Plus, this is 1984, when a significant amount of miniaturization had already been going on; this was the first big home computer boom era, after all, and that Rover could have been filled with many, many 48K Sinclair Spectrums (it is British, after all) that could have handled at least some of the computation duties, right? I have no idea just what was being recorded or tested or tabulated here, but I’m very curious about what and how.
Look at all the equipment in this 1978 Rabbit from a NHTSA crash test! It’s absolutely filled with humming boxes and shelves and wires, and then look at those snakes of cables winding their way out of the car to even more equipment! Chances are your phone has more computing power than this whole car and whatever it’s connected to, and all those cables could be replaced with invisible radio waves from a Bluetooth or wifi transceiver.
Anyway, worth remembering, and being happy about the ensmallification of things.
We are heading to the world of one integrated chip stack to run it all, after the individual chip scare for manufacturers who tended to adhere to old tech. As a consumer I find this scary. I prefer my desktop computer to my cellphone even though my phone in someways is smarter. Maybe I’m just old.
That being said, I sure as hell will hang on to computer-less cars for as long as it’s possible. I daily drive a 1991 Renault 4 and the simple electronics in my 1998 VW Polo are problematic enough that I dread the fact that we’re currently looking at Volvo V50s because my wife really needs something more modern (gave up trying to nudge her towards 945s because it wouldn’t make much sense for her to daily drive a fucking tiny apartment). But I am readying myself for the moment we have to deal with a computer on wheels that was specifically designed to be hard to repair, and it feels awful.
I’ve been secretly keeping tabs on a RHD Renault 18 break that’s popped up for sale near me; did you have to convince your wife to drive a RHD car? If so, how? I need arguments before I show the ad to my wife (the guy just slashed €1000 off the asking price, currently sitting at €3000, will probably sell for less than €2000).
Hi! Automotive OEM design engineer here. We never specifically design things to be hard to repair. Never.
We design thing to be easy to build, cheap to buy and last at least as long as the design life, which is generally ten years of being stored outdoors while idiots abuse it.
Anything you think has been badly designed has just been competently design to a set of criteria that aren’t the same as yours. It’s not like we get to pick our own criteria either, that’s all down to corporate values. I’ve had stand up rows with people while defending ease of service, but if it makes it more expensive to buy or more expensive to build then someone has to find the money, and the people who own the cars 20 years later aren’t paying.
I exclusively buy old knackered cars, my BMW is parked just outside in a puddle of it’s own oil with non-functional electric mirrors and a B-pillar trim that falls off every third time I shut the door. The hard to repair bits are a result of it being designed to be great to drive and cheap enough for the original owner to buy, and that’s a compromise I’m happy with. Which isn’t to say I haven’t thrown parts of it over the fence in my yard while screaming.
In summary: not specifically designed to be hard to repair, we’re not evil.
I know the comparison between a 91 Renault 4 and a 98 Polo may seem disingenuous, but my point is precisely to underline how much has changed with entry-level cars in just three decades in terms of what they were designed for.
Tell that to my Mazda5 which has a persistent low idle shake problem. It only does it in drive, with the brake applied and its definitely electrical as pulling the brake light fuse raises the idle to the proper range. Of course driving without brake lights is not an acceptable solution, nor IMO is requiring drivers to shift to neutral at each stop.
In the old days the solution would be trivial, just turn the idle screw a bit. Now there is no such screw, the idle is buried in the car’s programming, inaccessible by anyone who doesn’t have highly specialized equipment. Spending $$$ for a custom tune is not an acceptable solution just to fix something like this and that may trigger a smog inspection failure.
Also tell that to my gen6 Honda Accord which had to go into the shop because it’s ball joint was literally half a mm too wide to fit a standard joint separator. The only tool that would work was 07МАС-SL00200 which at the time cost $450 and was near unobtanium for the DIYer. No money was saved, no better performance obtained, just more $$$ for the shops.
Or the fix to your Mazda5 increased electrical load isn’t the missing idle adjustment screw (the lack of which saved manufacturing cost because no one has to set it, or pay for the part) but is instead finding the cause of the increased electrical load (corroded connector somewhere, or a knackered wire, I dunno). Unless this is a new car, in which case get them to fix it for free.
If the Accord ball joint was easier to assemble, had a lower tooling cost or lower piece cost then it made the car cheaper to make. A saving of one cent on something you make millions off will pay for a lot of special service tools. If your DIY tools are a bit big then feel free to grind a bit off. Just be grateful it’s not a French car made from niche metric everything.
We never deliberately design-in increased repair cost because not a penny of the service cost ever gets back to the design team, or the manufacturer. There is no motivation to make servicing worse, and there is a field service department pushing all the time to make it easier (and the dealers hate buying special tool as much as you do). But it won’t get easier to service if it makes it a worse product, or more expensive to build.
20 years ago I was responsible for a fastener on an engine that required a crows-foot to undo. I’ve never never seen any reference on a forum of anyone having to undo it, but I still feel dreadful about having to push that bodge through, because the alternative was to cut engine performance by 30bhp or add 900k to the cost of the project and 3k on to the cost of every car.
If you ever undo a screw in a plastic part I’ve designed you’ll find that the screw is held in place after it’s disconnected, because I hate dropping screws into an engine bay, and no one notices a 0.5mm screw retention membrane in a moulding. We do what we can.
I also wonder if any car made it out the door with something severely messed up due to the testing equipment
‘English doesn’t borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them down, then rifles through their pockets looking for loose vocabulary.’
Well, try paulingraham.com. James Nicoll given as origin, then tshirt, then Pratchett. That one is even better, with ‘The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that the English language is about as pure as a cribhouse whore.’
Another excellent Torchinskism.
When*
