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Im in automotive maintenance and repair as a trade, and a 12 year old car is no problem for anyone but the people at the wall street journal in my opinion. how

Im in automotive maintenance and repair as a trade, and a 12 year old car is no problem for anyone but the people at the wall street journal in my opinion. how long you keep a car is your decision. if you like it, and you're willing to pay for regular maintenance, then keep it. this "long run" comparison of owning and repairing versus buying a new car is just silly. So many people have the incentive to get you to buy a new car, but practically no one has an incentive to tell you to take good care of the things you own so they last. And new cars arent always better. That nice collision avoidance/lane keeper and camera system? that was implemented as a countermeasure for increasing A and B pillar size after regulatory agencies decided too many americans were getting crushed to death in roll-over accidents. collision avoidance was literally the only way auto manufacturers could keep you out of a manslaughter charge thanks to the absolute byzantine nightmare of info-tainment systems that also do things like climate control. controversial opinion here but older cars teach you a healthy fear of operating a 2000lb rolling death machine. no infofainment means they are safer for the driver, and no nanny-state A pillars mean you arent doing 80 in a 65 quite as often. I own a 2000 mercury grand marquis. its a v8 so it inspires me to bipedal transportation pretty often with its fuel enconomy. the biggest problem I have with the car is my coworkers nicknaming me "the don" for driving a murdered-out land yacht but its what i like.

Judgmentality 5y ago
> That nice collision avoidance/lane keeper and camera system? that was implemented as a countermeasure for increasing A and B pillar size after regulatory agencies decided too many americans were getting crushed to death in roll-over accidents. I've never heard this. Anywhere I can read more about this?
- kdkdmskans 5y ago
  No, because this mechanic who doesn't understand that crumple zones make modern cars way safer than old ones thinks being able to repair cars makes him an engineer
oldcigarette 5y ago
>how long you keep a car is your decision You do repair work in the desert don't you? I mostly agree with your sentiment. However in the rust belt we spray corrosive agents all over our cars and within 5 years loosening half of the fasteners takes 10 times what you are probably familiar with.
- dbcurtis 5y ago
  Insightful. When I moved to California from Minnesota my cars were covered with “road cancer”. People looked at the rusted body panels like “What the heck is that? I’ve never seen that.” Now one of my cars is over 22 years old and still going just fine.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    In my experience in the north, cars you drive in winter can get about 15-20 years before you really start to have body rust and things like brake lines start rusting out. Right before the pandemic, I got rid of a 22 year old Honda del Sol. But it had been garaged for about the previous 10 winters. The mechanics at the dealer always went to look at it because they basically weren't on the roads any longer in New England.
    - ldkfj 5y ago
      I have a 2000 Jeep Cherokee that I bought from a friend at 25K miles in the Colorado mountains. It spent a handful of years there, a handful in Salt Lake City, a handful in Lake Tahoe, and another handful in Bellingham, WA, with many drives to Mt. Baker, of course :). She is at 190K and rusting but mechanics love telling me she is in great condition. Most reliable vehicle I have ever known. Simply won’t give up.
      - mod 5y ago
        I sold my 96 last year with 318k miles on it. Ran perfectly. It's around 325k now, I sold it to an acquaintance. I ran into a local at the feed store who had one, and chatted him up. Turns out he has a whole little fleet of them. Easy to work on, run forever, cheap, and lots of spare parts around.
Silhouette 5y ago
I agree almost 100% with this. The only thing I'd add is that as you head towards double digit ages, you really do have to pay attention to things like corrosion, fatigue and general accumulated wear and tear in anything that moves. Even if the vehicle has been well looked after, there can be serious safety implications from sudden metalwork failures and the like, including in parts that you wouldn't necessarily check and periodically replace as part of a routine maintenance schedule. It definitely pays to know a good local mechanic if you want to run an older vehicle.
- lostlogin 5y ago
  > The only thing I'd add is that as you head towards double digit ages I got too far into this before realising you were referring to cars, not people. It holds up well. It did have me wondering how early you learned to drive.
hnhg 5y ago
Your comment reminded me of this video, "Why do mechanics buy 'grandma' cars?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNOEMEX-2ow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNOEMEX-2ow
- Frost1x 5y ago
  I like older grandma cars in an additional sense: they're usually low mileage, gently driven, garage kept, and well serviced because older people tend to take care of their cars so they last and also often don't use them that much. Most all of my vehicles have been 10+ year old vehicles, gently used, and bought for a great price from some elderly person who no longer drives/can drive or from a relative selling their parents/grandparents old ugly car they inherited and don't want. The older designs are often geared at making them easily maintainable vs new designs. This is shifting a bit and you're not starting to get in the early 2000s unless you want to get something much much older. You do have to worry about seals, gaskets, rubber parts that have dry-rotted/cracked etc. or start to fail but the rest of the vehicle is usually in fantastic shape from my experience. I see many vehicles 10+ years old with less than 50k miles on them. It's probably hard to find anything like this any more and I really hope the pandemic doesn't inspire everyone to start picking these older used options long term because then it's going to get more expensive for me to find good reliable cheap cars.
snypher 5y ago
>and no nanny-state A pillars mean you arent doing 80 in a 65 quite as often. I'm curious about this, can you explain more?
- Aeronwen 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation The more likely you are to survive putting the car on it's roof, the less you think about avoiding it.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - brianwawok 5y ago
    Right. The same logic that says bike helmets lead to more deaths because people drive more risky. Which I guess is great until you get t-boned by someone you don’t see coming and just die because you didn’t have a $20 helmet on.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - foepys 5y ago
      Car drivers are also taking less care when encountering a cyclist with a helmet on. People weirdly tend to put others into greater risk when assuming others are protected, which in case of cyclists is clearly false.
      - jdavis703 5y ago
        I’m not sure why this comment is being downvoted. There are multiple papers showing drivers are less safe around helmeted bike riders. Here’s one: https://psyarxiv.com/nxw2k https://psyarxiv.com/nxw2k.
        5y ago
mrosett 5y ago
> a 12 year old car is no problem for anyone but the people at the wall street journal in my opinion This was a weird statement since the article doesn’t seem to have any problem with people keeping cars longer.
- onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
  Although I agree with OP, I also found this ironic: > Im in automotive maintenance and repair > but practically no one has an incentive to tell you to take good care of the things you own so they last.
  - unethical_ban 5y ago
    As in, the press, the government, car manufacturers, or mechanics, really. Mechanics would love you to buy cars that cost $2000 for a headlight change, rather than maintain your 2002 Honda with regular maintenance and responsible driving.
    - lostlogin 5y ago
      I’m not so sure. Look at a mechanic when they are tasked with certain jobs. BMW X5 rear lights - specifically the fibre optic stuff. Jaguar brakes, or cam belt (chain?) on the v12. They seem pretty happy when my Corolla needs some work.
    - jjav 5y ago
      I have owned one car with a $2K+ headlight change (BMW - never again!) but the guy with the shop doing the work (a friend) is getting paid on the time for the job not the parts cost.
mrfusion 5y ago
Can you explain the a pillar part? Did it get safer or less safe? Less strong?
- orev 5y ago
  The pillars keep getting thicker so they can support the weight of the vehicle in a rollover, and also to provide space for the side curtain airbags. This creates bigger blind spots since you can’t have glass there anymore, so these other safety systems help to make up for the reduced visibility.
  - mhb 5y ago
    It's almost hilarious that the safety requirements for cars keep getting more stringent yet it's perfectly fine to sit on top of an engine and two wheels and drive down the road at any speed without any safety equipment at all.
    - supertrope 5y ago
      It's almost like car drivers and motorcyclists have different consumer preferences for safety and that carries over to how they lobby their politicians on traffic laws.
      - mhb 5y ago
        Right. Sort of like the consumer preference for risk vs. cost for various safety equipment in cars could be expressed were it not for mandates for "minimal" amounts of safety equipment.
        JKCalhoun 5y ago
        Maybe. Reasonable people will look at a motorcycle and know full well they will lose in a collision ... with anything. Not as easy to make an informed choice about cars. The high incidence of rollovers for SUVs comes to mind. Apparently consumers had no idea that the Ford Bronco (as an example) was as deadly as it was. I agree, it would be nice if we allowed for relaxed safety on cars as long as they were in their own category — sort of like dune buggies or something so consumers knew the trade-offs they were making.
Teknoman117 5y ago
I drive a 2004 Ford Expedition with 235k miles on it. My parents ended up giving it to me because after all my siblings went to college what was the point of a family vacation vehicle. We’ve had it so long that even though I’m almost 30, it’s the vehicle I learned how to drive in. Its nicknames at the office are "Clifford the Big Red SUV" and "The Lunch Bus".
acituan 5y ago
> That nice collision avoidance/lane keeper and camera system? that was implemented as a countermeasure for increasing A and B pillar size after regulatory agencies decided too many americans were getting crushed to death in roll-over accidents. I don't buy this. It is simply a competitive advantage enabling those systems, plus being software-heavy, they do scale well. Thicker pillars are not a bad thing. Visibility is not appreciably limited by them either. If that was the case we would have a significant differential in crash statistics between the trims of the same cars with and without those systems. They would have different safety ratings. > no infofainment means they are safer for the driver, Unless you have data, I strongly doubt this too. No infotainment means people will handle their phone more often for navigation, music, calls etc. Stuff like CarPlay don't even allow time seeking sliders on music interfaces, they are much less distracting than full fidelity mobile interfaces. > older cars teach you a healthy fear of operating a 2000lb rolling death machine By that token motorcycles would teach you a healthy fear of operating without a chassis, and thus a safer vehicle?
- unethical_ban 5y ago
  >Thicker pillars are not a bad thing. Visibility is not appreciably limited by them either. One Hundred Percent inaccurate. I can't see shit out of my 2014 crossover when turning to check blindspots, compared to my 90s trucks and cars I've driven. Hell, backup cameras are mandated on all new cars in the US (they are very useful, but it's also because you can't see out of your own car). >By that token motorcycles would teach you a healthy fear of operating without a chassis, and thus a safer vehicle? I think driving a motorcycle creates safer drivers, absolutely. I take the stance when driving, turning, merging, etc. that at any moment, any car near me is going to do something stupid. Either not see my lane-change signal, or cross the stop-sign despite it being my turn, etc. Every person who has proactively described that level of defensive driving (that I have talked to in conversation) had at one point or another been a motorcycle rider.
  - jedberg 5y ago
    > I can't see shit out of my 2014 crossover when turning to check blindspots I learned to adjust my blind spot to be two lanes over so that I can see anything next to me in my mirrors. Checking my blindspot means looking directly out the window so that pillars don't get in the way. It's similar to how trucks do it, since they can't see out the back. Something you may want to look into -- adjusting your blind spot so you don't have to look at your pillar.
oblio 5y ago
> controversial opinion here but older cars teach you a healthy fear of operating a 2000lb rolling death machine. no infofainment means they are safer for the driver, and no nanny-state A pillars mean you arent doing 80 in a 65 quite as often. Yes, because that's how people work. Nobody was driving unsafely before, because they were afraid of their cars rolling over. No, that's not how they work. They just died at higher rates. Would you look at that! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year#/media/File:US_traffic_deaths_per_VMT,_VMT,_per_capita,_and_total_annual_deaths.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in... Turns out unsafe cars killed more people and when we started making them really safe, they stopped killing as many people, despite people driving more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...
- alamortsubite 5y ago
  You conveniently ignore pedestrian fatalities, which are headed off the chart thanks to modern "safer" vehicles. From the same article you referenced: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year#Pedestrians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...
  - Afforess 5y ago
    That graph also correlates perfectly with smartphone adoption. Drivers are more distracted and pedestrians less aware of their surroundings than in the past.
  - oblio 5y ago
    Tall SUV and trucks + smartphones. One battle at a time.
    - Amezarak 5y ago
      Tech companies have the power to end the smartphone problem overnight. Just takes Apple and Google disabling the screen of any phone moving faster than 5mph. Passengers would be inconvenienced, but basically every phone-related crash would be prevented.
gentleman11 5y ago
Speaking of the lack of software as a feature, are there any new cars you can still buy that aren’t bloated with software anti features?
- zbrozek 5y ago
  I'm not aware of any, which is a shame. I want to replace one of my two cars with an EV sometime late 2022 or early 2023. Unfortunately they all come with touchscreens and cellular connectivity. I want neither. My 2002 Saturn LW200 had the best UI of any car I've ever owned. Everything was a mechanical button, lever, or knob and it had only two very-simple screens: a clock radio (segment LCD) and an odometer (VFD).
  - 13rac1 5y ago
    I suspect the only long term way to avoid touchscreens and cellular is a DIY EV. EVWest, for example, now has complete kits for 14 cars: https://www.evwest.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=40 https://www.evwest.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=40
- Hamuko 5y ago
  Anything by Dacia. You don't even get a radio as standard equipment. I imagine a 20-year-old Mercedes has more lines of code than a Dacia.
- wutbrodo 5y ago
  Do you see them as anti-features? My mom's newish car has backup cameras, lane guidance, and blindspot detectors, and those things alone have quieted the vast majority of my lifelong frustration at cities that force you to waste hours of your day piloting death machines just to go about your day-to-day. I still would never want to _live_ somewhere like that, but my visits to my parents have become significantly more pleasant through what I consider to be these common-sense safety features.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  You can't avoid CANBUS anymore but if you go buy the base trim subcompacts from those brands the well to do parts of the internet turn up their noses at you should be able to find stuff without much or any technical bloat.
bitbckt 5y ago
> I own a 2000 mercury grand marquis. With the secret de Sade trim, I hope. /s
Der_Einzige 5y ago
Spoken like a true boomer. New cars are much better at preventing harm than older cars are. They are objectively better in almost every way. I literally cannot fathom that HN users haven't transparencied this comment yet...
laurencerowe 5y ago
> this "long run" comparison of owning and repairing versus buying a new car is just silly. So many people have the incentive to get you to buy a new car, but practically no one has an incentive to tell you to take good care of the things you own so they last. I don't think the comparison is so absurd. The result can vary a lot based on where you live - how hard the weather is on the car, how much a mechanic charges per hour, how strict the smog/inspection regulations are. In San Francisco maintenance/repairs are $150/hour at an independent shop. A former colleague and I worked out that the 10+ year old used cars we both drove ended up costing almost exactly the same in depreciation and maintenance as leasing a new Subaru Outback. They only worked out cheaper overall because we could forego the comprehensive insurance required for a lease. I'd switched to a job that required commuting more than 15k miles a year by the time mine failed its smog test and needed to be replaced (a CARB compliant replacement catalytic converter would have been almost as much as I'd paid for the car) so got another old used car. He ended up leasing when his car died.
doggodaddo78 5y ago
That sounds almost as amazing as what I inherited once upon a time: an 1985 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale Brougham LS with dark silver fleck craptastic paint, chrome everything, limo tint, gutless 307 V8 LV2 motor with roller lifter, 4 mobster body-capacity trunk, predictable drifting characteristics, and seating for 5-6 Americans. It was once of the most comfortable cars ever, but the crushed merlot velour interior (as featured in a Traci Lords' film) created so much static, it's a wonder more gas station fires and localized lightning didn't occur.
jedberg 5y ago
> and a 12 year old car is no problem for anyone but the people at the wall street journal in my opinion. They're doing economic reporting -- they're pointing out that the median age is going up, which is bad for auto makers. I don't think they're telling anyone that is a bad thing for individuals, just for the economy as a whole.
- lostlogin 5y ago
  Is it bad for the economy? The labour and supply chain for repair work must add up to an awful lot of people. It’s also going to be paying locals the bulk of the money, where buying a new car is often going to be sending the money off shore.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  "just [bad] for the economy as a whole" This seems to assume thay buying wastefull shit you don't need is good for economy? That efficiency and individuals saving money is bad for economy?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- Daishiman 5y ago
  No, it's great for the economy if asset prices go down and consumers get more bang for their buck. We want fewer people producing things that last more.
- wutbrodo 5y ago
  It's not per se bad for the economy to use capital assets more productively. In fact, the baseline assumption is that it's _good_ for the economy.
- nradov 5y ago
  The economy as a whole isn't being harmed. US new car sales held steady at about 17M per year through 2019 before dropping in 2020 due to the pandemic and supply shortages.
lumberingjack 5y ago
Shade tree mechanic here,most my cars are 20 YO old. I just got a "new" car a 12 yo Twin turbo AWD BMW. I have to say the amount of "lifetime fluid" stickers on it is way to damn high. it needed all these lifetime fluids changed at 40k intervals but BMW made it that way so they wouldn't have to maintain all the fluids. NOW ME AND THE MAD SCIENTIST GOT TO PULL APART TORQUE CONVERTER BECAUSE IT WAS THE FIRST ONE EVER IN HISTORY TO INCLUDE A CLUTCH PACK.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  >NOW ME AND THE MAD SCIENTIST GOT TO PULL APART TORQUE CONVERTER BECAUSE IT WAS THE FIRST ONE EVER IN HISTORY TO INCLUDE A CLUTCH PACK. The 80s called and want their AOD and 700R4 back.
AshamedCaptain 5y ago
> controversial opinion here but older cars teach you a healthy fear of operating a 2000lb rolling death machine. Sure. And what about adding a giant huge metal sharp spike in the windshield pointing directly to the driver's forehead, while we're at it. That should teach people to drive safely.
- _carbyau_ 5y ago
  No need to be that dramatic. Put a little one on the steering wheel aimed at your heart, primed for airbag insertion. :-P I fall on the "safer stuff = safer" side of the equation, against the "safer stuff encourages more stupid" BTW. I mean, my car has ABS and I could brake a lot later for every corner but the shuddering, squealing and G forces don't feel like a nice UX.
- mint2 5y ago
  Are you referring to non-collapsible steering columns? After all before collapsible steering columns presumably, following along this threads logic, the fear of being impaled made crashes non-existant. We can also remove the seat belts. Oh and 500Hp 8,000lb pick up trucks with 6ft tall front grills don’t accelerate fast enough, let’s put Tesla’s plaid tech in them so they can get to 90mph in seconds. Currently there’s far too much lag when 8,000lb trucks hit the gas to weave through traffic at 95mph. Presumable Making these updates will give people the proper fear they need in order to drive safer and reduce accidents.
oliv__ 5y ago
"and no nanny-state A pillars mean you arent doing 80 in a 65 quite as often." Hmmm.. that certainly doesn't apply to me, and I drive a '96.
nradov 5y ago
See this article by Jack Baruth on how badly the old Ford Panther platform vehicles such as the Mercury Grand Marquis and Lincoln Town Car perform in crashes. Those things are death traps in side impact crashes compared to more modern designs. Even the best driver can't avoid every collision. https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2014/02/falling-out-of-panther-love/ https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2014/02/falling-out-of-pan...

Judgmentality 5y ago

kdkdmskans 5y ago
No, because this mechanic who doesn't understand that crumple zones make modern cars way safer than old ones thinks being able to repair cars makes him an engineer

oldcigarette 5y ago

>how long you keep a car is your decision You do repair work in the desert don't you? I mostly agree with your sentiment. However in the rust belt we spray corrosive agents all over our cars and within 5 years loosening half of the fasteners takes 10 times what you are probably familiar with.

dbcurtis 5y ago
Insightful. When I moved to California from Minnesota my cars were covered with “road cancer”. People looked at the rusted body panels like “What the heck is that? I’ve never seen that.” Now one of my cars is over 22 years old and still going just fine.
- ghaff 5y ago
  In my experience in the north, cars you drive in winter can get about 15-20 years before you really start to have body rust and things like brake lines start rusting out. Right before the pandemic, I got rid of a 22 year old Honda del Sol. But it had been garaged for about the previous 10 winters. The mechanics at the dealer always went to look at it because they basically weren't on the roads any longer in New England.
  - ldkfj 5y ago
    I have a 2000 Jeep Cherokee that I bought from a friend at 25K miles in the Colorado mountains. It spent a handful of years there, a handful in Salt Lake City, a handful in Lake Tahoe, and another handful in Bellingham, WA, with many drives to Mt. Baker, of course :). She is at 190K and rusting but mechanics love telling me she is in great condition. Most reliable vehicle I have ever known. Simply won’t give up.
    - mod 5y ago
      I sold my 96 last year with 318k miles on it. Ran perfectly. It's around 325k now, I sold it to an acquaintance. I ran into a local at the feed store who had one, and chatted him up. Turns out he has a whole little fleet of them. Easy to work on, run forever, cheap, and lots of spare parts around.

Silhouette 5y ago

I agree almost 100% with this. The only thing I'd add is that as you head towards double digit ages, you really do have to pay attention to things like corrosion, fatigue and general accumulated wear and tear in anything that moves. Even if the vehicle has been well looked after, there can be serious safety implications from sudden metalwork failures and the like, including in parts that you wouldn't necessarily check and periodically replace as part of a routine maintenance schedule. It definitely pays to know a good local mechanic if you want to run an older vehicle.

lostlogin 5y ago
> The only thing I'd add is that as you head towards double digit ages I got too far into this before realising you were referring to cars, not people. It holds up well. It did have me wondering how early you learned to drive.

hnhg 5y ago

Your comment reminded me of this video, "Why do mechanics buy 'grandma' cars?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNOEMEX-2ow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNOEMEX-2ow

Frost1x 5y ago
I like older grandma cars in an additional sense: they're usually low mileage, gently driven, garage kept, and well serviced because older people tend to take care of their cars so they last and also often don't use them that much. Most all of my vehicles have been 10+ year old vehicles, gently used, and bought for a great price from some elderly person who no longer drives/can drive or from a relative selling their parents/grandparents old ugly car they inherited and don't want. The older designs are often geared at making them easily maintainable vs new designs. This is shifting a bit and you're not starting to get in the early 2000s unless you want to get something much much older. You do have to worry about seals, gaskets, rubber parts that have dry-rotted/cracked etc. or start to fail but the rest of the vehicle is usually in fantastic shape from my experience. I see many vehicles 10+ years old with less than 50k miles on them. It's probably hard to find anything like this any more and I really hope the pandemic doesn't inspire everyone to start picking these older used options long term because then it's going to get more expensive for me to find good reliable cheap cars.

snypher 5y ago

>and no nanny-state A pillars mean you arent doing 80 in a 65 quite as often. I'm curious about this, can you explain more?

Aeronwen 5y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation The more likely you are to survive putting the car on it's roof, the less you think about avoiding it.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- brianwawok 5y ago
  Right. The same logic that says bike helmets lead to more deaths because people drive more risky. Which I guess is great until you get t-boned by someone you don’t see coming and just die because you didn’t have a $20 helmet on.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - foepys 5y ago
    Car drivers are also taking less care when encountering a cyclist with a helmet on. People weirdly tend to put others into greater risk when assuming others are protected, which in case of cyclists is clearly false.
    - jdavis703 5y ago
      I’m not sure why this comment is being downvoted. There are multiple papers showing drivers are less safe around helmeted bike riders. Here’s one: https://psyarxiv.com/nxw2k https://psyarxiv.com/nxw2k.
      - 5y ago

mrosett 5y ago

> a 12 year old car is no problem for anyone but the people at the wall street journal in my opinion This was a weird statement since the article doesn’t seem to have any problem with people keeping cars longer.

onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
Although I agree with OP, I also found this ironic: > Im in automotive maintenance and repair > but practically no one has an incentive to tell you to take good care of the things you own so they last.
- unethical_ban 5y ago
  As in, the press, the government, car manufacturers, or mechanics, really. Mechanics would love you to buy cars that cost $2000 for a headlight change, rather than maintain your 2002 Honda with regular maintenance and responsible driving.
  - lostlogin 5y ago
    I’m not so sure. Look at a mechanic when they are tasked with certain jobs. BMW X5 rear lights - specifically the fibre optic stuff. Jaguar brakes, or cam belt (chain?) on the v12. They seem pretty happy when my Corolla needs some work.
  - jjav 5y ago
    I have owned one car with a $2K+ headlight change (BMW - never again!) but the guy with the shop doing the work (a friend) is getting paid on the time for the job not the parts cost.

mrfusion 5y ago

Can you explain the a pillar part? Did it get safer or less safe? Less strong?

orev 5y ago
The pillars keep getting thicker so they can support the weight of the vehicle in a rollover, and also to provide space for the side curtain airbags. This creates bigger blind spots since you can’t have glass there anymore, so these other safety systems help to make up for the reduced visibility.
- mhb 5y ago
  It's almost hilarious that the safety requirements for cars keep getting more stringent yet it's perfectly fine to sit on top of an engine and two wheels and drive down the road at any speed without any safety equipment at all.
  - supertrope 5y ago
    It's almost like car drivers and motorcyclists have different consumer preferences for safety and that carries over to how they lobby their politicians on traffic laws.
    - mhb 5y ago
      Right. Sort of like the consumer preference for risk vs. cost for various safety equipment in cars could be expressed were it not for mandates for "minimal" amounts of safety equipment.
      - JKCalhoun 5y ago
        Maybe. Reasonable people will look at a motorcycle and know full well they will lose in a collision ... with anything. Not as easy to make an informed choice about cars. The high incidence of rollovers for SUVs comes to mind. Apparently consumers had no idea that the Ford Bronco (as an example) was as deadly as it was. I agree, it would be nice if we allowed for relaxed safety on cars as long as they were in their own category — sort of like dune buggies or something so consumers knew the trade-offs they were making.

Teknoman117 5y ago

I drive a 2004 Ford Expedition with 235k miles on it. My parents ended up giving it to me because after all my siblings went to college what was the point of a family vacation vehicle. We’ve had it so long that even though I’m almost 30, it’s the vehicle I learned how to drive in. Its nicknames at the office are "Clifford the Big Red SUV" and "The Lunch Bus".

acituan 5y ago

> That nice collision avoidance/lane keeper and camera system? that was implemented as a countermeasure for increasing A and B pillar size after regulatory agencies decided too many americans were getting crushed to death in roll-over accidents. I don't buy this. It is simply a competitive advantage enabling those systems, plus being software-heavy, they do scale well. Thicker pillars are not a bad thing. Visibility is not appreciably limited by them either. If that was the case we would have a significant differential in crash statistics between the trims of the same cars with and without those systems. They would have different safety ratings. > no infofainment means they are safer for the driver, Unless you have data, I strongly doubt this too. No infotainment means people will handle their phone more often for navigation, music, calls etc. Stuff like CarPlay don't even allow time seeking sliders on music interfaces, they are much less distracting than full fidelity mobile interfaces. > older cars teach you a healthy fear of operating a 2000lb rolling death machine By that token motorcycles would teach you a healthy fear of operating without a chassis, and thus a safer vehicle?

unethical_ban 5y ago
>Thicker pillars are not a bad thing. Visibility is not appreciably limited by them either. One Hundred Percent inaccurate. I can't see shit out of my 2014 crossover when turning to check blindspots, compared to my 90s trucks and cars I've driven. Hell, backup cameras are mandated on all new cars in the US (they are very useful, but it's also because you can't see out of your own car). >By that token motorcycles would teach you a healthy fear of operating without a chassis, and thus a safer vehicle? I think driving a motorcycle creates safer drivers, absolutely. I take the stance when driving, turning, merging, etc. that at any moment, any car near me is going to do something stupid. Either not see my lane-change signal, or cross the stop-sign despite it being my turn, etc. Every person who has proactively described that level of defensive driving (that I have talked to in conversation) had at one point or another been a motorcycle rider.
- jedberg 5y ago
  > I can't see shit out of my 2014 crossover when turning to check blindspots I learned to adjust my blind spot to be two lanes over so that I can see anything next to me in my mirrors. Checking my blindspot means looking directly out the window so that pillars don't get in the way. It's similar to how trucks do it, since they can't see out the back. Something you may want to look into -- adjusting your blind spot so you don't have to look at your pillar.

oblio 5y ago

> controversial opinion here but older cars teach you a healthy fear of operating a 2000lb rolling death machine. no infofainment means they are safer for the driver, and no nanny-state A pillars mean you arent doing 80 in a 65 quite as often. Yes, because that's how people work. Nobody was driving unsafely before, because they were afraid of their cars rolling over. No, that's not how they work. They just died at higher rates. Would you look at that! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year#/media/File:US_traffic_deaths_per_VMT,_VMT,_per_capita,_and_total_annual_deaths.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in... Turns out unsafe cars killed more people and when we started making them really safe, they stopped killing as many people, despite people driving more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...

alamortsubite 5y ago
You conveniently ignore pedestrian fatalities, which are headed off the chart thanks to modern "safer" vehicles. From the same article you referenced: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year#Pedestrians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...
- Afforess 5y ago
  That graph also correlates perfectly with smartphone adoption. Drivers are more distracted and pedestrians less aware of their surroundings than in the past.
- oblio 5y ago
  Tall SUV and trucks + smartphones. One battle at a time.
  - Amezarak 5y ago
    Tech companies have the power to end the smartphone problem overnight. Just takes Apple and Google disabling the screen of any phone moving faster than 5mph. Passengers would be inconvenienced, but basically every phone-related crash would be prevented.

gentleman11 5y ago

Speaking of the lack of software as a feature, are there any new cars you can still buy that aren’t bloated with software anti features?

zbrozek 5y ago
I'm not aware of any, which is a shame. I want to replace one of my two cars with an EV sometime late 2022 or early 2023. Unfortunately they all come with touchscreens and cellular connectivity. I want neither. My 2002 Saturn LW200 had the best UI of any car I've ever owned. Everything was a mechanical button, lever, or knob and it had only two very-simple screens: a clock radio (segment LCD) and an odometer (VFD).
- 13rac1 5y ago
  I suspect the only long term way to avoid touchscreens and cellular is a DIY EV. EVWest, for example, now has complete kits for 14 cars: https://www.evwest.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=40 https://www.evwest.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=40
Hamuko 5y ago
Anything by Dacia. You don't even get a radio as standard equipment. I imagine a 20-year-old Mercedes has more lines of code than a Dacia.
wutbrodo 5y ago
Do you see them as anti-features? My mom's newish car has backup cameras, lane guidance, and blindspot detectors, and those things alone have quieted the vast majority of my lifelong frustration at cities that force you to waste hours of your day piloting death machines just to go about your day-to-day. I still would never want to _live_ somewhere like that, but my visits to my parents have become significantly more pleasant through what I consider to be these common-sense safety features.
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
You can't avoid CANBUS anymore but if you go buy the base trim subcompacts from those brands the well to do parts of the internet turn up their noses at you should be able to find stuff without much or any technical bloat.

bitbckt 5y ago

> I own a 2000 mercury grand marquis. With the secret de Sade trim, I hope. /s

Der_Einzige 5y ago

Spoken like a true boomer. New cars are much better at preventing harm than older cars are. They are objectively better in almost every way. I literally cannot fathom that HN users haven't transparencied this comment yet...

laurencerowe 5y ago

> this "long run" comparison of owning and repairing versus buying a new car is just silly. So many people have the incentive to get you to buy a new car, but practically no one has an incentive to tell you to take good care of the things you own so they last. I don't think the comparison is so absurd. The result can vary a lot based on where you live - how hard the weather is on the car, how much a mechanic charges per hour, how strict the smog/inspection regulations are. In San Francisco maintenance/repairs are $150/hour at an independent shop. A former colleague and I worked out that the 10+ year old used cars we both drove ended up costing almost exactly the same in depreciation and maintenance as leasing a new Subaru Outback. They only worked out cheaper overall because we could forego the comprehensive insurance required for a lease. I'd switched to a job that required commuting more than 15k miles a year by the time mine failed its smog test and needed to be replaced (a CARB compliant replacement catalytic converter would have been almost as much as I'd paid for the car) so got another old used car. He ended up leasing when his car died.

doggodaddo78 5y ago

That sounds almost as amazing as what I inherited once upon a time: an 1985 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale Brougham LS with dark silver fleck craptastic paint, chrome everything, limo tint, gutless 307 V8 LV2 motor with roller lifter, 4 mobster body-capacity trunk, predictable drifting characteristics, and seating for 5-6 Americans. It was once of the most comfortable cars ever, but the crushed merlot velour interior (as featured in a Traci Lords' film) created so much static, it's a wonder more gas station fires and localized lightning didn't occur.

jedberg 5y ago

> and a 12 year old car is no problem for anyone but the people at the wall street journal in my opinion. They're doing economic reporting -- they're pointing out that the median age is going up, which is bad for auto makers. I don't think they're telling anyone that is a bad thing for individuals, just for the economy as a whole.

lostlogin 5y ago
Is it bad for the economy? The labour and supply chain for repair work must add up to an awful lot of people. It’s also going to be paying locals the bulk of the money, where buying a new car is often going to be sending the money off shore.
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
"just [bad] for the economy as a whole" This seems to assume thay buying wastefull shit you don't need is good for economy? That efficiency and individuals saving money is bad for economy?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
Daishiman 5y ago
No, it's great for the economy if asset prices go down and consumers get more bang for their buck. We want fewer people producing things that last more.
wutbrodo 5y ago
It's not per se bad for the economy to use capital assets more productively. In fact, the baseline assumption is that it's _good_ for the economy.
nradov 5y ago
The economy as a whole isn't being harmed. US new car sales held steady at about 17M per year through 2019 before dropping in 2020 due to the pandemic and supply shortages.

lumberingjack 5y ago

Shade tree mechanic here,most my cars are 20 YO old. I just got a "new" car a 12 yo Twin turbo AWD BMW. I have to say the amount of "lifetime fluid" stickers on it is way to damn high. it needed all these lifetime fluids changed at 40k intervals but BMW made it that way so they wouldn't have to maintain all the fluids. NOW ME AND THE MAD SCIENTIST GOT TO PULL APART TORQUE CONVERTER BECAUSE IT WAS THE FIRST ONE EVER IN HISTORY TO INCLUDE A CLUTCH PACK.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
>NOW ME AND THE MAD SCIENTIST GOT TO PULL APART TORQUE CONVERTER BECAUSE IT WAS THE FIRST ONE EVER IN HISTORY TO INCLUDE A CLUTCH PACK. The 80s called and want their AOD and 700R4 back.

AshamedCaptain 5y ago

> controversial opinion here but older cars teach you a healthy fear of operating a 2000lb rolling death machine. Sure. And what about adding a giant huge metal sharp spike in the windshield pointing directly to the driver's forehead, while we're at it. That should teach people to drive safely.

_carbyau_ 5y ago
No need to be that dramatic. Put a little one on the steering wheel aimed at your heart, primed for airbag insertion. :-P I fall on the "safer stuff = safer" side of the equation, against the "safer stuff encourages more stupid" BTW. I mean, my car has ABS and I could brake a lot later for every corner but the shuddering, squealing and G forces don't feel like a nice UX.
mint2 5y ago
Are you referring to non-collapsible steering columns? After all before collapsible steering columns presumably, following along this threads logic, the fear of being impaled made crashes non-existant. We can also remove the seat belts. Oh and 500Hp 8,000lb pick up trucks with 6ft tall front grills don’t accelerate fast enough, let’s put Tesla’s plaid tech in them so they can get to 90mph in seconds. Currently there’s far too much lag when 8,000lb trucks hit the gas to weave through traffic at 95mph. Presumable Making these updates will give people the proper fear they need in order to drive safer and reduce accidents.

oliv__ 5y ago

"and no nanny-state A pillars mean you arent doing 80 in a 65 quite as often." Hmmm.. that certainly doesn't apply to me, and I drive a '96.

nradov 5y ago

See this article by Jack Baruth on how badly the old Ford Panther platform vehicles such as the Mercury Grand Marquis and Lincoln Town Car perform in crashes. Those things are death traps in side impact crashes compared to more modern designs. Even the best driver can't avoid every collision. https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2014/02/falling-out-of-panther-love/ https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2014/02/falling-out-of-pan...