IMADreamer wrote: ↑October 20 21, 7:07 pm
AWvsCBsteeeerike3 wrote: ↑October 19 21, 9:10 pm
IMADreamer wrote: ↑October 19 21, 8:28 pm
AWvsCBsteeeerike3 wrote: ↑October 19 21, 1:56 pm
Also, this probably belongs in the cars thread, but I despise how complicated new cars are becoming. My wife has a volvo and while it's awesome on long road trips, it's a [expletive] nightmare to maintain. turbo charged, super charged, constant computer upgrades/problems, difficult oil changes, impossible to work on belts/hoses, etc. Even the simplest of problems are like $1K to get fixed. Recently there was a leaky connection on one of the something or others (hose connection), it took 3 days because they had ot damn near disassemble the entire engine. It's like they've decided to make this [expletive] super complicated to ensure people will bring the cars back to their dealers to get the work done and bakes in an excuse for them to charge excessive fees. Bull [expletive]. Looking at the bronco, it looks like there's probably some of that as well, though, that's probably the case with all new cars.
I haven't done it, but I'd certainly look at the true cost to own that's available on some website out there, surely, about how much all the routine maintenance, depreciation, tires, etc will way into the costs.
You are spot on. Haven't had any hiccups with our Audi yet but I know it's going to be brutal when it happens. I have no intention of working on it myself. My Vette was a nightmare too. While it was reliable, when something went wrong most procedures to fix it began with "remove engine." I'm not exaggerating either.
Surprisingly, my Viper seems pretty easy to work on. Granted it's 23 years old so that helps. Also unless it's a power train part most things cross reference to a Dodge Neon part so a lot of parts are ridiculously cheap.
I was on a work trip last week and my coworker was driving a 2018? GMC Sierra. We pull into a gas station and go to leave and his truck wouldn't start. We jump the battery and pull into an O'Reillys. There's a bolted down lid over the battery that has some sort of something that needs power so to change the battery they had to hook that up to a charger, remove it, then replace the battery. $200. For a battery. And the truck needed to be hooked up to a power source while they did it. I mean...seems like you should make a car that doesn't need to be hooked up to a charger while changing the battery. Because...by definition, changing the battery should remove said power. Absolutely absurd.
Pretty soon, they won't even have spare tires on cars. If you have a flat, you'll have to call a tow truck to tow it to the nearest dealer. The windshield wiper reservoir will require a special tool to open. Hell, they'll probably start putting padlocks on your [expletive] gas cap/charging port so you have to take it to the dealer to power up.
And, I'm not even a diy guy. But, I used to be able to change a battery.
As Arthur said most cars already don't have a spare. You basically get a can of fix a flat. It's stupid. Also there are a lot of subscriptions coming to cars. Basically you get a ton of features built in the car already but if you want to use them you have to pay a subscription for them. Our Audi actually has that. If you want to use their navigation you have to pay monthly, which why would anyone since every phone has that built in already.
I don't want to sound like a grumpy old man, but I really think the glory days of cars is over or fading fast. Sure there are some amazing cars out there, but with subscriptions, electronic everything, fake exhaust noise, and the fact that new cars are becoming unreachable for the average person unless you take out an 8 year loan with a payment that is the same as many mortgages it seems like the good times are over. I will say though, this last 15 years or so have been incredible times for cars.
Subscriptions are annoying as [expletive]. It has to be collusion among all the automakers or just the quickest case of monkey see monkey do of all time. Back in 2016 when we got the volvo, one of the main things Mrs. AW wanted to do was start the car from her phone. And, there's an app for that. Free for 6 months and then $400ish/3 years thereafter. It's like [expletive] man, I just bought an expensive ass car, can you not throw in a free app? Lo and behold, all the automakers had roughly the same deal when we were looking. Probably no different now. There was also a data package (like a cell phone) to turn the car into a hot spot (which, I'm guessing most people already have a data package on their cell phone but who knows), sirius xm, on call, and probably other things that we let expire. But, Mrs. AW ain't walking out to a cold car in the winter or hot car in the summer; all it costs is about 50 cents every time she remotely starts the car. [expletive] [expletive].
That's not even the worst part though. The worst part, by far, was we bought the car when it was a newerish model. At the time, the self-driving mode only worked up to 30 mph. I was like, yo, word on the street is this is getting bumped up to 80 or 85 mph within the year. And, it'll just be a computer reboot/upgrade to make the switch. Which they confirmed. And left it as if it would be free. Which it wasn't. I think it was like $200 or something to simply run an update. Sure, first world problem. But, also. [expletive] them.
I don't know enough about cars to make claims about glory days. But, I will say, I prefer the simpler versions the vast majority of the time.
/old man rant
