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The rise of the disposable car

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Re: The rise of the disposable car

#131

Post by cinntaile »

WindyCityBrew wrote: post #124
nimbius wrote: post #75

The rich have been flogging this idea since cash for clunkers. That, because they run through cars like shit through a goose, you will too. Speaking as a master diesel mechanic, this is a deleterious line of thinking for anyone with less than a few million dollars. Every car has 20 years of parts, and most Japanese cars have closer into 50 years of parts. Any engine built after 2010 will likely last half a million mi…

(USA specific) Depending on the state, "totaled" might still mean YOU can't fix and drive your car again. In Illinois, you can only retain a totaled vehicle if it was hail damage or it's a "vintage (9+ yr old) car.

They're pushing similar laws through in the EU as well.

Re: The rise of the disposable car

#132

Post by philwelch »

Night_Thastus wrote: post #88
salad-tycoon wrote: post #48

I just want a cheap, safe dependable car. Anti lock brakes, a couple of air bags, crumple zones, maybe Bluetooth, real dials, two base versions: AWD and non AWD. That’s it. No telephony, no on star, no breathalyzers. I don’t need to play Witcher in it. Just need it to turn on and then off after running around. I’m holding onto my ancient POS because it’s impossible apparently to find the above. Everything is new and…

I got a new Corolla and felt that it fit the bill. It still has newer features like lane centering and radar cruise control. However, it's a good, simple, reliable car at a much more reasonable price point. As for feature creep - this is inevitable because all 99.99% of consumers care about are features and price. It's like people asking for a "non-smart TV". It's not going to happen, ever. Consumers who care about t…

I also got a new Corolla recently, but I did have to opt out of the features that phone home to Toyota.

Re: The rise of the disposable car

#133

Post by pfdietz »

talldatethrow wrote: post #105
floxy wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There's a number of reliable auto makers using CVTs for years, such as Subaru Isn't the CVT going bad one of the main complaints people have with Subaru? Like at 100,000-150,000 miles. Other than the head gasket issue which was fixed a decade ago? Asking, since I'm in the market for a used vehicle, and the CVT reliability has me hesitant.

Subaru CVTs tend to burn up a solenoid in the valve body. They are available for $30-40 on eBay and take about 3 hours to do for the first time. Dealers charge $3000 for the job. They install all new valve bodies for about $1200, and for some reason want 8 hours for the job. I helped a friend do it after watching some YouTube videos, and we just swapped the one bad solenoid. 20k miles later, 120k total, everything is…

I just saw a video about a Nissan truck where you can't get transmission parts -- you can only buy entire transmissions. It's outrageous. Seal leaking? Time for a new transmission!

Re: The rise of the disposable car

#134

Post by evantbyrne »

salad-tycoon wrote: post #48

I just want a cheap, safe dependable car. Anti lock brakes, a couple of air bags, crumple zones, maybe Bluetooth, real dials, two base versions: AWD and non AWD. That’s it. No telephony, no on star, no breathalyzers. I don’t need to play Witcher in it. Just need it to turn on and then off after running around. I’m holding onto my ancient POS because it’s impossible apparently to find the above. Everything is new and…

There are tons of models that match this list if you drop the no-DBW requirement. My 6-speed Wrangler is throttle by wire and I have no issues on-road or off-road. You can also usually adjust the throttle if you don't like the feel. Maybe take a look at Subarus if you want no-frills AWD.

Re: The rise of the disposable car

#135

Post by pram »

magicalhippo wrote: post #116
throwaway48476 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern cars aren't designed to be easy to work on which really inflates the labor hours required for even trivial issues.

The my front left indicator light went on my BMW i3. Tried looking up the specs for the bulb to buy a new one. Of course it wasn't that simple. Oh boy was I naive. No, it required a whole new headlight assembly, $800 plus labor. Funnily enough, the car got totalled shortly after, before I had decided to go ahead with the repair. Someone hit my SO as she was in a roundabout, and the impact moved the car several meters…

Similar thing happened to me on my GTI, the Xenon bulb replacements weren’t too expensive but replacing it literally required disassembling a large portion of the front end of the car. I couldn’t believe it.

Re: The rise of the disposable car

#136

Post by [deleted] »

vel0city wrote: post #121
kd5bjo wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see any reasonable way around this, though. If I have a car that I could replace for $8K and would salvage for $1K, I can't reasonably expect someone else's insurance company to pay $12.5K in costs (for repairs plus rentals/loss of use plus diminished value plus incidentals) to put me back in a place where I then have a crash-repaired car worth $7K plus $1K in cash in my pocket for diminished value. The pro…

All dozen of my kids were conceived in the back of that 1997 Toyota Camry. The car was given to me from my Grandpa after he passed. All those memories from the past 27 years clearly has a ton of sentimental value; I put it at $2M. I'll settle for half of that though.

[deleted]

Re: The rise of the disposable car

#137

Post by bobthepanda »

throwaway48476 wrote: post #101
toast0 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in my area, the problem is labor costs. If you can do things yourself, it's great. If you need a mechanic to do it, you're looking at a big expense, because mechanic labor is expensive and there's a lot more covers and harder to get to parts these days. 'Maintenance free' transmissions are very common in newer cars, and they do tend to need less maintenance, but when they do, there's often not a great way to…

Modern cars aren't designed to be easy to work on which really inflates the labor hours required for even trivial issues.

right, the $42K Rivian fender bender was a particularly egregious example. https://www.theautopian.com/heres-why-that-rivian-r1t-repair...

Re: The rise of the disposable car

#138

Post by neuralRiot »

snakeyjake wrote: post #127

The increase in total loss designations by insurance companies is due to the extremely high costs charged by the shops contracted by them to do repairs. The designation of a car as "totaled" is often an illusion and there is a thriving parallel market of auction houses, repair shops, salvage titling companies, and resellers who take the "ruined" cars, fix them, and sell them on the used market. Insurance companies co…

The catch is that most banks won’t finance “rebuilt-titled” cars, you don’t have a dealer warranty (and most plainly refuse to work on rebuilt cars) and the vehicle has a 50-60% (or less) resale value than a “clean-title”.

Re: The rise of the disposable car

#139

Post by alliao »

snakeyjake wrote: post #127

The increase in total loss designations by insurance companies is due to the extremely high costs charged by the shops contracted by them to do repairs. The designation of a car as "totaled" is often an illusion and there is a thriving parallel market of auction houses, repair shops, salvage titling companies, and resellers who take the "ruined" cars, fix them, and sell them on the used market. Insurance companies co…

PE will literally keep going till society start revolting

Re: The rise of the disposable car

#140

Post by alliao »

bluedino wrote: post #110
nimbius wrote: post #75

The rich have been flogging this idea since cash for clunkers. That, because they run through cars like shit through a goose, you will too. Speaking as a master diesel mechanic, this is a deleterious line of thinking for anyone with less than a few million dollars. Every car has 20 years of parts, and most Japanese cars have closer into 50 years of parts. Any engine built after 2010 will likely last half a million mi…

> Any engine built after 2010 will likely last half a million miles or more as a feature of quality control and automation alone. The engine block and rotating assembly might. But all the crap that is bolted on won't. Several engines are known for having the turbocharger fail. Which is now integrated in the exhaust manifold. Timing components are junkier and junkier these days. And somewhere in the 2000's, some of th…

can't get anything for free these days.. an emphasis on efficiency seems to drive up efficiency to the point where they're disposable after 5yrs
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