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The rich have been flogging this idea since cash for clunkers. That, because they run through cars like shit through a goose, you will too. Speaking as a mast

• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• jandrese 2y ago
  It's usually not the engine that fails. The transmission is far more likely to be the weak point, and after that it is rust destroying the body or frame. The average age of a car is like 13 years old. Most people are definitely not buying new ones every 5 years.
  • nimbius 2y ago
    I agree, a transmission is really only good for around 200k miles. However, you can buy a used transmission in most cases for under 3 grand, and again labor for this thanks to automation is likely less than $500. The real blocker I dont mention is time. Your shop will need that car for a few days and shipping will take time too. At some point the wait isnt worth it anymore. The upside is, 2 used Toyotas are still cheaper than a new one new Toyota
    • jandrese 2y ago
      That and you're not getting another 200k miles out of that used transmission. The other thing that people don't talk about as much is the parts market got seriously messed up during COVID and still hasn't fully recovered. It's more common now for repair parts to either be unavailable or enormously marked up. Like a particular repair might only take a few hours and what should be a few hundred bucks in parts, but the car gets totaled because one of the parts is unavailable or inexplicably costs thousands and the shop doesn't want the liability of hacking together an alternative solution. Especially if the missing part is an ECM or sensor or something else that might make the car fail an inspection.
    • doubled112 2y ago
      Dealers are charging about $200/hr labour in my area. Independent shops are $150/hr and up. I don't think anybody is replacing my transmission for $500. Did you mean the whole job for less than $5000?
      • talldatethrow 2y ago
        The entire comment seems off. They said thanks to automation labor will be $500. What automation is there in replacing a used transmission in a garage on an oily rusty 200k mile car on a lift.
        • doubled112 2y ago
          I caught that too, but decided to ignore it. There isn't an automation in the world that will take enough of the car apart for you. Or at least my mechanic friends haven't found it. Will keep waiting for AI to grow itself some arms.
          • fragmede 2y ago
            We're still a long ways from that level of automation, but pitpro automation is picking up after robotire had to file for chapter 11, and is working on automating the tire swap end of things.
    • blakes 2y ago
      There is probably no transmission in a US road car that can be replaced for $500 in labor at an auto shop. Your buddy or some rando may do it, but no shop will for that price. Typical shop rate is $120-$220/hour. Most shops are going to charge a minimum of 4 hours, but probably closer to 8 hours. Have you ever been under a car? The amount of "automation" required to replace a transmission is still in the arena of science fiction.
      • fingerlocks 2y ago
        I have personally replaced a Volkswagen transmission in under an hour. I did it alone, in a driveway, with a regular floor jack, a skateboard, and a set of harbor freight wrenches.
        • doubled112 2y ago
          The amount a shop is going to charge you often has little relation to how long it actually takes. They're there to make money. I knew a kid changing turbos in Mk4 VWs on his lunch break. He had time to drive home, replace a turbo, and drive back to the shop. Shop was still going to charge a few hours. Labour last time I had front shocks and struts done? 3 hours not including the alignment. Friend's brake job? 2.5 hours - they were 4 wheel disk, what was the mechanic doing for the other 2h?
    • _yb2s 2y ago
      I think you have those switched... a used transmission is probably about $300, and 3 grand to install it. On most cars the transmission is probably the biggest failure liability- I pretty much only drive manuals for that reason, doing a clutch is a lot cheaper than replacing an automatic, and the better you are at driving it the less you need to do it.
    • giobox 2y ago
      > and again labor for this thanks to automation is likely less than $500. What "automation" innovations have lowered the cost of unbolting a heavy transmission out the back of an engine and attaching a new one?? As best I can tell, the process has been unchanged in a workshop for nigh on 40 to 50 years at this point - it's humans with wrenches and a car lift. I want to see this shop that will swap me a trans for under 500 bucks too...
    • fingerlocks 2y ago
      You didn’t mention the third option: rebuilding. A transmission rebuild refreshes consumables like bronze bearings and seals, damaged pinions are replaced, and the rest are machined back to precision spec. This is cheaper than a used transmission. I paid less than a thousand for this service, when the quality used goes for $4k.
• toast0 2y ago
  At least in my area, the problem is labor costs. If you can do things yourself, it's great. If you need a mechanic to do it, you're looking at a big expense, because mechanic labor is expensive and there's a lot more covers and harder to get to parts these days. 'Maintenance free' transmissions are very common in newer cars, and they do tend to need less maintenance, but when they do, there's often not a great way to access them. Etc.
  • throwaway48476 2y ago
    Modern cars aren't designed to be easy to work on which really inflates the labor hours required for even trivial issues.
    • magicalhippo 2y ago
      The my front left indicator light went on my BMW i3. Tried looking up the specs for the bulb to buy a new one. Of course it wasn't that simple. Oh boy was I naive. No, it required a whole new headlight assembly, $800 plus labor. Funnily enough, the car got totalled shortly after, before I had decided to go ahead with the repair. Someone hit my SO as she was in a roundabout, and the impact moved the car several meters. Cracked the carbon fiber chassis. Estimated repair cost was 1.5x price of a new car. So, never got the pleasure of finding out how much labor would have been for replacing the headlight unit. I'm assuming it would have been a lot more than for replacing a light bulb...
      • deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      • pram 2y ago
        Similar thing happened to me on my GTI, the Xenon bulb replacements weren’t too expensive but replacing it literally required disassembling a large portion of the front end of the car. I couldn’t believe it.
        • celim307 2y ago
• Gibbon1 2y ago
  If you look at light vehicle sales in the US they've been stuck at 17 million units a year for the last 25. I think that's why manufacturers keep retching up the size and cost of cars. I keep seeing manufacturers spam in my engineering newsletters that point towards batteries that last 500,000 to maybe a million miles. And I know that electric motors can go that far. Potentially talking about cars that last 40-50 years. You can imagine that makes the investor class unhappy, cause maybe the number of cars sold will drop.
  • bluGill 2y ago
    ICE engines today can got 500k miles - most cars don't last that long though because other things go first. My wife's car runs great at 220k miles, but we want to replace it because of all the little things that are broken - things that are completely unrelated to the engine and would fail just as likely on a EV.
• bluedino 2y ago
  > Any engine built after 2010 will likely last half a million miles or more as a feature of quality control and automation alone. The engine block and rotating assembly might. But all the crap that is bolted on won't. Several engines are known for having the turbocharger fail. Which is now integrated in the exhaust manifold. Timing components are junkier and junkier these days. And somewhere in the 2000's, some of the manufacturers decided to make complicated systems where cylinders deactivate to allow for fuel savings, and those are all an unreliable mess.
  • alliao 2y ago
    can't get anything for free these days.. an emphasis on efficiency seems to drive up efficiency to the point where they're disposable after 5yrs
    • lttlrck 2y ago
      Save the environment with one hand and punch it in the face with the other.
    • wing-_-nuts 2y ago
      Au contrare, the toyota hybrids are some of the most reliable vehicles on the road. Don't blame fuel efficiency for a lazy design from an automaker.
      • alliao 2y ago
        I agree, never entered my mind the Toyota Hybrids. Are they popular in Europe? Somehow when I read this article I'm reminded of high pressure direct fuel injection and biodegradable/sustainable/recycled material... things that just don't last. Toyota tried to get around the carbon build up caused by high pressure direct fuel by having 2 sets of fuel injectors so the older style can clean the new style.. but now you have 2 sets of injectors that can fail instead of 1
• balderdash 2y ago
  I think you’re right but I think (at least in my own experience) that what gets people to buy a new(er) car is that that people don’t like driving cars that have broken things (windows, switches, lights etc.) that make no sense to fix (say $1500, to fix something non-essential on a car that’s only worth $10k)
  • neuralRiot 2y ago
    Then they go and pay $1500 a month for 6 years.
    • bluGill 2y ago
      No, they are paying $500/month for 6 years. The people who buy new cars (or often lease) are getting rid of them after 3 years - long before those small things are breaking. Those cars go to used car buyers who drive them for 6-10 years, and they eventually decide $500/month is worth getting something newer that doesn't have all those small annoyances, while the car goes on to someone poor who will live with anything that gets them around cheap.
    • SkyPuncher 2y ago
      That’s roughly a 100k vehicle.
  • _yb2s 2y ago
    That's definitely a case where being a little handy pays off- most of the little things that break on an older car can be fixed for free in a few minutes if you follow a youtube video or forum instructions, but a shop has to charge a lot. Usually it is a common problem, and there will be a known "trick" that fixes it simply. A shop is not going to re-solder a cracked relay or get a used plastic trim for $1 at a junkyard, they're going to replace the entire system with new parts from the manufacturer, at massive expense. It's really important to have some "pride of ownership" in an older car, and fix anything that isn't perfect immediately- so they don't build up over time and make you feel like the whole vehicle isn't nice to use or own anymore.
    • 2y ago
• AdamN 2y ago
  Cars more than about 10-15 years old just aren't as safe as newer ones. That's the fundamental issue. With that said there are ways to mitigate the risk (drive more cautiously/slower, etc...).
  • ghaff 2y ago
    I doubt most people care much. Things like reliablity and comfort are in the equation. The point comes up in these discussions here but I'm pretty sure most people don't factor more safety into trading in an otherwise functioning car.
  • Clubber 2y ago
    >Cars more than about 10-15 years old just aren't as safe as newer ones. Can you give some examples? The only safety innovation I can think of recently the side airbags. The backup camera, which is a huge improvement to backing up accidents was probably over 15 years ago.
    • saagarjha 2y ago
      Side cameras, automatic braking, person avoidance, lane keeping?
      • Clubber 2y ago
        I had a vehicle with lane keeping and if I were a cop, I'd think I was drunk the way it weaved back and forth. It was a 2017 though, I hope it's improved but it seemed like a gimmick. I've never experienced the others, are they legit safety features, or just stuff to bullet point?
        • AdamN 2y ago
          I've turned off lane keeping on my 2023 Audi A4. However, everything else is useful including and especially the passive improvements.
    • AdamN 2y ago
• lasereyes136 2y ago
  > just because insurance says its "totaled" doesn't mean it isnt fixable and safe to drive. "Totaled" to an insurance company means they think the cost of repair at their contracted rates is more than the cost of paying out the "value" of the car. It is a business assessment, not an assessment of the vehicle.
  • PaulHoule 2y ago
    I've totalled two vehicles twice each.
  • ssl-3 2y ago
    "Totaled" means whatever the laws in the insured's state say it means.
• WindyCityBrew 2y ago
  (USA specific) Depending on the state, "totaled" might still mean YOU can't fix and drive your car again. In Illinois, you can only retain a totaled vehicle if it was hail damage or it's a "vintage (9+ yr old) car.
  • cinntaile 2y ago
    They're pushing similar laws through in the EU as well.
  • karma_pharmer 2y ago
    Totaled means the insurance company buys the car from you. It's not your car anymore, so obviously you don't get to drive it.
  • Shikadi 2y ago
    Lol 9 years is vintage is lol
• _yb2s 2y ago
  Older cars are massively undervalued in the USA because of social norms, which is a massive opportunity to anyone willing to exploit it to get reliable transportation for nearly free. People are afraid that older cars are dangerous, unreliable, or (worst of all) will make you look poor, but all 3 are just misinformation. Boats and airplanes are just as reliable when old as new because they're maintained well- and cars are the same. If you maintain an old car well, it doesn't really ever wear out, and stays as reliable as a new car. It's also massively cheaper to maintain an old car well then to buy new ones even if you pay someone else to do it. People complain when they get a $1000 repair bill every few years for an older car so they will say "it's getting unreliable" and then consider paying up to $1000 a month for a new one. There is a middle ground where you pay maybe $1000-2000 every year to stay on top of stuff, and it stays reliable indefinitely. Moreover, an older high end car is just so much nicer than a new car in the same price range. You can buy a well maintained low mileage older but high end Porsche, Audi, etc. for well under $10k on Craigslist these days and you'd have to be a car nerd to know it's not a new model. Is it cheap to maintain well? Not exactly, but it will be 1/10th the cost of a car payment on a new low end economy car, and you're driving a high end car. Plus, when you buy a 20 year old high end car and maintain it well, it will appreciate rather than depreciate in value. My daily driver is an older Porsche, and in 3 years of driving it, it has probably appreciated in value enough to make all of the maintenance, insurance, etc. free- basically a free car if you don't count the space in my garage it uses to keep it nice.
  • fragmede 2y ago
    No. A 10 year old Mercedes is not preferable to a newer used Honda Civic in terms of maintenance and reliability, unless you're a mechanic yourself. it's true that it's nicer vehicle, but having to go to a Mercedes service center instead of an independent shop really racks up the bills. If you're getting the used Mercedes because you don't have the finances to get a new one, the maintenance costs to have the Mercedes are going to sink you even further into debt, compared to a Honda Civic/equivalent.
  • alliao 2y ago
    I think it's a lot to do with how it's designed too.. I kept an old hatchback bmw made in 2000 and that thing already have bit of plastic parts in the engine bay (coolant pipes no less) which are just time bombs. parts and labour costs are usually why people decided to go newer cars. good job on the old porsche though, just don't get the one with starter motor in the transmission case.. some of them are maintenance nightmares
• bityard 2y ago
  I live in the rust belt, where the average life expectancy of a car is about 10 years. 12-15 if you _really_ baby it. Except for one car that was totaled (got rear-ended by a texter), all of the cars I no longer own succumbed to a rotted out frame. Engines were fine, bodies were fine, interiors were fine. But a frame. Can't really replace a frame. You can _sometimes_ repair it. You can buy some time by paying for an oil-based undercoating every year, but finding someone who will do it affordably _and_ do a good job is hard. (It's a messy, annoying job.) I sort of want congress to mandate stainless steel or aluminum frames in all cars sold in the US, and I don't even care if it makes the cars cost more. It won't happen via state laws because the auto manufacturers are big campaign donors around here.
  • therealcamino 2y ago
    What passenger vehicles made in the last 25 years have body on frame construction? Serious question. I thought that went away a long time ago.
  • SkyPuncher 2y ago
    I’ve had the same experience. I’ve started buying high mileage cars that are roughly 2 years old. Essentially off lease vehicles, but more likely some sort of corporate vehicle. Rust is by far my biggest enemy. I’ve never had an engine or transmission go. Really haven’t even had any major components go either. But rust, rust just kills everything under the car.
  • rightbyte 2y ago
    The secret is to paint it and apply rubber coating, when it is new. It is DIY territory. Paint alone will chip due to gravel and start rusting away.
  • xnx 2y ago
    > I live in the rust belt, where the average life expectancy of a car is about 10 years. Are you saying the "rust belt" region of the US, named for its history of steel manufacturing, is an area where cars rust more? Cars rust more where salt is used to deice roads. Salted roads overlap with the rust belt, but they are not related.
• sinaid 2y ago
  I agree I want go get another 12 out if my 2012 Toyota. Probably the carbon saving from building a new car outweighs using fossil fuels a bit longer.
• smackeyacky 2y ago
  I have mixed feelings about this - having owned and repaired a lot of vehicles for my own use I don't think it's always true an engine will last half a million miles, just go watch the "I do cars" channel on youtube and you'll get some idea. The big problem here is survivorship bias - the cars that did last will likely keep lasting. You see this with notoriously terrible cars like 1980s Jaguars. The owners have persisted through various catastrophic failures that would make ordinary people abandon the vehicle, so you end up with a subset of Jags that run nicely and have all the engineering problems sorted out by the after market.