Are Cars Too Complex?

An average person won't like to spend too much money and spend much time in waiting to diagnose electronic malfunctions by dealers. Earlier models could be repaired by average mechanics.

Click 'n Clack on PBS recently advised a caller to buy a completely restored mid-1970s Chevrolet, saying that they were easy to fix and, if the engine failed, it could be replaced easily and cheaply with a modern "crate engine" that would get 2x the mileage. Seems like good advice to me.

All too right simple is best.. Even the dealers are getting to a stage where they can't diagnose the faults... Don't ever buy a The latest Range rover sport.. I have a customer that has and it has been to the dealer nearly every day in the last three weeks with a fault. Get it started with a charged battery, drive it a couple of miles and the a battery is dead... and the dealers computer can find nothing wrong.... Go figure that one...

the alternator is clearly dead.

Manufacturers should produce 2 versions of cars,one with only essential electrics like lights,wiper,signal light,alternator,starter motor,radio & GPS at a lower price and another model with many extra electronics at a higher price.

I've been driving a 1984 Mercedes 300 turbodiesel with a cooking oil kit in it for 3 or 4 years and love it! My mechanic said these older "dumb" cars don't have all the computers and sensors that have to be out-smarted for non-standard modifications like this. I recently bought a 1988 Ford F-250 diesel from a volunteer fire dept (They take good care of their stuff!) and he is tricking it out for cooking oil. I get 10 gal a week free from my local Mexican restaurant and have almost 200 gal of oil in storage. Once my F-250 is ready, I'll sell my gas-guzzling 1997 F-150 and only need gasoline for my lawn mower, chain saw & garden tiller. Modifications like this certainly would void the warranty on a new vehicle and the fuel sensors would go crazy. I love my old dumb vehicles! I can't stand to have gadgets smarter than I am!

I know exactly what you mean. I used to road race a 1994 3000GT VR4 twin-turbo car and, later, a 1990 Eclipse turbo AWD car. We thoroughly modified both cars with bigger turbos, intercoolers and other tweaks, getting the 3000GT up to 500 hp and the Eclipse to 355hp (at the wheels). We had no problems with either car's computers.

Today, you can't even put a cold air kit on a new car, like an Evo, BMW or STi without reprogramming the ECU. One BMW tuner charges $1900 to get an extra 100 hp out of a new BMW, and all they do is retune the ECU. If we wanted an extra 100 hp in the 3000GT or Eclipse, all we had to do was turn a little manual boost valve to increase boost pressure by 7 psi.

We had our share of problems racing such "tired iron," of course (we called the Eclipse Mr Never on Sunday because it never got through a two-day race event without breaking something), but the problems were all diagnosable and fixable. If you take a modern car to the track and something nasty happens, you'll have to trailer it to a dealer--where the car's computer will rat you out for racing and void the warranty.

I never buy a car if I cannot fix it myself when anything goes wrong, so I will never buy one of these new cars where a computer controls everything, not only are they way too expensive because of all these elctronics, but I like to get myself down and dirty on the engine etc, so I will stick to my old 1978 MG roadster!

I'm sure finding a lot of people I agree with here, including xanasax.

Me, I'm looking for a 1970s-era TR6 roadster for the very same reasons. I know that a Miata, Porsche or another modern sports car is 10X the car of a TR6 or an MG--safer, faster, handles better and so on--but they cost a fortune, you can't fix 'em, and they look goofy.

Another reason to buy an old car is that the value will continue to go up over time, while a new car drops fast.

Maybe we'll see a new market develop for remanufactured 1960- and 1970-era cars! Wish I had my old '60 TR3 back.

We are all in universal agreement it seems. They are complex and expensive to purchase as well as maintain. My new 2012 Ford Mustang cost in the high $20's for US dollars via the company I work for which they leased. It has so much "stuff" that is new on it that it has leapt to the top of the trouble list and complaints via warranty for all the new cars they tell me. One example is that when you open a door, the window drops about a quarter inch so that when you close it, there is space for the air to exit and then it recloses. A neat idea (new to me) but imagine the sensors and computer linkages to make that happen.

This has got to be one of the more ridiculous new car sales gimmicks. But the "sensors" and "computer linkages" are all in the software. Cheap to implement.

I'm waiting for the day when the computers in cars start getting viruses.

Maybe the end game will be cars we rent by the hour. That way all the "buyer" will lose when it quits runnung is the rental fee and he will gain the wisdom of knowing that particular brand of car is to be avoided. When the machine finally is beyond being repairable the remains will be sold to someone in a third world country with no smog laws. There clever people there will tear out all the wiring and computers, install carbs and distributors on the engines and drive them for the next 20 years.

And the power windows? Tear out the motors and replace them with simple levers to raise and lower the glass.

When I was sitting at a traffic light in downtown San Jose yesterday I saw this young woman on a BMX size bicycle coasting along the sidewalk and holding a small grocery bag. The bike appeared to have an auxiliary electric motor in the rear wheel hub and a large battery box mounted on a frame member in front of the rear wheel under the seat. So she well may have been running under power. I have a feeling I was looking at our automotive future.

Ed Weldon

Give me a 60's or early 70's with a 289 any day, same motor in my 1990 F250 was near impossible to do anything other than reqular maintenance.

No one mentioned the ridiculous amount of electronic distractions built into the dash of many new cars. Why any driver in their right mind would want an entertainment system other than music or radio in their line of sight is beyond me. I blame marketing and the electrical design teams in the interior departments who have not learned the lesson that just because you can do something doesn't mean it's a good idea or that you should.

I drive a 2004 Acura RSX-S. Nothing in the dash to distract me, an ECU and ABS are the primary electronics aboard that I would not give up. Although the 6 disc changer is nice to have. One of the best parts is, if my driving on track days causes the ECU to go into limp mode, (like going backwards in a forward gear) I just disconnect the positive cable for a minute and it resets to factory defaults.

I have just read in the science pages of the Daily Mail that hackers can stop our cars, open it's doors and may other bad things when your car is doing 70 mph on the motorway, this is another reason not to buy these modern cars with computers in them!

For us track day people, that's good to know. Just imagine--we could hack into the ECU of a very fast Corvette or new M3, fiddle with their settings, and then just blow past them on the straight. They'd never know why.

You guys have me fantasizing again about my dream project of a Model A Woody with a small diesel engine. ..... Ed Weldon

Us racers on this list have similar dreams, but they involve LARGE diesel engines--with turbochargers!

Its interesting that this thread showed up around the same time that PopSci was publishing this article

for myself, i appreciate the 60's and 70's cars simplicity... but I also look forward to robotic vehicles...

I have read too much science fiction to not think in those terms... so I guess I want the best of both.

in my opinion, gridlock will only be solved when cars become robotic and digitally networked, so speeds can go up.

but I also owned a 1970 plymouth GTX 440 magnum (originally a six pack carb setup) with an air grabber hood. the ultimate in a muscle car when I was 19 years old. (Mine was similar to this, except it had been painted white) as the Copperhead Road song says... "I still remember that rumblin' sound"

Way, way back, in the 1970s, I tried to interest a bunch of engineers into developing a race driver's aid. This was before GPS, so the idea was to use a 1/1000th-mile rally odometer to precisely measure the car's position on a race track, and then use a computer to monitor lap times and segment times. Theoretically, the computer would be able to determine the fastest line by comparing segement times, noting the braking points, turn in and corner out positions of the fastest segments and then--with a series of indicator lights and a heads-up display, show the driver when to brake, turn and accelerate to obtain the fastest lap. Nobody thought we could build such a thing. Harummppphhh!

Oddly enough, I wrote an article about a drag racer in Texas who does essentially the same thing--he uses a computer and sensors to monitor everything about the car during runs down the track. The computer learns what works and tunes the car during the next run, while it's racing.

Watch Formula 1 - telemetry for anything and everything. I think that if a bird happens to drop a load on the car an engineer back in the pits feels it.

The race itself turns in to a parade with little passing and less excitement but the technology is neat.

The good old boys at NASCAR won't allow most of the telemetry apparently - the instructions are yet to be translated into 'redneck' I suppose.

You are all wrong about NASCAR. Their technology, although constrained by rules, is every bit as good as Formula 1. They DO have fully instrumented vehicles, with about 200 sensors, on board computers, real-time telemetry and so on. They just can't use it on race day. They send out an entire team--with a rig, crew and cars--to check out changes and developments prior to a race event. For example, if they are running a one-mile track in two weeks, they will send the team to another one-mile oval for testing (can't test or practice at the same track).

I wrote this back in 2004, but I bet nothing has changed in 7 years: "By-the-bye, don't think F1 has a lock on racing technology. The good 'ol boys in Huntersville don't take a back seat to anybody when it comes to R&D, quality control, testing, instrumentation, telemetry, and so on. Although those "rolling billboards" may look crude and 1960-ish on the outside, on the inside lurks the most sophisticated racing equipment on the planet."

and

"Joe Gibbs Racing has metrology equipment from Mahr Federal, MSI Viking Gage, and Starrett, all sponsors. They also purchased a $500,000 Primar MX4 coordinate measuring machine, one of only three being used by race shops in the world. The other two are at Ferrari and Williams-BMW, both Formula 1 teams."
(see http://www.controlglobal.com/articles/2004/103.html )

There ain't nothin' redneck about NASCAR--except the fans, maybe.

I do agree with you about F1, though. I used to watch F1, but no more.

Race day is when it counts.

NASCAR is far more interesting racing for sure. I am lucky enough to catch it on a dish from a French channel which I thought was curious.

At the beginning man made push bicycle,motorbike,car,bus,truck,aircraft and ship to move from place to place and transport goods. The mobile devices used for destroying something were the tank/aircraft/artillery used in wars. Then competition between nations/manufacturers crept in and they started manufacturing advanced models and now popularity is decided by the electronics included in any device. If a person is not interested in too much/expensive electronics,manufacturers should sell earlier models too. People/youth are forced to earn more money for sophisticated gadgets.

The first cars were simply transportation. They weren't comfortable or easy to operate. As technology progressed, automakers solved those problems so the cars would appeal to more buyers and the companies made more money. Now they've taken that concept to the extreme. Automakers compete to "out-do" each other, and consumers have become conditioned to expect conveniences and gadgets. Now it's hard to buy a car that doesn't have a bunch of stuff that you don't want or need. For example, items that are standard on most cars include power windows, fancy entertainment systems, air conditioning, automatic transmissions, and automatic door locks. You don't have to have any of that stuff to get from point A to point B, but there are those who cannot fathom driving without them. Now automakers are offering drive-by-wire instead of direct mechanical linkages between the gas pedal and the fuel system, or between the steering wheel and the front wheels. Neat technology, but how safe when it fails?

If you want to have dinner you need not go to a five-star hotel, you can have it in any restaurant. Similarly if you need a car you need not buy RollsRoyce or Benz or BMW,there are so many models,sizes and capacity of engines. The problem is in the mind- Comfort should not drain your purse which could be used for essential items or as savings.

I suspect that emissions legislations and cost dictate the market worthiness of vehicles in the cutthroat competition environment that is the automotive sector. By involving more software instead of hardware, weight is brought down, response times in decision making are faster, fuel consumption is optimized etc. While those positive aspects to electrification are present, I do agree that there is potential to drastically increase the. Lifetime costs of owning a vehicle these days. Any experiences on how much more expensive it is to own a car these days than in the pastt? In lifetime costs, the costsincurred in repairs/damages are also factored in.