechanics would not open the gearbox due to needing high voltage training, severely limiting who would look at it.
90% of garages just tell you to go to the dealership and the ones that don’t, cost the same.
Luckily warranty meant we ultimately didn’t care as we didn’t pay the bill but it took a month to get the issue resolved.
gumol@reddit
What's more reliable - the good old carburetor or gimmicky electronic injection?
broke_saturn@reddit
Occasionally, yes.
My wife has a 2017 Ford Edge, in the past six years of ownership and 93k miles the heated steering wheel has died twice.
It was replaced once under warranty around 30,000 miles and I have not replaced it the second time yet
kyuvaxx@reddit
I dunno bout any of you, but when I replaced a carburetor with an EFI system on my old ass mustang, no more TDC, no more points, I danced a jig
One-Butterscotch4332@reddit
Of all the things on my 10 year old Audi, the electronics are probably the most reliable. And on the rare occasion they do go wrong, you plug in a vag com and it tells you exactly what failed and how.
carguy82j@reddit
I work on German Cars. Yes someone them do.
themickeymauser@reddit
Even if they did, I’d still rather replace an electric motor or solenoid than some mechanical/manual component full of springs and rods and levers that never quite fits or works right the second time around.
die-microcrap-die@reddit
Personally, i think that those popping door handles will be a big problem down the line.
But who knows, maybe they end up being trouble free.
therunningjew1@reddit
It depends on how much time, what kind of environment the car is in, etc. 10 years should be no prob for most part. More extreme climates might see issues soon than more mild climates. Every car is going to have something break on it eventually. The electronics should last fairly long though. The trouble really comes when they are antiques, when your car is 20-30 years old and you need to replace one of the control modules or a radar or a camera, none of which have been made in the last decade. Will there be aftermarket alternatives, are there universal parts, are they even remotely affordable to someone driving a 30 year old car? How many of these electronics are able to be shared across multiple models, years or even trim levels? IMO even though reliability is getting better, we are loosing repairability. But I believe the electronics will last longer than most people will want to keep their cars anyway. It will be the cheap bastard's like myself that drive 30 year old cars who will have to deal with the troubles of failing electronics in today's cars 20-30 years from now.
oppositelock27@reddit
Last week I put together quote for a BMW active LED headlight assembly with all six separate attached modules due to corrosion. $7000. Not including labor and programming. Draw your own conclusion.
SimpleReputation3795@reddit
So, a few things, I think overall, this statement is a reach. The biggest thing is not being able to fix it yourself for a reasonable price. Some of the tools required to work on modern vehicles are just ridiculously expensive and put it out of reach for your average do it yourselfer. Secondly, I don't think it's the tech itself so much as the software. I know many vehicles that get wireless updates that are supposed to either fix something or add new stuff. In both cases, making features, and sometimes the whole vehicle, completely useless. Wireless updates don't have a good track record from what I've seen, so that does play into this statement imo. Something you can't stop from happening to your perfectly fine vehicle ends up making it super buggy or unusable. Definitely a problem.
Glowingtomato@reddit
I'm surprised the camera in the rearview mirror is still going strong after almost 10 years and 157,000 miles on my Honda Fit. I will say my moonroof has gotten kinda funky and needs the occasional reset to work but the rest of the electronics work fine.
Whuuu@reddit
Very much depends on a person’s definition of “electronic gimmicks”. Electric locks and windows are sometimes iffy but ABS and traction control seem pretty reliable. I’ve had a speedometer fail on me but the cruise control kept working just fine.
Cars have more features, sure, but in my experience those features tend to be better made and more reliable than “simpler” cars of the past. Like, my modern car’s electronic ignition system is significantly more complicated than my other car’s mechanical contact point distributor, but you better believe no one wishes cars go back to that.
eckhaaard@reddit (OP)
Personally, at least in my bubble the answer is definitely "no, the warnings were uncalled for". In my circle of friends, family and coworkers, cars regularly are held at least until 10-15 years of age, some are also 25 years old or more - and between all of them, the number of electronic feature failures is miniscule.
In my own cars, I only had the satnav of a Volvo develop an issue... and that ironically was with the only mechanical part involved in it: A gear of the mechanism that extended the display out of the dashboard failed. Other than that, every electronic feature worked just fine, no matter how old.
Among the others, there's two seat failures (heating/adjustment), one dead ESP module and one single head unit (which was faulty from the factory and died within warranty) to report. That's it for around 30 cars over the past two decades.
yktoday@reddit
Only if it's a Land Rover. The rest of the brands are solid in this department.
reluctantlygumble@reddit
That’s how Toyota buyers cope with having an interior straight out of the 90s on their 10k over MSRP car they just bought new.