Safe Speed Forums

If it goes on much longer, it will become impossible to change the tyre valve caps, let alone the the oil filter.

Follow the money ... all this works for the cars makers and it is those who are lobbying to allow this to continue. We need standardization of components to reduce costs. Thirty years ago, many cars parts were interchangeable. Today, planned obsolescence and price fixing has reduced this down to make people pay more at the main dealers.

Basically, all cars are the same. So we don't need hundreds of different supply chains to make bits and bobs which are all different but do the exact same thing. What a total waste of effort that is.

If we want cheap motoring, we need to look to the past, not to the future these manufactures have in mind. But it takes government intervention to stop those big business interests and put the power back where it belongs ... in our own hands.

Yes me too! I always service my Capri myself, oil, fuel, spark, air and a good check over. Although I did find that if there was an offer on somewhere for oil and filter change it was actually cheaper than doing it myself and a lot less hassle.

My point is I suspect we are in the minority here. Most people just want a car that they can get in and go day in day out and cars have got better at providing that.

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In a former life I was Capri2.8

I'm not sure about that, I wasn't even born when it was made! I think injection systems and electronic ignition were much easier than carbs and points but I suspect the era of basic injection systems is what you are after?



I agree completely, but we are getting off the point now. I still believe that the general population can run better cars now than they ever have at sensible costs.

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In a former life I was Capri2.8

Yes, those things don't matter to me as long as they work. Points are child's play to set or change, and effective. Fuel injection is a money spinner for the dealers. Lot's of mystique and expense, for little benefit. Carbs are easy to clean and set. Look at that fuel fiasco again - the lemons had fuel injection, I'm told. That's the next thing that has to go after the lambda sensors.



The point is how to decrease costs. I agree that, if we scrap the injection systems, the lambda sensors, the catalytic converters (that increase CO2), the computers, the dash board lights, the intrusive engine immobilisers, and all that other stuff, we'd be far better off and the dealers could take a long holiday (in Rhyl!)

Electronic ignition, yeah, keep that, it's good. The other stuff decreases reliability and increases expense. So it makes sense to get rid of it, but keep the other good things about new cars, like the build quality and the mechanical innovation. Most of all, though, compel makers to share standard components to cut costs, thus increasing user satisfaction. After all, it's all about _us_, not them.

The trouble nowadays is that manufactures have created a throwaway society, even though they have made a much better product which overall will last a lot longer than older models (Body wise). It still becomes more expensive to fix or replace things than it is to buy a new one, especially after a few years running and depreciation has set in. Allot of people might be tempted to try and fix them themselves if they weren’t so complicated, or expensive to fix. I’d imagine manufactures factor into the price that allot of people can’t, or won’t, do their own repairs.

Manufactures have it off to a tee, they make it difficult for you to fix it yourself (or those who want to), many of the parts can only be bought from manufactures and are not interchangeable, and expensive. If anything goes wrong with the electronics you have to go to the main dealers to have it checked, which cost you a fortune before you start. Also with electronics the dealer can tell you anything and you wouldn’t know the difference.

It’s like printers, they are now cheap to buy but, expensive to run. If anything goes wrong with them it’s cheaper to buy a new one, and a better model, rather than buy the bits to fix the old one. You can’t win.

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

Yes we can. This time, the greens (and Europe) are on our side. They want planned obsolescence to cease. They want interchangeable parts so good cars don't end up on the scrap yard for want of a "computer module" or some other trivial piece of kit that is too expensive to buy. They want to stop the makers being so secretive. They want them to reveal the design so others can make them, reducing the costs.

It's all about "vertical lock in", i.e. monopolistic control. We need to break that, big time. Europe is helping us out, and they are on our side in the struggle against big business interests.

So, here we are. Choose Europe, choose greens, get cheaper cars. Or stick with big business (Top Gear and all that) and get ripped off. It's a no brainer, eh?

Running catalytic converters without fuel injection will lead to massively reduced cat life, using lambda sensors on a carburreted car will lead to its (lambda) early demise as well. Basically, all petrol cars now are injected since the mixture has to be set in real-time...as the car is running, depending on the output of the lambda sensor and the software in the controller, many times a second.




Yes. But it isn't going to happen. The CO2 was never the problem, the problem was unburnt hydrocarbons.



My motorcycle is fuel injected, never a problem. The other m/cycle I had previously was also fuel injected, again, no problem. After 356000 miles it became too expensive to replace things like discs and forks. Electronic fuel injection is an incredibly reliable piece of equipment.

That's right. It all has to go, or none of it. I far prefer the later choice, obviously. We motorists need to be free of such encumbrances, if possible, like before all this rubbish was devised.



Indeed - it WAS the problem. Now another, much much bigger problem has become apparent - carbon. All that "unburnt hydrocarbons" stuff is palling into insignificance, I would say. Right or wrong, the issue is efficiency now, and if dealing with unburnt hydrocarbons gets in the way of that (as it does), it'll have to go, I'm afraid. I can't wait, personally.

I find this point of view quite surprising. No manufacturer (of anything) is going to reveal their IP to others so their products can be copied after they have spent huge amounts on development. If all you do is copy then, of course, you can make it cheaper - it's the innovation that costs and this would cease in your example.

Do you support illegally copying software to prevent "big business ... ripping you off"?

The Greens don't want you to have cheaper cars. They want you to have no car.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

Indeed, well said The greens loathe cars with every miserable lentil-fed sinew of their bodies.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

I think they loathe anyone that doesn't think that the world should be totally green....everyone except greens then.

I have to disagree on a number of points:

Firstly, the average age of a car going to the scrapyard is actually GREATER now than it was (say) 20 years ago. Back in those days, people used to be proud of a car that had "been round the clock"! Cars are actually lasting LONGER. In fact, the major manufacturers are (almost all) in big trouble just now because we're NOT replacing our cars as often as they would like! They would LOVE to make them fall apart sooner so we hae to buy new ones but because of the way car ownership works (people rarely buy them and keep them for life), they need to ensure good residual values - which means they need to worry about reliability and longevity to keep second-hand values high enough to make people want to buy them so tha tthe first owner can go to the showroom and buy a NEW one.

Secondly, I'd be grateful for any figures you might have showing breakdowns of current cars compared to those of (say) 20 years ago. I have a feeling that actually, they DON'T break down as often. Don't get me worng, they DO suffer from all sorts of faults but it's (I believe) fairly rare that they actually "fail to proceed". You were unlikely to get an airbag warning light or and ABS warning light on a 20 year old car because they didn't have ABS or airbags.

The reason people don't fix cars themselves anymore is because they are too complex and require too much specialised diagnostic equipment. I have the use of a brand new car but my own car is 17 years old. It is fuel-injected but pre-cat and has no airbags (but does have ABS). It has never been near a dealership (or even a back-street garage) in all the time I've had it. I do all my own work on it.

My own personal (and I have no justification for it whatsoever) conspiracy theory is that the European Commission passed it's "block exemption" laws which were intended to end the major manufacturers' franchised dealers' monopolies and allow independent garages access to technical data necessary to repair and service cars. The response seems to have been to ensure that the diagnostic equipment required is so expensive that only a franchised "main stealer" could afford it!

Go to independent local garages and workshops.

The manufacturers thought they had it all stitched up when they introduced electronic computerised modules that only the franchised dealers could plug into. Thus cutting out old Sid, whose family have been fixing cars from day one in a converted Smithy that old Sid's Great-great-grandfather had founded.

But the manufacturers were stuffed when along came independent electronic firms who worked out how the manufacturer's systems worked and designed systems to diagnose faults on all marques!

Now old Sid's grandson, young Sid, merely plugs the PC-based system into the car, finds out which fault lights are on, and deals with them.

Result? Manufacturer's cleaver scheme Sorted!

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www.thatsnews.org.uk / www.thatsnews.blogspot.com / http://thatsmotoring.blogspot.com/

Speaking as the son of an "old Sid", it's not QUITE that straighforward! It's true that low-cost fault code readers are increasingly available but their performance varies greatly and unless Sid wants to specialise in a particular marque, he might need several such readers. The major manufacturers are also in the habit of going to "Version 2.1" of the software in the cars without going out of their way to publicise it!

I believe that incompatibility has now peaked though as there are moves to "Standardise" the onboard diagnostics protocols (at least for EC vehicles). This will lead to a more practical "universal" fault code reader being more viable soon.

That still leaves a gap in the required knowledge though. The "Old Sid" of the future will need to know about those complexities and acquire the necessary skills to correctly fix them. That's asking a lot because few people with the necessary knowledge would want to work for what Old Sid gets paid!

My dad is fortunate to be past retirement age now and he keeps saying that he'll retire when he runs out of cars with carburettors and distributors to fix! As an aside, I was round there just after boxing day and one of his punters turned up with his Morris Minor on a piece of string. In about 10 minutes we'd conculded that the head gasket was blown. About half an hour after that, the head was off. An hour after that, he drove it home. Bliss! It was a real trip down Memory Lane for me - hardly any connection between the head and the car, no fancy electronics, easy-to-spot fault, cast iron components highly tolerant of abuse and muck...

...but would I want to DRIVE one???

NO THANKS!!!

I've just done the annual update of the petrol prices table on my website (based on the March RPI, which has just been released):

http://www.speedlimit.org.uk/petrolprices.html

Prices are now 10% in real terms above the 1983 level and show a 33% rise over the past five years.

Since the beginning of March prices have further increased by 3-4 pence per litre

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed