Why New Cars are Sucking American Wallets Dry

Fire the Parts Cannon Moe!

Many of us still remember the days of old, when the cars looked like rocketships, or musclebound weightlifters.

Cars that were built like tanks, had plenty of power, were comfortable and smooth and easily repairable by any Joe Schmoe or a skinny dude named Moe at the city corner garage whose fingernails were eternally stained.

Cars up until the early 1970s had simple powertrains, simple interiors, simple body structures and simple electrical systems.

And they looked amazing while doing it!

They did the job intended and provided ample enjoyment and even excitement, and every person if they so desired could do basic maintenance in their own driveway, with a couple simple hand tools and an oil pan, and your kid watching the whole way to carry on the skills later in life.

Cars back then had flair, and design elements that were literally the definition of artwork, and to this day, some of the best maintained specimens not only bring millions at auctions, and some continue to do their job for the average person who may be lucky enough to still drive one.

So weve discussed the obvious now, let’s get to the gist of this article.

Somewhere around 1972, there became a big push for more efficiency in response to the oil embargos that were implemented by middle eastern oil producing nations.

The auto manufacturers were now tasked with meeting the emissions and mileage requirements set in place by the government, and it was a task that they were wholly unprepared for.

One of the first changes was to reduce the compression of existing engines and adjust the camshaft profiles simply to reduce the amount of fuel used, and the amount of emissions released by the vehicle.

Miles of hoses and air pumps and valves and fittings were the sight awaiting anyone who opened the hood of a 1975 Chrysler.

The simple, dependable, and easily maintained points and condenser type of ignition systems were slowly pushed aside and phased out as the era of electronic ignition, previously a costly option, began in earnest.

Fuel Injection, while mechanical in the past, was now being brought in a little more each new model year, and all of that came with the electronic systems that were required to replace the mechanical systems of the older fuel injected vehicles.

Carburetors as we knew them were on the chopping block.

By the mid 70s, electronic ignition and fuel injection were obvious choices to assume the task as the new basic engine technology, and as such manufacturers by 1980 were fully in line with that clear reality.

The power levels of engines had suffered greatly with the clumsy and stopgap efforts of engineers, but they were suddenly finding new ways to get power from engines, along with better efficiency and reduced emissions.

Cars were getting 25-30 miles per gallon in many cases with these simple new technologies that were easy to repair and affordable to maintain.

Electronics were improved so much that fuel injection became the standard, as well as unleaded gas being fully phased out.

Throughout the 80s the car industry had been the poor downtrodden beneficiary of two decades of pain and suffering, and with methodical but subsequent success came a light at the end of the tunnel for a change.

But, the manufacturers found themselves not selling as much, and consumers not trading in as often as theyd like.

Was it because cars had become more reliable and looked stylish compared to the boxes on wheels of the last 15 years?

We cant have that…

An insipid disease was creeping into the auto manufacturer’s structure.

The greed for profit by building cars cheaper and with inferior materials, and little style or comfort, sold to a desperate American public that had suffered through the malaise era of cars that were just ugly, slow, and boring in every way, shot down this slight improvement in a few years at the onset of the 90s.

The accountants took over from the engineers and stylists, and what became apparent was the vehicles of the late 70s and early 80s were the worst ever, and after a glimmer of hope in the late 80s, an obvious path for automakers emerged to do the consumer right, which sadly, never happened.

Now the goal was to build cars as cheap and quickly as possible, then market and sell them as aggressively as possible, and worry about the consequences later down the road.

Carmakers learned nothing from the malaise era, the mid 70s to mid 80s.

The cars of the malaise era were lucky to last 10 years and most of them ended up in scrapyards within less than a decade.

Not only were these cars more difficult to repair for the average person, they were not worthy of anyone saving them as a collector, or keeping them in good shape for long term ownership, even if someone spent the money to do so.

As the boxy and boring styling, and piss poor performance, and horrific maintenance woes began to wear on buyers, the auto manufacturers realized they needed to offer some better styling and performance to get buyers to trade up based on this poor longevity issue their vehicles faced.

So the shift came, and almost instantly went.

Now, the goal was to take these slightly better looking cars and not make them more dependable, but to assure the dealership service segment of the business model was able to allow the sales part of the dealerships to survive to sell more cars.

They had a secret weapon up their sleeves, disguised as a magical new way to diagnose and operate the vastly more complicated systems that they had just figured out how to make reliable.

That was done by introducing the OBD1 and 2 systems that turned cars into computers, with many external modules, sensors and all the associated wiring, replete with countless opportunities for failure at every step of the way.

It is a good system for diagnosis, but the elements of it are so numerous in potential failure points, it was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Then in 2003 they got even more brash and brazen as to how to make cars virtually unserviceable by anyone, even experienced mechanics, a system they had been working on for a decade behind the scenes, that would change maintenance and reliability forever.

This newest system of complexity and connectivity between all these dozens of fragile plastic often Chinese made modules is called CANBUS, and it is basically like an operating system that bloats and clogs every new vehicle with endless wiring and specialized connections that make sure just when you need it, your car will glitch and fall silent because of some random loss of connectivity somewhere under layers and layers of whatever its located beneath.

CANBUS even uses some wireless systems, so that loss of connectivity means more and worse headaches for the owner.

All guaranteeing your Ben and Jerrys melts slowly on the side of the road in reminder of how cars are just no fun anymore for the general public.

Of course in true American profiteering style, these modules and sensors were all made as cheaply and unreliable as they could be, meaning the simple repair of a module in 5 minutes would cost the owner of a car hundreds if not thousands in labor.

They buried these modules and sensors under layers of other systems and made it so the average car owner was now incapable of doing the simplest repairs.

Tools required to do specific tasks and maintenance on new cars were another way they could assure the owner ended up at the dealership anytime a small issue arose.

If you cant take it apart, you cant fix it.

Ford hides an oil pump behind a timing chain, GM hides a water pump behind an entire engine front timing cover, Chrysler buries its cooling pipes under the intake manifold.

Days of labor to replace a $75 dollar part is the new norm.

In 1970 these things were all easily accessible.

This was all done of course, to usher in the era of “technology”, and make it so cars were so complicated, owners would not bother dealing with increasing breakdowns and instead would often trade them in to avoid large bills for large repairs.

They nickel and dimed car owners into just trading in their cars instead of repairing them, because even though one thing was repaired, something new was bound to pop up within weeks.

With new cars, once things start to break, they continue to break, how convenient for the dealership service department, eh?

A new car warranty was set at 3 years intentionally to make it so every three years owners felt compelled to just trade in and avoid the endless repair cycle of a car that was older than that short time.

OBD2 and CANBUS secured the dealership and specialist repair shops as the only way to go, and so many small repair shops have ceased to exist.

Along with that, newer more complex emission systems were created with the effort of saving the environment, and there was a small benefit seen in reduction of smog and air pollution as a result with each new layer of complexity, which of course means more points of failure, for potential repairs to keep the dealership service departments busy.

Now entire genres of repair shops exist solely to repair emissions systems, based on the new laws forcing owners to get their car inspected and passed, to get the car registered, and if the owner cannot afford that cost, the car is rendered useless and parked until the repairs are completed at whatever cost they imparted to the owners wallet.

One tiny module and associated repair costing hundreds can keep a car from being useable for the owner.

Soon, more technology was needed to meet more stringent demands of government requirements as to emissions and mileage, and these legal moves of the government were put in place years ahead of their implementation to let car manufacturers engineer ways to meet the requirements.

Yet auto companies stagnated in their little world of denial, and stayed the course, making modules and systems more complex, and numerous, all while making the parts themselves cheaper and cheaper with each passing year.

Today’s cars are so complex, hardly any person, even mechanically minded ones, have any chance but to replace the components that the computer code reader tells them, often resulting in what is called firing the parts cannon, and costing owners more and more through misdiagnosed repairs.

The extensive use of new tech, like bluetooth, touchscreens, miles of wiring that can be damaged in a number of ways, doors that wont open unless the battery is fully charged, and overcomplicated electronic systems to do every simple task, as minor as pulling a parking brake handle, are assuring this will continue and get worse into the future.

Yet these things are touted as such desirable elements of every new car.

We also see the prices of vehicles doubling every 10 years, a new truck today that was $15,000 in 1995, is selling for $50,000 or more!

Dealerships are tacking on upcharges and selling vehicles at 25% interest rates to make sure everyone gets financed.

Repairs in many cases have quadrupled in cost over that same timeframe, and have been made 4 times more difficult for the average mechanical minded person.

All through this, a lot of new cars still get around 25-30 miles per gallon, some do better and some worse, as always, but still there has been no appreciable improvement in the average mileage numbers for the average car.

So why the obsession with endless complications of super complex modules and electronics, in something that really is just a conveyance?

Is it laziness?

Are we addicted to our devices so much our vehicles must also be recycled every 5 years as they are?

The days of hopping into the average car and hearing the engine, while settling into a comfortable seat for your daily drive are so faceless and bland now, all you have to do is sit back and let everything click and beep and whir as it does everything for you but steer, and thats even being ushered out too with the new self driving systems which fail with alarming frequency.

So many of today’s young folks wont ever see cars and trucks as cultural elements again, and the artistic endeavor that was employed in the design and construction of older cars is forever gone.

Driving around, one cannot tell the difference between most cars, they all look the same.

Even the colors are so lame, white, silver or black make up 60% of new car colors.

The grilles and front ends are purposely made to look angry and scowling, while the rest of the car is a boring blob of featureless metal and glass, perfect for scaring folks out of your way when they see your pissed off Lexus coming up in their mirror, only making them feel stupid for letting you pass them when they see the ugly rear end go by.

In the shallow lifeless culture that is permeating everything in our world, the concern is only that the front of the car is the first thing people see and get moved or impressed by, just like the people who drive them, and a superficial impression is made that the viewer is distracted from immediately by something else going on inside their tech bloated world.

Its clear the effort to make cars into exactly what phones have become is firmly underway, and the concept of leasing a personal vehicle is a big way that is underscored, use it and return it, and get a new one.

Keep making perpetual payments.

Meanwhile acres of broken cars pile up, and sit and contaminate the soil and environment more and more, just like when tires pile up, or spent lithium batteries are heaped into a hole and covered with soil.

Improvements in recycling are the best way to directly address this, and perhaps forcing auto manufacturers to undertake this recycling might make them find ways to build cars cheaper, but even if it did, rest assured they would never pass those savings onto the consumer.

In their defense, Europe has recycled cars for decades, but of course their cars are as crappy as ours, even more so in many cases.

Recycling is a dirty job, and it would require great investment by auto companies who are making record profits now, so why would they take a chance it backfires, or the government butts in and makes rules that cause them to suddenly start losing profits by forced recycling.

We know the auto companies will never do anything for the good of nature or humanity, so that question best asked is why would they even bother getting into recycling?

So whats an instant solution for most people?

Buy the most reliable car you can afford, maintain it well, keep it clean, and dont abuse it.

Find a good mechanic who can repair it without exaggerated costs for doing so.

Find a classic car, which has an available parts supply, like a 60s Mustang, or Camaro, or pre 1980 F-150, or any of the most popular names and models that have companies making replacement parts for them because there are still so many of them.

A properly maintained classic car will last for decades, even centuries, and you will feel good every time you hop in and drive it.

Or, if you prefer your heated accelerator pedals, endless electronic gadgets that always break, and bluetooth everything, buy a new car and feel the burn of your wallet in flames from the friction of the money flying out of it.

By all means get the most gadgetry you can too, so when you go from being glued to your phone at home, you can also be glued to the internet in your car.

Heres the template:

Go get yourself a cookie cutter car, pay a ridiculous amount for it, pay insane insurance for it, and ridiculous interest on the loan for it.

Make sure it has a big scary grille so everyone clears out when your otherwise bland shitbox rolls past them.

As you drive around you can feel special and fully satisfied, until the next thing breaks, or it refuses to let you in or out of it, or literally shuts down and wont run because a tiny little module somewhere deep inside the engine compartment fails that has nothing to do with the actual operation of the engine.

RIP to the Car, an American standard for so long, and welcome in the Device with wheels, that will never fulfill anything in your life but bring you from here to there in faceless and generic style.

Or, break fee, and dont be just another driver in the Matrix hooked to a hive machine that demands conformity and adherence to mediocrity.

Somewhere a 65 Fairlane awaits your hands on its wheel, go find it, and forge a new relationship with your car, that your neighbors will silently wish they had with theirs.

BA