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> Modern cars are much, much more reliable and durable than ones built at any time in the past. Forget "durability" - safety is paramount. Those old cars were

> Modern cars are much, much more reliable and durable than ones built at any time in the past. Forget "durability" - safety is paramount. Those old cars were tanks, simpler, last longer and easier to repair but absolute death traps and dump smog. [Edit] Guess they didn't last longer, either way I'm happy to leave behind the cars of yester-year... even the 90's a bit sketch (though WAYYYY better).

woopwoop 3y ago
They were simpler and easier to repair, but they absolutely did not last longer.
- edrxty 3y ago
  On average they didn't (oh no, that repair costs more than the "car is worth" as if that's a metric that actually means anything) but it was far easier to keep one running indefinitely. You could take an engine to a small machine shop and get the head and block resurfaced, valves reamed and cylinders lapped. Without any electronics to fail it was just a block of metal that was slowly losing material and a quick hit with a file could even out any imperfections leaving it like new, just with very slightly more displacement. Modern engines are way more reliable because they have coatings and materials that will last nearly indefinitely in most parts of the engine but they're built on proprietary sensors and electronics that need a steady stream of replacements and secret software to debug. We could make cars last indefinitely from a supply chain perspective, but commoditizing software and electronics would make them very marginally more expensive. We absolutely can't have that because, drum roll for the 1000th time, 99% of the population doesn't give a flying fuck and wants cheap shit at all costs.
  - lawgimenez 3y ago
    As someone who drives an “old” Honda 2006, I’m surprised that this machine is still running very good. I could just take it to my local shop and had it fixed in 1-2 days. Based on my logs, I took the car for repair on average of 3-4 times a year. I am looking to purchase a new family vehicle in the future but with all the softwares, screens, and fancy stuffs I am not sure if I liked it. Anyone feels this way?
    - Baeocystin 3y ago
      I really wish there was a new car that I wanted to buy, because my 1998 Jeep isn't getting any younger. But holy crap is the modern car a dumpster fire of shit from a UI perspective. Although it looks like at least some manufacturers are starting to take note: https://futurism.com/the-byte/car-touchscreens-buttons-back https://futurism.com/the-byte/car-touchscreens-buttons-back
      - a_t48 3y ago
        My car has physical buttons for climate control, volume, lights, etc but also a nice sized touch screen for CarPlay. I got the last year before VW took away the steering wheel buttons with capacitive replacements, though it sounds like they too are waking that back.
      - lawgimenez 3y ago
        Yes that article sums up my feelings on the modern car. But my main concern are the repairs 5-10 years from now. It’s crazy to think that a car would be recalled by just some software glitch if that’s what I read is correct.
    - dehrmann 3y ago
      > I’m surprised that this machine is still running very good I'm not. It's a Honda.
      - dl9999 3y ago
        This isn't specifically about Honda quality, but I think it's a nice Honda anecdote. My wife bought a used Accord before we got married. Eventually it died on the highway and we had it towed to the dealer. The engine needed to be replaced because of the failure of a part that had been recalled (when it was owned by the previous owner) had not been replaced. Since it was due to a recalled part, Honda replaced the engine for the price of the oil. We bought Hondas for the next 20 years after that. We still own a 2012 Accord that my son is running into the ground. Our current car is a Volvo, lots of nice features, but I think our next will be a Honda.
  - MichaelZuo 3y ago
    You can have that level of quality and care for the entire car, not just limited to the drivetrain and electronics, and it's probably even in a showroom right now waiting for buyers, just at your nearest Rolls Royce dealership.
    - YouWhy 3y ago
      I would not expect RR to be particularly high quality, due to: 1. Small production batches, 2. Low typical usage - most RR owners do not use it to commute on a daily basis, hence do not face high reliability requirements, 3. The ability of the typical buyer to overspend on maintenance, whether preemptively or on-demand.
      - gocartStatue 3y ago
        Small production batches are absolutely required for high quality (see Toyota, TQM)
        dehrmann 3y ago
        But there isn't enough overall volume to ever get the kinks worked out.
        MichaelZuo 3y ago
        That's only if they don't QC every single part, for every single car, coming from new suppliers. Which RR would do to avoid the obvious problem, only after a supplier has been verified to be sending only the highest quality product, would they ease off. The simplest thing is that the supplier charges double or triple the unit price such that they can accept half the parts failing inspection and getting sent back.
        dehrmann 3y ago
        It's more than just QC. When you make 3M cars per year, you get a lot of data points about what fails, and you you feed that back into new designs. You also nail manufacturing tolerances. When you make 4,000 (and a lot of those won't see the same mileage as a Honda), there aren't as many opportunities to find these issues. Or another way: you an QC a bolt to death, but that doesn't tell you if it's undersized for the design.
  - ip26 3y ago
    It’s the old fuel injection vs carburetor debate. Do you want something that usually runs for 200k miles without a single problem, but takes a fancy shop to fix? Or do you want something that needs a complete rebuild every three months and needs to be retuned for your ski trip, but can be repaired by a high school boy with a tongue depressor, a q-tip, and a hammer? The rapid exodus of carburetors shocked and dismayed many right-to-repair folks, but I think we now see with laptops and cell phones that all else equal, consumer preference strongly favors trading repair headaches for the otherwise more compelling product (thinner, faster, lighter, more powerful, etc)
    - rpcope1 3y ago
      I think you can have it both ways honestly. A TBI setup with a wasted spark ignition is at least as easy to work on a carburetor, with little or no extra complexity and way less headaches, while removing a lot of the problems older stuff had (no points, condensers and caps going bad, no need to mess with the jets, etc.). You can have it both ways, the manufacturers and consumers just have to give a shit.
    - AussieWog93 3y ago
      One thing I suspect has tipped the scales in favour of less repairable products is the massive decline in social capital. 30-40 years ago, if your lawnmower broke down you'd ask Dave from two doors down to come and have a look at it. Now, you'd either take it to a professional repairman (and get it back 2 weeks and $100+ later), try to work it out yourself via online tutorials, or just throw it in the bin. Either way, it's far more painful for a product to bee temporarily out of service these days than it once was.
      - mikrotikker 3y ago
        What's responsible for that decline in social capital do you think?
        AussieWog93 3y ago
        Personally, I have no idea, and don't think you could even pinpoint a single cause. There's a book that goes over it called Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam, but that is two decades old now and clearly didn't capture everything.
- rpcope1 3y ago
  Depends what era of cars we're talking. There's a ton of stuff from the 90s and 2000s like GM trucks, that I strongly suspect will be on the road longer and in greater numbers than stuff 10 years newer. The mid to late 90s and early 2000's seems to be the sweet spot where fuel injection and simple electronic ignition, and stuff using older designs (engine's, etc.) that had to be built heavier, combined with better metallurgy, better oils, better gas, and so on, meant that the vehicles, when taken care reasonably, would go well past a quarter million miles. There's a ton of stuff now, that given much weird crap is on there and how much stuff is done to squeeze every last MPG out (like a lot of GDI setups, auto start/stop, transmissions that pull into neutral automatically at a stop, etc.) that I really doubt will make it as far. Even as far as repairability, a 90's 4L60E or 4L80 can be repaired way, way more easier by way more people, in an economic fashion than a lot of later transmissions (that you may as well just throw away). I'm sure this holds across other brands too; Volvos come to mind, as the older rear wheel drive red block cars were certainly far better built, more reliability, and had an unbelievably better lifespan than the absolute garbage Volvo has put out after Ford bought them.
somewhat_drunk 3y ago
They didn't last longer. https://auto.howstuffworks.com/under-the-hood/diagnosing-car-problems/mechanical/cars-less-problematic.htm https://auto.howstuffworks.com/under-the-hood/diagnosing-car...
- fipar 3y ago
  Well, they do (present tense) last longer in the sense that they’re still around and working, which of course doesn’t mean newer cars are worse. It’s a bit like saying someone who’s 70 lives longer than someone who’s 7. I think newer cars seem to be more reliable but older cars probably lasted longer than you think, it’s just that your view is skewed due to the market you’re used to (reading your link, while a million miles is a lot, though not unheard of for a taxi, the mention of 17 years as if that’s and old car is something I find surprising. It’s common where I live to see cars from the 60s or 70s still being driven. And I don’t mean maintained classics (though those exist too), I mean just old rusty cars that still work. All this to say that while you’re most likely right about newer cars being more reliable (and they’re certainly safer, which is more important), that doesn’t mean older cars stopped working after 20 or 30 years, it just seems your view is skewed because you live in a place where a 17yo car is considered old.
  - ProcNetDev 3y ago
    The population of old cars that you see driving around today is very different from the population of old cars that ever existed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
    - fipar 3y ago
      I didn’t mean to say all old cars lasted longer but I can see that it came out that way. I just wanted to point out that some are still around, and further, the US is probably not the best market for a study on car lifetime since it seems most people change their cars when they’re still far from being EOL.
  - pixl97 3y ago
pkdpic 3y ago
Yeah those old timey pedestrians didn't stand a chance. Seriously though good point I think, but what about crumple zones?

woopwoop 3y ago

They were simpler and easier to repair, but they absolutely did not last longer.

edrxty 3y ago
On average they didn't (oh no, that repair costs more than the "car is worth" as if that's a metric that actually means anything) but it was far easier to keep one running indefinitely. You could take an engine to a small machine shop and get the head and block resurfaced, valves reamed and cylinders lapped. Without any electronics to fail it was just a block of metal that was slowly losing material and a quick hit with a file could even out any imperfections leaving it like new, just with very slightly more displacement. Modern engines are way more reliable because they have coatings and materials that will last nearly indefinitely in most parts of the engine but they're built on proprietary sensors and electronics that need a steady stream of replacements and secret software to debug. We could make cars last indefinitely from a supply chain perspective, but commoditizing software and electronics would make them very marginally more expensive. We absolutely can't have that because, drum roll for the 1000th time, 99% of the population doesn't give a flying fuck and wants cheap shit at all costs.
- lawgimenez 3y ago
  As someone who drives an “old” Honda 2006, I’m surprised that this machine is still running very good. I could just take it to my local shop and had it fixed in 1-2 days. Based on my logs, I took the car for repair on average of 3-4 times a year. I am looking to purchase a new family vehicle in the future but with all the softwares, screens, and fancy stuffs I am not sure if I liked it. Anyone feels this way?
  - Baeocystin 3y ago
    I really wish there was a new car that I wanted to buy, because my 1998 Jeep isn't getting any younger. But holy crap is the modern car a dumpster fire of shit from a UI perspective. Although it looks like at least some manufacturers are starting to take note: https://futurism.com/the-byte/car-touchscreens-buttons-back https://futurism.com/the-byte/car-touchscreens-buttons-back
    - a_t48 3y ago
      My car has physical buttons for climate control, volume, lights, etc but also a nice sized touch screen for CarPlay. I got the last year before VW took away the steering wheel buttons with capacitive replacements, though it sounds like they too are waking that back.
    - lawgimenez 3y ago
      Yes that article sums up my feelings on the modern car. But my main concern are the repairs 5-10 years from now. It’s crazy to think that a car would be recalled by just some software glitch if that’s what I read is correct.
  - dehrmann 3y ago
    > I’m surprised that this machine is still running very good I'm not. It's a Honda.
    - dl9999 3y ago
      This isn't specifically about Honda quality, but I think it's a nice Honda anecdote. My wife bought a used Accord before we got married. Eventually it died on the highway and we had it towed to the dealer. The engine needed to be replaced because of the failure of a part that had been recalled (when it was owned by the previous owner) had not been replaced. Since it was due to a recalled part, Honda replaced the engine for the price of the oil. We bought Hondas for the next 20 years after that. We still own a 2012 Accord that my son is running into the ground. Our current car is a Volvo, lots of nice features, but I think our next will be a Honda.
- MichaelZuo 3y ago
  You can have that level of quality and care for the entire car, not just limited to the drivetrain and electronics, and it's probably even in a showroom right now waiting for buyers, just at your nearest Rolls Royce dealership.
  - YouWhy 3y ago
    I would not expect RR to be particularly high quality, due to: 1. Small production batches, 2. Low typical usage - most RR owners do not use it to commute on a daily basis, hence do not face high reliability requirements, 3. The ability of the typical buyer to overspend on maintenance, whether preemptively or on-demand.
    - gocartStatue 3y ago
      Small production batches are absolutely required for high quality (see Toyota, TQM)
      - dehrmann 3y ago
        But there isn't enough overall volume to ever get the kinks worked out.
        MichaelZuo 3y ago
        That's only if they don't QC every single part, for every single car, coming from new suppliers. Which RR would do to avoid the obvious problem, only after a supplier has been verified to be sending only the highest quality product, would they ease off. The simplest thing is that the supplier charges double or triple the unit price such that they can accept half the parts failing inspection and getting sent back.
        dehrmann 3y ago
        It's more than just QC. When you make 3M cars per year, you get a lot of data points about what fails, and you you feed that back into new designs. You also nail manufacturing tolerances. When you make 4,000 (and a lot of those won't see the same mileage as a Honda), there aren't as many opportunities to find these issues. Or another way: you an QC a bolt to death, but that doesn't tell you if it's undersized for the design.
- ip26 3y ago
  It’s the old fuel injection vs carburetor debate. Do you want something that usually runs for 200k miles without a single problem, but takes a fancy shop to fix? Or do you want something that needs a complete rebuild every three months and needs to be retuned for your ski trip, but can be repaired by a high school boy with a tongue depressor, a q-tip, and a hammer? The rapid exodus of carburetors shocked and dismayed many right-to-repair folks, but I think we now see with laptops and cell phones that all else equal, consumer preference strongly favors trading repair headaches for the otherwise more compelling product (thinner, faster, lighter, more powerful, etc)
  - rpcope1 3y ago
    I think you can have it both ways honestly. A TBI setup with a wasted spark ignition is at least as easy to work on a carburetor, with little or no extra complexity and way less headaches, while removing a lot of the problems older stuff had (no points, condensers and caps going bad, no need to mess with the jets, etc.). You can have it both ways, the manufacturers and consumers just have to give a shit.
  - AussieWog93 3y ago
    One thing I suspect has tipped the scales in favour of less repairable products is the massive decline in social capital. 30-40 years ago, if your lawnmower broke down you'd ask Dave from two doors down to come and have a look at it. Now, you'd either take it to a professional repairman (and get it back 2 weeks and $100+ later), try to work it out yourself via online tutorials, or just throw it in the bin. Either way, it's far more painful for a product to bee temporarily out of service these days than it once was.
    - mikrotikker 3y ago
      What's responsible for that decline in social capital do you think?
      - AussieWog93 3y ago
        Personally, I have no idea, and don't think you could even pinpoint a single cause. There's a book that goes over it called Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam, but that is two decades old now and clearly didn't capture everything.
rpcope1 3y ago
Depends what era of cars we're talking. There's a ton of stuff from the 90s and 2000s like GM trucks, that I strongly suspect will be on the road longer and in greater numbers than stuff 10 years newer. The mid to late 90s and early 2000's seems to be the sweet spot where fuel injection and simple electronic ignition, and stuff using older designs (engine's, etc.) that had to be built heavier, combined with better metallurgy, better oils, better gas, and so on, meant that the vehicles, when taken care reasonably, would go well past a quarter million miles. There's a ton of stuff now, that given much weird crap is on there and how much stuff is done to squeeze every last MPG out (like a lot of GDI setups, auto start/stop, transmissions that pull into neutral automatically at a stop, etc.) that I really doubt will make it as far. Even as far as repairability, a 90's 4L60E or 4L80 can be repaired way, way more easier by way more people, in an economic fashion than a lot of later transmissions (that you may as well just throw away). I'm sure this holds across other brands too; Volvos come to mind, as the older rear wheel drive red block cars were certainly far better built, more reliability, and had an unbelievably better lifespan than the absolute garbage Volvo has put out after Ford bought them.

somewhat_drunk 3y ago

They didn't last longer. https://auto.howstuffworks.com/under-the-hood/diagnosing-car-problems/mechanical/cars-less-problematic.htm https://auto.howstuffworks.com/under-the-hood/diagnosing-car...

fipar 3y ago
Well, they do (present tense) last longer in the sense that they’re still around and working, which of course doesn’t mean newer cars are worse. It’s a bit like saying someone who’s 70 lives longer than someone who’s 7. I think newer cars seem to be more reliable but older cars probably lasted longer than you think, it’s just that your view is skewed due to the market you’re used to (reading your link, while a million miles is a lot, though not unheard of for a taxi, the mention of 17 years as if that’s and old car is something I find surprising. It’s common where I live to see cars from the 60s or 70s still being driven. And I don’t mean maintained classics (though those exist too), I mean just old rusty cars that still work. All this to say that while you’re most likely right about newer cars being more reliable (and they’re certainly safer, which is more important), that doesn’t mean older cars stopped working after 20 or 30 years, it just seems your view is skewed because you live in a place where a 17yo car is considered old.
- ProcNetDev 3y ago
  The population of old cars that you see driving around today is very different from the population of old cars that ever existed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
  - fipar 3y ago
    I didn’t mean to say all old cars lasted longer but I can see that it came out that way. I just wanted to point out that some are still around, and further, the US is probably not the best market for a study on car lifetime since it seems most people change their cars when they’re still far from being EOL.
- pixl97 3y ago

pkdpic 3y ago

Yeah those old timey pedestrians didn't stand a chance. Seriously though good point I think, but what about crumple zones?