Automotove New Age Technology, Good or Bad?

[saleensc281]

New cars, to include performance cars are relying more and more on digital technology to make them more appealing to today’s generation. While the creature comforts are initially appealing, are any of you concerned about buying/ owning a car with such technology? While it may seem impressive when you first buy it, are there concerns of long term reliability? Once the warranty runs out, will the cost of repair to fix it seem astronomical? Does it make troubleshooting easier or harder?

While the automotive world has advanced by leaps and bounds technologically speaking, how much of the latter is actually quality work and will have a long term lasting effect. That being said and for example many car companies offer 6+ year/100,000 miles warranties. Is this because the quality has gone down, and they use the long term warranty as a façade to bring peace of mind?

I almost prefer the old muscle cars and reflect on the coined term of getting into the engine bay and closing the hood to work on it due to the simplicity of yesteryears technology.

 

[thomas91169]

New cars, to include performance cars are relying more and more on digital technology to make them more appealing to today’s generation. While the creature comforts are initially appealing, are any of you concerned about buying/ owning a car with such technology? While it may seem impressive when you first buy it, are there concerns of long term reliability? Once the warranty runs out, will the cost of repair to fix it seem astronomical? Does it make troubleshooting easier or harder?

While the automotive world has advanced by leaps and bounds technologically speaking, how much of the latter is actually quality work and will have a long term lasting effect. That being said and for example many car companies offer 6+ year/100,000 miles warranties. Is this because the quality has gone down, and they use the long term warranty as a façade to bring peace of mind?

I almost prefer the old muscle cars and reflect on the coined term of getting into the engine bay and closing the hood to work on it due to the simplicity of yesteryears technology.

Eh I dont worry about it.

The car companies are offering those long term warranties because people dont want to deal with repairs like its the 80's still, and reliability is way up on most vehicles so the manufacturers can extend that sort of warranty for once.

Also, most people that buy new cars dont own them by the time the warranty runs out.

If youre worried about those newfangled electronics breaking, dont.

 

[MysticRob]

I just bought a C-Max Hybrid a few months ago and love it, but I almost talked myself out of it due to the problems many owners (at least on the forums) have with dead 12V batteries. Seems Ford has been unable to find root cause, but issue is obviously one or more of the vehicle modules that occasionally fails to turn off or go into standby mode like it's supposed to when the vehicle is turned off and key taken out, which then drains the battery. I suppose a code upgrade, or a module swap-out, might cure it, but once again, it shows how complicated things are to solve when relying too much on technology to work correctly.

The good news is that as the technologies are improved, these issues will become less frequent. Take fuel injection for example -- I was a carb guy for years but with the advent of modern (and easy to install) fuel injection set-ups, I can see upgrading an older car with it no problem.

 

[Deceptive]

The electronic nannies and weight are putting me off. Yeah, the new cars ride better stock for stock but mods can even the playing field. For a daily commute, I'd take new. For a toy, I will go a few years or more back.

 

[Formula93]

I'm a simple guy and have never really cared for all the fancy stuff in cars today. I don't hate it but I don't find it all necessary. And i'm stuck in the mentality of the more stuff you add, the more stuff that will break. And that stuff is usually expensive.

My biggest gripe with todays cars/trucks is the emissions equipment, specifically diesels. Every manufacturer has had an emissions related issue on these new trucks, that's almost all you read about on the forums is some damn sensor went bad, shut the truck down and had to be towed. It's getting to the point where you can't afford to keep a car out of warranty like you used to. That's why I drive old junk that just "runs".

 

[KingJacobo]

I'm not a fan of modern cars. Too much technology packed in that will eventually break, ad all things do. There is a sensor somewhere in modern cars that will keep the radio on until the door is opened. What happens when that sensor craps out? Will the radio keep going and kill the battery? So many gizmos that kill the driving experience for me. I don't want a rolling computer, I have my PC and phone for that. Give me a DRIVING MACHINE.

 

[Mentos]

My main concern is repair costs as the vehicle ages. As an example: Once out of warranty, how much will replacing the turbos on an Ecoboost V6 cost?

 

[thomas91169]

My main concern is repair costs as the vehicle ages. As an example: Once out of warranty, how much will replacing the turbos on an Ecoboost V6 cost?

Alot.

But accounting for inflation, likely no different than the cost of replacing the turbo(s) from a car from the 80's or 90's. My buddy was quoted $3k to replace the turbo in his 97 eclipse, cost alone for the stock t25 was $1200. Of course he didnt pay that, he got a far better turbo (evo16g) for $600 from a vendor and did it himself, so thats always an option when it comes to pretty much any part in any car.

Honestly, if you cant afford to pay for the repairs of these types of cars or cant do it yourself, you should just buy/lease new base model yaris/fiesta/etc. Its ****ing cheap, you get reliable transportation and new cars every 3-4yrs or whatever your term limits are.

 

[oldmodman]

In terms of today's cars my 03 Cobra is stone ax crude. And that's why I will never sell it.

But it has had a high battery current drain since day one. It was "fixed" by the dealer but the problem just showed up again a few months later.

The GEM that controls the windows, lights, and quite a few other things was replaced twice. So now I have a charging harness wired to the battery

all the time and plug a Battery Tender into it whenever the car is in the garage (which is all the time I am not driving it). It's not that big an inconvenience

to plug it in and remember to unplug it when I leave. I am sure I will just do that with whatever new car I eventually have to get.

 

[thomas91169]

In terms of today's cars my 03 Cobra is stone ax crude. And that's why I will never sell it.

But it has had a high battery current drain since day one. It was "fixed" by the dealer but the problem just showed up again a few months later.

The GEM that controls the windows, lights, and quite a few other things was replaced twice. So now I have a charging harness wired to the battery

all the time and plug a Battery Tender into it whenever the car is in the garage (which is all the time I am not driving it). It's not that big an inconvenience

to plug it in and remember to unplug it when I leave. I am sure I will just do that with whatever new car I eventually have to get.

I had to do that with my last Spyder. ****ing annoying.

Then I had to leave it for 4 days at an airport, so I had to remember to bring one of those jump-starters with me, and hope that stayed charged enough after 4 days to jump the car.

Ill never go back to dealing with that.

 

[dom418]

Unless you are keeping the car forever, I don't worry about " what ifs". A lot of guys who buy muscle cars swear they will never sell but there always comes a day when it's time to say goodbye. My Terminator has zero creature comforts and not much that can go wrong from a tech standpoint. Issue is they were designed off a platform from the 70's so there are issues based on that alone.

I miss having all the gadgets