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High-Tech Cars Might Be More Trouble Than They’re Worth
- q1w2 3y agoMy 1993 Jeep Wrangler is so simple that I myself can do almost all repairs myself. The only work it ever needed was a new transmission after living in SF for too long. I see my friends taking their new modern cars into the shop regularly. My Jeep has been running smoothly for literally more than 30 YEARS! All the high-tech features like music/podcasts, gps navigation, etc... that's my phone stuck to the dash. It is a simple robust vehicle. KISS
- gumby 3y agoC'mon, get real. How can you drive a vehicle without a huge screen blocking your view? That you have to take your eyes off the road to actually read, or to change the volume?
- dragonwriter 3y ago> How can you drive a vehicle without a huge screen blocking your view? Not all modern cars are designed like Teslas. Physical controls and touchscreens that don't block your view (and even having indicators that are in a simple set of heads-up indicators achieved by leveraging reflection and the windshield angle) are not unheard of on new cars.
- forgetfreeman 3y agoI've got a 62 fairlane that's easier to work on than my lawnmower so I hear what you're saying. Some of the complexity under a modern hood is necessary to hit fuel efficiency and emissions requirements, but the rest of it is unnecessary bullshit. I've kept up with new car developments mostly due to annual trips that involve renting a car for a week. On my last trip I got handed a new forrester and between the center console display, blinky shit on the dash and rearviews, and the lane assist feature consistently freaking out whenever it encountered a seam in the pavement I've never had a harder time keeping focus and control over the vehicle I was driving. First thing I did the morning after I picked the car up was spend 45 minutes grovelling through every settings menu the car had looking for shit I could turn off.
- q1w2 3y agoDon't be so quick to turn off those lane and hazard alerts - they are a major contributor to reduced accident frequency. You get used to the buzz, and they also warn you when someone else is making a mistake - not only you.
- forgetfreeman 3y agoFuck that. I have ADD and they distract from what I actually need to be paying attention to: the view out the front of the car, the mirrors, and my blind spots. I rode a liter bike as my sole mode of transportation for years. Trust me when I say I don't need assistance maintaining situational awareness. I've been in exactly 1 at-fault accident in 30 years of driving. Cause: got distracted by center console bullshit.
- SketchySeaBeast 3y agoThe only real caveat is that if you and your friend get in a head-on collision on the highway one of you is probably going to come out of it a lot better.
- throw1234651234 3y agoThis is a critical aspect most mechanically-inclined people choose to ignore. They also like to pretend that a generator, water pump, belt tensioner, etc (just picked accessory belt items for an example) are as reliable as they were 200k ago. And they fail to consider the cost of time lost due to the car stopping at the side of the road or not starting. When your car loses power and consequently loses power steering in the middle of the road, it's not very fun. Yes, new car owners probably do overpay for maintenance, but it's likely not that key maintenance and could be avoided. Yes, new engine bays are more cramped and there is more automation. I am against connected cars, but I hate when people go way overboard on the "used cars are the best by far" argument just because they know the order of the flywheel, clutch, pressure plate, throwout bearing and fork.
- linuxftw 3y agoI just watched a youtube video of a brand new F150 that needed tail light replacements. Due to all the electronics (lidar IIRC), replacing both was around $5600. And, it prevented the truck from even starting. Just for tail lights. That's pretty much what you can get an entire engine installed for on an older vehicle. Parts for new vehicles are also very hard to obtain right now. Much easier to get parts for 15+ year old (domestic) vehicle.
- throw1234651234 3y agoThese are, for the most part, nitpicked exceptions of expensive models or expensive optional upgrades. Get a new Civic or GR86 (or even Supra / V8 Mustang) and you won't have any of this. Yes, you can't turn off nannies on the Integra fully for example, but it's still a fuse away.
- 3y ago
- JohnFen 3y agoYep. For my part, I simply cannot imagine buying a relatively modern car for a whole bunch of reasons, including this. I don't want a smartphone on wheels. I want a car.
- tfandango 3y agoThat's awesome! I just lost my old 2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee when it decided to blow its engine at 107K miles. I'm told it had something to do with the variable valve timing system they put in, then I found out that this is not an uncommon problem such that some people pay 1000s of dollars to remove this feature from their engine. Replacing the engine would have cost me 14k. I had no idea, but I long for a car that isn't essentially disposable after 10 years. I really wish they made a car like that these days.
- mdp2021 3y agoEurope is in an effort to forbid those vehicles circulation. New cars are unwantable, old cars are progressively banned.
- dragonwriter 3y agoThat was my general opinion on 1990s cars in the 1990s when my car was a 1972 VW beetle. I had the shop manual, and most things that didn't need a lift for I could do myself. Now I’ve got a full-time job, own a house, and have a spouse and children and even if I could have something as simple to work on as a ’72 Beetle, I wouldn't want to spend my time doing the work on it. And I like modern features like lane assist and radar cruise control and blindspot sensors that you can't get via a phone (and I prefer integrating a phone via Android Auto rather than using the actual phone for the UI rather than just the brains of the functions it does power.) Yeah, modern cars or more expensive than an old car, and, yes, it costs more cash to pay someone to maintain it than to maintain an older car yourself, but cash costs aren't the only costs, opportunity costs are a thing.
- saiya-jin 3y agoAnd then there is security aspect. Crash safety was not a priority back then, crumple zones, airbags etc. were often simply not there yet or in very basic form. Yeah all looks fine when looking just at the financial numbers but once you are in serious crash and will see yourself crippled or kids dying, that penny saving may not look that good idea. There is vast ocean of cars between hyper modern mess of interconnected unmaintainability and these unsafe old metal bricks. They may not be the best solution in 20 years, but right now they are great.
- beej71 3y agoThe main issue occurs when nobody can fix the car themselves. Then you are forced to go to the stealership for repairs and you pay over a barrel. It won't just cost more; it'll cost bank. So even if you don't want to repair the car, you most definitely want a car that you could repair.
- Slava_Propanei 3y ago[dead]
- nullwarp 3y agoI have a 1995 F-350 Power Stroke that I will probably be buried in. There is very little in that truck I can't fix or change. Slightly newer but also have a basic 2012 F-150 5.0 that is probably the easiest thing I've ever owned to work on that i daily drive. Having worked on some of the newer Ecoboost's so many damn tubes and wiring everywhere.
- yowlingcat 3y agoAre there any new cars that buck this trend? I've been buying used 00s vehicles for a while but a day will come when I won't be able to use that approach to buy simplicity with reliability and cost effectiveness.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- karaterobot 3y agoI actually had the following (mental) debate about a decade ago: > Given that we can see that cars are going to send more and more data about me to manufacturers, and that this will get worse with every new generation of car that comes out, I should only buy used cars from the 90s that don't do this. On the other hand, eventually cars from this era will become too old to be practical, even with maintenance and repair. This may be in twenty years, or fifty years, but eventually I'll no longer be able to keep a 1996 Toyota pickup on the road. At that point, I will have to buy a newer vehicle. At that point, I'll either buy a brand new vehicle, and I will probably freak out and panic at the amount of garbage they've packed into it by then. Or, I could buy a succession of newer used vehicles, each more packed with electronic garbage than the last one, and I will have merely delayed the encroachment on my privacy and driving experience by a couple decades, not prevented it. So, really, it's going to happen one way or the other, and maybe it's better to just be the frog who is slowly boiled rather than have it happen all at once. I guess I'll just buy newer cars as needed, like everybody else, and just be slightly less happy about it each time. This is not a commentary on your decision, this is just a glimpse into my (tortured, possibly idiotic) thought process.
- forgetfreeman 3y agoI'm in a similar position but considering a different exit strategy: EV conversion. Still cheaper than a new car and since it isn't OEM there's no digital surveillance suite.
- pengaru 3y agoThe 90s were the inflection point where "tech" and necessity intersected for many brands. We finally got mature and minimalist EFI+emissions controls, cars with vacuum lines numbering in the single digits, delivering relatively great all-round performance. Once you start seeing drive-by-wire / brake-by-wire / "on-star" systems appearing it's pretty much all downhill. They just couldn't leave well enough alone. What we needed was automation for carburetors mostly to run the catalytic convertors without self-destructing. Once we got that it's mostly solutions looking for problems (and revenue streams). What I want from EVs is an electrified version of that 90s-era simplicity with the modicum of necessary automation (in EVs that's probably all thermal/(dis)charge rate management and battery balancing). Just replace the ICE/ECU/tank with a motor+ESC+battery and leave out the touchscreens and driver deprecation+surveillance trash. I feel like there must be a business opportunity to produce EVs in this vein. What's the affordable Driver's Car EV brand? Are we all just waiting for Mazda to deliver an EV Miata? I can't be alone here.
- bryanlarsen 3y agoIt's straightforward to do all the regular maintenance on an EV yourself, mostly because there is so much less of it to do. And the core drivetrain is extremely simple and robust. But like every other vehicle we've had in our pothole ridden city, the weakness is the suspension.
- ilamont 3y agoThe researchers assessed 25 popular brands’ privacy policies and found that 21 of these allow car companies to share or sell customer data with external service providers, data brokers and other businesses. Privacy policies from two brands—Kia and Nissan—even include a clause that notes that each company may collect and disclose data on users’ sexual orientation or sexual behavior. Failing regulatory actions or lawsuits, the only way these companies will change such policies is through very public airing, which includes criticism and ridicule.
- JumpCrisscross 3y agoWhich were the four good brands? Also, could this be regulated at the state level?
- lambdasquirrel 3y agoWhen I looked through Mozilla’s findings, it looked like Mercedes and Subaru had opt-outs. BMW sounded good in theory but didn’t respond to requests for clarifying information.
- mdp2021 3y agoWhen this friend of mine spoke to employees at Mercedes, they said that nowadays they play all the value on the "electronic butler" features and that if you dislike the model they prefer not to sell you the car. When he spoke to BMW, they could not utter a sentence that did not include terms in the set 'credit card', 'subscription', 'smartphone', 'app', 'telematic board', 'remote connection' (etc.) in some mental framework that made them as granted, implicit and necessary as 'axle' and 'engine'.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> looked like Mercedes and Subaru had opt-outs Oh cool, here is Subaru's [1]. [1] https://www.subaru.com/support/consumer-privacy.html https://www.subaru.com/support/consumer-privacy.html
- olyjohn 3y ago
- rudyfink 3y agoIf it isn't already a "law," one should be that the more complex a software system gets the more it tends towards control over user actions. There is probably a network-related corollary that in a networked software systems, over time, as they get more complex they tend towards more user monitoring and reporting.
- quacked 3y agoThis is one of the many technological trends that are driving every part of American life to dependence on the government-business matrix. It would be less painful if the agents of the matrix weren't growing so incompetent.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 3y agoMaybe incompetence and thinking these trends are good go together.
- oooyay 3y agoI drive a 2023 Tacoma and I love the physical configuration of the truck combined with technology. The most disappointing fact about Toyota, and by proxy Toyota Connected, is that things like remote start are now sold on a subscription basis that includes a clause for them sending loads of telemetry and other data.
- lambdasquirrel 3y agoI’d rather pay them, as long as they keep the data secured and aren’t selling it.
- swader999 3y agoThe worst thing about these displays is the glare when driving at night. I know you can dim them and use dark mode but it still is not great. I'm color blind and think that makes it worse.
- myshpa 3y agoI'm waiting for a 'stupid' electric car, without all that high-tech spyware bullshit - a steering wheel, few pedals, and a gear shifter, without touch-sensitive features or needless complexities - dashboard / user-friendly interface, favoring tactile buttons and dials over large touch displays - basic climate control, with traditional knobs for temperature and fan settings - a basic radio system, no need for expansive touchscreens or intricate systems - ABS/ASR, side assist, and parking assist In essence, I want the eco-friendly benefits of an electric car, combined with the straightforward design and functionality of traditional vehicles.
- Lio 3y agoYou’ll be waiting a long time. The manufacturers are acting as a surveillance cartel. If they all spy on you there’s no way to opt out without a change in privacy legislation.
- r053bud 3y agoI don't think we are ever going back...Manufacturers have seen what they can get away with
- greggsy 3y agoMy other daily driver is one of the last models of <brand> that doesn’t include any consumer computers. There’s a generic computer under the hood for engine management, but the UX is all beautiful vacuum fluorescent numbers that can de dialled down all at once. I recently test drove a car with four displays that seems to be sourced from different manufacturers - there was no consistency of UX. I told the salesman that I wasn’t interested in purchasing a 2 ton appliance that was unlikely to receive patching beyond 5 years.
- VoodooJuJu 3y agoI fear we'll never get these, not even for ICE cars.
- wombat-man 3y agoYeah, the least bad EV as far as I can tell is a Bolt EUV. But I think what I really want is an EV that looks like a regular car. I don't want something that looks like a space ship and has big screens inside it.
- xyst 3y agoI was going to opt for a new EV. But ultimately decided against it. Cited “range anxiety,” poor build quality (specifically Tesla), too many unknowns, locked down cars, changes or advanced in battery tech (solid state batteries?). Glad I ultimately kept my 30/38 mpg (city/highway) car. Honestly if this car becomes not financially feasible to repair (no repairs yet, only maintenance). I might stick with ICE, specifically a manual and as low tech as possible. Only need a decent audio system, safety systems (backup camera), and connectivity via android auto/Apple Car Play (if not supported from manufacturer then rip out existing unit and replace with third party unit). No “in car wifi”. No “self driving.” No tracking. A car should not be complicated or locked in by subscriptions.
- jackmott42 3y agoNone of this has anything to do with EVs in particular. All of this stuff is on ICE cars too.
- SR2Z 3y agoYeah, but good luck buying an EV without that bullshit!
- lambdasquirrel 3y agoThe alternative is getting a fairly old car that won’t be particularly safe in a collision with a newer car. We do need legislation / awareness of these issues.
- mdp2021 3y ago> We do need legislation Legislation determining what? You are proposing an alternative between (N) vehicles some of us would never enter vs (D) vehicles that may cause more damage to the driver in case of collision. Given (N) there is no actual alternative; (D) is a known risk; and there is no need for vehicles of class (N) to limit the issues in (D).
- 3y ago
- gustavus 3y agoIf I could find a 1980's Ford pickup truck I'd buy it in a heart beat, cars used to be simple enough anyone could fix it, the parts were all just large pieces of metal and they ran fine.
- Toutouxc 3y agoMaybe they ran fine, but they also spewed pollution everywhere and guzzled fuel like crazy. My reasonably modern family car does 55 US MPG. Cars 50 years ago weren’t just “simple”, they were in many ways PRIMITIVE.
- RecycledEle 3y agoA million voices suddenly cried out "I told you so" all at once, then there was silence. --an old curmudgeon who drives a 23-year-old pickup truck Design the vehicle to last 100 years. Use standard interfaces from for the very few electronics that are necessary. Almost nothing should be more complicated that turning on an LED with a coin cell.
- nightshift1 3y agoIs it possible to jailbreak those privacy invading cars? Is it possible to : - not subscribe to "on Star" and its equivalents - unplug the modem in the car - use the infotainment without sharing data. What happen if I block the cameras and disconnect the modem antenna ?
- giardini 3y agoHow much could car price be reduced by eliminating non-required technology?
- Slava_Propanei 3y ago[dead]