Home car repair. Or how the manufacturers prevent DIY

[Marc Bixen]

Great article in the Wall Street Journal. Imagine if they applied this to the automobile industry!

https://www.wsj.com/articles/spare-parts-fix-it-yourself-guides-hit-the-market-as-brands-ponder-repairability-11622539801

[GH85Carrera]

With the electronic components the manufacturer can just fill them with epoxy "to prevent shaking damage" and make them disposable only if they don't want them repaired.

Or make them a total monkey puzzle to get apart and impossible to re-assemble without special tools of holding fixtures. I recently upgraded my great nephew's game computer by cloning his boot drive to a new SSD drive, and made the old drive a backup device. It required my drill press, a chop saw and rivet gun to make it work. It was not designed to be worked on or upgraded. It looks just like it did before, but now has an extra hard drive.

[thsupernge]

Any move away from disposability is in the right direction.

[theiceman]

" potting" has been a well known trick for years .. very familiar to those on this forum even , who have attempted to repair some permadoom boxes....

[Dpmulvan]

Uhh I wouldn’t get your hopes up.

[FrenchToast]

There are so many electronic components in a modern car, all from different suppliers that have their own rules for external knowledge of the product; it would be near impossible to do this for every component.

If you look at it from the point of the supplier, they don't want the workings of their systems known to the public; as it's that much easier to reverse engineer (which does already happen on simpler components). That's corporate knowledge with thousands of hours of R&D. If someone else gets a hold of it, their position as a supplier becomes threatened.

Modern automotive electronics are fairly stable for their designed environment. AFAIK, many critical board connections are potted, resin filled, or another type of prevention for vibration-induced failure.

Electrical connectors and wiring, at least in German cars, are lightyears ahead of what they were 30 years ago.

Planned obsolescence is equally the fault of the manufacturer and the consumer. The average consumer is perfectly complacent with getting a new car every 6 years (or whatever the average is). Most have no desire to maintain something, they would rather look at instacrap.

The automotive industry is increasingly tighter and more aggressive about this because they are trying to keep their bottom line. Are a few CEOs greedy, sure. But that pales in comparison to the millions of hours companies spend to meet ever-increasing government regulations, tighter union regulations, etc.

Compared to 40 years ago, a car manufacturer has to make a car that is (I'm just picking numbers here) 5x more reliable, 5x safer, is 25% more efficient, only 25% heavier, and costs exactly the same after inflation. All while rules regulating their industry are 5x stricter. How do you keep the same bottom line? Technology only gets you so far, you need clever business tactics.

The biggest pushback I know of is the farming industry. When your total machinery costs 7 figures, you want to be able to get the most out of it (i.e. maintaining it). A lot of the newer equipment is virtually non-serviceable which the farming industry is rightfully very upset about.

[GH85Carrera]

What it really means is 100% of all new cars are disposable. In 30 years try to find a replacement for the giant display screens or a replacement ECU for the ABS or the 30+ computers cars have now.

My old 1985 911 can be rebuilt over and over. Some of the parts are hard to find now, but the overall vehicle can be kept running as long as there is gasoline.

[Marc Bixen]

And, also remember when small components can't be repaired, large component must be replaced. This increases repair cost, insurance costs and the associated taxes through the roof. But that's ok, we all can afford it! You use to have a bumper, you could bump things. Then came the body color bumper cover, touch anything, and it needs replacement. A typical front bumper cover 964,993,996, etc. is about $2,000-2,300, plus painting, labor etc. Now Porsche makes a carbon cover for the GT3 etc. That's $7,300-7,600 just for the unpainted cover. "Gotta have the newest" "Ooooo isn't it cool"
Keep on drinkin' the kool-aid.
I like what GH85Carrera said "My old 1985 911 can be rebuilt over and over"

[911pcars]

Some manufacturers in some tech industries want to limit component repairs only at the manufacturer level, either for more control over their products, for higher profits and/or fear of losing their intellectual property (some call it overstepping or paranoia); thus limiting repair sources.

The movement to allow component repairs by individuals and independent repair shops is called, "Right to Repair". There's much pro and con coverage in various YouTube videos. Take a look and see what applies to you.

Sherwood

[Marc Bixen]

Originally Posted by 911pcars

Some manufacturers in some tech industries want to limit component repairs only at the manufacturer level, either for more control over their products, for higher profits and/or fear of losing their intellectual property (some call it overstepping or paranoia); thus limiting repair sources.

The movement to allow component repairs by individuals and independent repair shops is called, "Right to Repair". There's much pro and con coverage in various YouTube videos. Take a look and see what applies to you.

Sherwood