Tim203
Active Member
- Joined
- Sep 17, 2014
- Messages
- 401
I was out with a mate who works for a well known car hire firm delivering vehicles. They do a lot of courtesy cars for prominent car manufacturers. Quite an eye opener just how many cars have problems.
So, probably covered this before but when people like myself can afford one of these cars around 120k miles and 10 years time, will the various can bus, modules, CPU s, ECUs, ignition control units and all the rest of the stuff that can't wait to go wrong from new, be sorted or writing off more vehicles than ever before and do any of the manufacturers contemplate any brand devaluation because of it?
People who are well heeled just seem to accept this cost as part of the ownership and indeed are stuck with it, but as vehicles become older some of these parts make it a bad buy for your average Joe.
I'm currently in the middle of putting a Renault Dci engine and box in my old Citroen Relay camper and took all the wiring loom and immobiliser etc. from the donor Scenic out so I can make it all work. I couldn't believe the amount of wiring behind the dash and half of that went to the heater control!
A friend has a 307 and just spent £500 having an ABS module replaced that lived in the inner arch of all places!.
Electronics should work indefinitely providing they don't get damp or hot. Yet we have wastegate actuators sat in a nice hot place on the turbo, wiring looms going through oil soaked cylinder heads and various other parts sweating away in damp places.
In light of more cars than ever before being leased I'm very curious as to how these costs of repairs are going to affect future pricing.
As another example a friend who has a garage had a mondeo with power steering failure. It turned out some internal plating had caused pump failure, mean't engine out to do the pipe work etc. and subsequently a good vehicle was financially written off.
We constantly have to accept the latest Euro emission b@llox invented to get more cars off the road and help sell the next batch in the name of saving the planet whilst the emissions they're coughing out making them gets quirky forgotten.
Amazing to think that years ago people would purchase a W123 and it would be a part of the family until the children left home at least!
Anyway, this isn't a rant, just thought it could open up a discussion.
So, probably covered this before but when people like myself can afford one of these cars around 120k miles and 10 years time, will the various can bus, modules, CPU s, ECUs, ignition control units and all the rest of the stuff that can't wait to go wrong from new, be sorted or writing off more vehicles than ever before and do any of the manufacturers contemplate any brand devaluation because of it?
People who are well heeled just seem to accept this cost as part of the ownership and indeed are stuck with it, but as vehicles become older some of these parts make it a bad buy for your average Joe.
I'm currently in the middle of putting a Renault Dci engine and box in my old Citroen Relay camper and took all the wiring loom and immobiliser etc. from the donor Scenic out so I can make it all work. I couldn't believe the amount of wiring behind the dash and half of that went to the heater control!
A friend has a 307 and just spent £500 having an ABS module replaced that lived in the inner arch of all places!.
Electronics should work indefinitely providing they don't get damp or hot. Yet we have wastegate actuators sat in a nice hot place on the turbo, wiring looms going through oil soaked cylinder heads and various other parts sweating away in damp places.
In light of more cars than ever before being leased I'm very curious as to how these costs of repairs are going to affect future pricing.
As another example a friend who has a garage had a mondeo with power steering failure. It turned out some internal plating had caused pump failure, mean't engine out to do the pipe work etc. and subsequently a good vehicle was financially written off.
We constantly have to accept the latest Euro emission b@llox invented to get more cars off the road and help sell the next batch in the name of saving the planet whilst the emissions they're coughing out making them gets quirky forgotten.
Amazing to think that years ago people would purchase a W123 and it would be a part of the family until the children left home at least!
Anyway, this isn't a rant, just thought it could open up a discussion.