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A car can be both easy to repair and reliable. They aren't mutually exclusive. When people complain about unrepairable vehicles, it's more to do with the arbitr

A car can be both easy to repair and reliable. They aren't mutually exclusive. When people complain about unrepairable vehicles, it's more to do with the arbitrary lock-in, manufacturers intentionally making things difficult. In the past, they'd require strange one-off mechanical tools for certain repair procedures so they could only be done in house. Now, it's electronics that have been designed to "manage your rights" by refusing to install without dealer intervention, etc. The inner workings of things are intentionally closed off and obfuscated. The obfuscation happens completely independent of any inherent increase in complexity that comes with fancy new tech, and sometimes adds complexity and even harms reliability. Vehicles being hostile to their owners is not unique to electric propulsion, just like goods and services being hostile to consumers is not unique to transportation. It's a society-wide thing and it's about locking people in and reducing uncondoned behavior. It's about subjugating people.

cupofpython 5y ago
i blame lawyers in general. the more subjugated a customer is, the cleaner their interaction is with contracts, and the less money is spent on lawyers working through the specific situation. Especially relevant in the event of tragedy. "your car exploded? well you didnt use a triple certified dealership for your last oil change so you cant hold us accountable for that. says so in the contract." now obviously if a car had that level of danger.. you wouldnt even be able to get the oil change done anywhere but the dealership. and in modern times where we try to hold companies responsible for everything we possibly can, it makes sense that anytime there is a remote possibility of liability, they attempt to gate the customer out of it completely. i feel like the general population has either grown to be, or always has been, so indifferent towards subtle legal differences that we continue broadening the strokes of liability which is causing us to lose the power to do many basic things ourselves as a trade off for avoiding any personal responsibility tied to the consequences of doing those things improperly.
- tiahura 5y ago
  As a lawyer that sues car companies, and the spouse of a lawyer that does work for car companies, I can assure you that lawyers aren’t the ones who convinced them to make things more proprietary and difficult to repair.
  - cupofpython 5y ago
    What kinds of things do you sue car companies for? I do not think lawyers literally encouraged it, I just think that they are expensive and going proprietary helps avoid issues. What's your take, though? Genuinely interested. It is widespread across the entire industry, so there appears to be an industry-related driving factor for it
  - Ansil849 5y ago
    > As a lawyer that sues car companies, and the spouse of a lawyer that does work for car companies This is interesting to me. Do conflicts of interest with both of your respective employers come up?
    - tiahura 5y ago
      Not really. I don’t cases involving her clients.
babypuncher 5y ago
I agree that these things are bad. End-users and third party repair shops should be given access to any tools and parts they need to maintain and repair a vehicle. Some designs are inherently harder to diagnose and repair though, even with access to OEM tools and parts. I reject the notion that being harder to repair is automatically bad, only when it is an intentional business decision to create vendor lock-in and not an engineering decision made to improve the quality of the product.
Retric 5y ago
Name a single car actually produced that was both highly reliable as in ~150,000 miles before first non ware issue and easy to repair. Electronics vastly simplify many many systems. Back when say trip odometers where fairly simple mechanical devices they where also yet another system that would eventually break. Building mechanical systems that can handle heavy vibration, large temperature swings, long lifespan, etc while being light, cheap, and easy to repair is difficult. Unfortunately electronics just makes stuff less intuitive. The sensor can sit anywhere as long as it connects to the CAN bus so you don’t always have an easy to trace mechanical linkage etc etc.
- brailsafe 5y ago
  That example is at best an anecdote. I had a car from the same year that required replacing the headlights multiple times a year, replacing the timing belt at around 100000km, electrical issues that were difficult to debug, etc.. It depends where you are, how well the car was designed, budget probably, luck
  - Retric 5y ago
    Sure some luck was involved, but talk to your parents about a car from the 1960’s. Making even 40k miles without any issues was practically unheard of. Meanwhile breaking 100k miles without issue seems to be a 50/50 shot on several models.
- userbinator 5y ago
  Name a single car actually produced that was both highly reliable as in ~150,000 miles before first non ware issue and easy to repair. Look at fleet vehicles like taxis and police cars.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - Retric 5y ago
    Crown victoria used to be a really popular fleet vehicle and it constantly had issues. The advantage was they where cheap to repair not that they needed minimal repairs.

cupofpython 5y ago

i blame lawyers in general. the more subjugated a customer is, the cleaner their interaction is with contracts, and the less money is spent on lawyers working through the specific situation. Especially relevant in the event of tragedy. "your car exploded? well you didnt use a triple certified dealership for your last oil change so you cant hold us accountable for that. says so in the contract." now obviously if a car had that level of danger.. you wouldnt even be able to get the oil change done anywhere but the dealership. and in modern times where we try to hold companies responsible for everything we possibly can, it makes sense that anytime there is a remote possibility of liability, they attempt to gate the customer out of it completely. i feel like the general population has either grown to be, or always has been, so indifferent towards subtle legal differences that we continue broadening the strokes of liability which is causing us to lose the power to do many basic things ourselves as a trade off for avoiding any personal responsibility tied to the consequences of doing those things improperly.

tiahura 5y ago
As a lawyer that sues car companies, and the spouse of a lawyer that does work for car companies, I can assure you that lawyers aren’t the ones who convinced them to make things more proprietary and difficult to repair.
- cupofpython 5y ago
  What kinds of things do you sue car companies for? I do not think lawyers literally encouraged it, I just think that they are expensive and going proprietary helps avoid issues. What's your take, though? Genuinely interested. It is widespread across the entire industry, so there appears to be an industry-related driving factor for it
- Ansil849 5y ago
  > As a lawyer that sues car companies, and the spouse of a lawyer that does work for car companies This is interesting to me. Do conflicts of interest with both of your respective employers come up?
  - tiahura 5y ago
    Not really. I don’t cases involving her clients.

babypuncher 5y ago

I agree that these things are bad. End-users and third party repair shops should be given access to any tools and parts they need to maintain and repair a vehicle. Some designs are inherently harder to diagnose and repair though, even with access to OEM tools and parts. I reject the notion that being harder to repair is automatically bad, only when it is an intentional business decision to create vendor lock-in and not an engineering decision made to improve the quality of the product.

Retric 5y ago

Name a single car actually produced that was both highly reliable as in ~150,000 miles before first non ware issue and easy to repair. Electronics vastly simplify many many systems. Back when say trip odometers where fairly simple mechanical devices they where also yet another system that would eventually break. Building mechanical systems that can handle heavy vibration, large temperature swings, long lifespan, etc while being light, cheap, and easy to repair is difficult. Unfortunately electronics just makes stuff less intuitive. The sensor can sit anywhere as long as it connects to the CAN bus so you don’t always have an easy to trace mechanical linkage etc etc.

brailsafe 5y ago
That example is at best an anecdote. I had a car from the same year that required replacing the headlights multiple times a year, replacing the timing belt at around 100000km, electrical issues that were difficult to debug, etc.. It depends where you are, how well the car was designed, budget probably, luck
- Retric 5y ago
  Sure some luck was involved, but talk to your parents about a car from the 1960’s. Making even 40k miles without any issues was practically unheard of. Meanwhile breaking 100k miles without issue seems to be a 50/50 shot on several models.
userbinator 5y ago
Name a single car actually produced that was both highly reliable as in ~150,000 miles before first non ware issue and easy to repair. Look at fleet vehicles like taxis and police cars.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Retric 5y ago
  Crown victoria used to be a really popular fleet vehicle and it constantly had issues. The advantage was they where cheap to repair not that they needed minimal repairs.