[Porsche-O-Phile]

A few thoughts reading this:

1. This is EXACTLY why I do 100% of my own maintenance on ALL our vehicles
2. Dealerships absolutely want (and need) suckers to bring their cars to them and pay the extreme mark-ups. There simply isn't enough profit in just selling cars anymore to cover a lot of their operating costs.
3. A good way to accomplish #2 is to mystify the process of auto repair. Even modern cars with all the electronic garbage on them are CARS. At their core, they are mechanical internal-combustion engines and anyone with good background knowledge in them, accompanied with some time, patience and proficiency with Google keyword searches can STILL do their own work.
4. "Planned obsolescence" is kept in check by the free market. Yes, manufacturers would love to design cars that blow up every five years, but competition prevents it - gotta' love that free market. If Manufacturer A does this, Manufacturer B will out-compete them on the basis of reliability and customers will migrate to them.
5. A lot of these costs are to cover the cost of guys making $60,000 a year to turn bolts. Unnecessary. Yes, there need to be some trained/skilled technicians, but when everyone down to the tire mounting guy and the oil change guy is making $25 an hour plus bennies, you have to wonder...
6. One more reason to love older cars. Simple to work on, cheap, reliable, can buy them outright with cash (no payments). Any aggrivation and/or money spent on repairs/upgrades is FAR less than a loan/lease payment on a "new" plastic piece of crap. And you can get the cheaper "liability only" insurance. BIG cost-savings potential.
7. People buy and lease new cars because of EGO, not because of any rational reason. Manufacturers and dealerships prey on this. Beware.
8. We have WAY too many overpaid workers in this country in the interest of using their spending habits to artificially prop up too much of our economy. We only need so many "handymen", residential subcontractors, laborers and wrench-twiddlers. We're WAY over capacity in all these "professions" and the correction is going to be harsh.