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Jack B Nimble posted:I would love, love a list of "best modern vehicles to work on", please. I think almost anything up until the 2010s is going to be pretty straightforward, 7 series notwithstanding. The Miata is hilariously easy because everything is just right there and very accessible. FWD cars will be more cramped and require removing more stuff to get to anything. And just cheaper cars in general, since you'll never have to deal with luxury features.
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Jan 26, 2022 01:33
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We sold our old car, intending to go down to one vehicle for the foreseeable future, then I got an unexpected, big job offer in a different city. I'm in the unfortunate position of having to buy a car immediately, with what's in the dealer inventory in our small isolated Newfoundland town, because I need it within the next week. So we're trying to pick between 2 cars. Price is almost identical after incentives and everything. Ford Escape Hybrid or Mazda CX-5. Both 2021 Mazda is nicer equipped, more power stuff, and adaptive cruise control, which is something I really like. But its fuel mileage isn't great within its class. 26mpg according to fueleconomy.gov Ford has less creature comforts but still nice. Gets way better mileage. 40mpg from fe.gov I'm concerned about long term reliability and warranty/dealer support. Any ideas? Ford dealer had a base Maverick available (still does) which is why I went there in the first place but it doesn't have cruise at all. I'll be doing some long driving, so that's a deal breaker.
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Jan 27, 2022 16:35
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if you will be doing long drives, ACC is very nice to have and for that reason alone I would get the Mazda. The only reason I would buy the Ford is if I really, really wanted to own a hybrid for emissions reasons, or the cost of fuel would be prohibitive driving the Mazda. CX-5 is 9L/100km, Escape is 5.8L/100km. Assuming average current fuel prices around 1.60 cad/L, the Mazda costs 14 cents per KM in fuel, and the Escape costs 9 cents per KM in fuel. So that can definitely add up, if you're doing 2000 kms/month that's about a hundred bucks in incremental fuel cost on a monthly basis.
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Jan 27, 2022 16:44
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I don't plan on daily long drives at this point, but we do an annual-ish trip from Newfoundland to southern Ontario. We have a Forester with ACC, so we could always take that.
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Jan 27, 2022 16:49
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Neither Ford nor Mazda are going anywhere anytime soon as manufacturers, though the situation for your specific isolated dealerships may or may not be different. Long term reliability should also be somewhat similar since both of those are derivatives of the same shared Ford/Mazda design. How many miles per year are you actually going to rack up? If you're going to do a lot of highway driving, the Escape Hybrid probably isn't going to hit 40MPG, and adaptive cruise is really nice to have in that situation.
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Jan 27, 2022 16:49
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:if you will be doing long drives, ACC is very nice to have and for that reason alone I would get the Mazda. Seconding this. I also think the CX-5 is just a nicer vehicle in general.
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Jan 27, 2022 16:50
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Thanks folks, I guess we'll go with the CX-5. I'm likely to be doing more highway driving than city. God, what a terrible time to have to buy a car. I don't think there's a single dealership within 300km that has more than 5 cars total in inventory.
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Jan 27, 2022 17:47
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Come live in the middle of nowhere. We still have plenty. Less than usual, but still plenty of options hanging out.
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Jan 27, 2022 18:46
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Explosionface posted:Come live in the middle of nowhere. We still have plenty. Less than usual, but still plenty of options hanging out. brother man lives in newfoundland
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Jan 27, 2022 19:05
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:brother man lives in newfoundland
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Jan 27, 2022 19:10
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you know, i'm mostly satisfied with my prius, but man, there's a bunch of relatively minor but super loving annoying things about it. one of them being that the car horn honks when i lock/unlock it. it's super loud and super annoying.  so i tried to see if i could disable it. seems i can't by myself and that i had to take it to the dealership. the dealership checks it out, and it turns out someone (either my friend or the previous owner) installed an after market car alarm that they can't just flip a few switches and take care of. the only way to get rid of the alarm sounds is to remove the alarm entirely and that would cost $180  also, it appears the infotainment system is busted (water got poured on the screen, which is a touch screen, and nothing seems to work), so i have to get that poo poo replaced, but toyota says they won't do it. 
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Jan 28, 2022 00:07
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Aftermarket alarms are all terrible car poo poo. If you can get that poo poo ripped out cleanly, get it out.
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Jan 28, 2022 09:43
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yeah i would not think twice about spending $180 to get an AM alarm system out clean, the key words being out clean.
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Jan 28, 2022 13:59
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Why’d you pour water on the screen?
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Jan 28, 2022 14:00
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bird with big dick posted:Why’d you pour water on the screen? i did really love the wording of "water got poured over the screen"
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Jan 28, 2022 14:04
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Toyota won't replace their own infotainment screen? Try another dealer. That doesn't even seem.... allowed under the car parts car companies are required to keep around / repair, but that's a new one to me. It will be expensive though!
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Jan 28, 2022 15:00
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Inner Light posted:Toyota won't replace their own infotainment screen? Try another dealer. That doesn't even seem.... allowed under the car parts car companies are required to keep around / repair, but that's a new one to me. Maybe it has something to do with the microchip shortage?
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Jan 28, 2022 15:28
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Inner Light posted:Toyota won't replace their own infotainment screen? Try another dealer. That doesn't even seem.... allowed under the car parts car companies are required to keep around / repair, but that's a new one to me. there is basically no requirement to keep parts around to repair cars once they're out of warranty, except for specifically governed FMVSS safety parts. there are some weird state level laws in like Maine and CT (the CT one is actually specific to radios/infotainment systems), but in general there are actually no laws around support outside of warranty periods.
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Jan 28, 2022 15:41
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:there is basically no requirement to keep parts around to repair cars once they're out of warranty, except for specifically governed FMVSS safety parts. there are some weird state level laws in like Maine and CT (the CT one is actually specific to radios/infotainment systems), but in general there are actually no laws around support outside of warranty periods. Ah that's good to learn thanks, seems what I said is a common misconception! Indeed the only legal mandate companies have is during the warranty period. More detail here if folks are curious: https://www.hemmings.com/stories/2020/08/03/ask-a-hemmings-editor-how-long-do-carmakers-have-to-provide-replacement-parts-for-older-cars
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Jan 28, 2022 15:56
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Also if we're literally talking about the screen controlling the radio, that seems like something solvable in the aftermarket - possibly for less money to boot. Or a junkyard part since I would assume most Priuses have not had an unexplained "water got poured on the radio" event.
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Jan 28, 2022 16:18
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Don’t Prius’s use the entertainment screen to control the climate-control system? I know the older one I borrowed did, but that was a long time ago, I distinctly remember thinking it was the worst idea ever as I scrolled through unfamiliar menus trying to get the AC working in the summer Phoenix heat.
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Jan 28, 2022 16:29
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Priodes
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Jan 28, 2022 16:40
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JnnyThndrs posted:Don’t Prius’s use the entertainment screen to control the climate-control system? I know the older one I borrowed did, but that was a long time ago, I distinctly remember thinking it was the worst idea ever as I scrolled through unfamiliar menus trying to get the AC working in the summer Phoenix heat. That's becoming really common and doesn't necessarily rule out aftermarket radios. There are modules that interface with things like that. In my case the module is interfacing between my new head unit and the Harmon Kardon thingy, as well as a couple minor thingies, but they usually can interface with things like climate control and whatnot with most cars. I recommend talking to someone who knows what they're doing if you go that route. Crutchfield probably will be able to help, for an easy available-anywhere (US, at least, maybe other places) option, although I generally preferred local places that specialize in car stereo stuff.
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Jan 28, 2022 16:54
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I was sitting in somebody else’s Tesla a few weeks ago after it got a software update and they were all flustered because everything was moved around on the screen. HVAC controls moved etc. It cracked me up to be honest. Also that car drove itself through some bollards and later nearly into a wall before I said enough with the beta test please stop letting it drive!!
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Jan 29, 2022 01:31
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That's a feature on Teslas apparently
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Jan 29, 2022 09:26
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ethanol posted:Also that car drove itself through some bollards and later nearly into a wall before I said enough with the beta test please stop letting it drive!! Elon thanks you for helping to improve Full Self-Driving.
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Jan 29, 2022 13:25
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Will probably be buying a hybrid sedan within the year or so. Should we stay away from Ford? If they’re not manufacturing sedans, I worry that support for specific parts will be gone and we’d be screwed if something went wrong.
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Feb 1, 2022 00:45
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parts support has come up recently a few times so now you get to hear my professional opinion about this poo poo 1) there are no laws regarding parts support outside of the warranty period with the exception of a couple of oddball state level laws that don't really matter in the grand scheme of things. there is no obligation for an OEM to support any car at any point in time outside of the warranty period. during the warranty period the OEM has to be able to honor the warranty by repairing your vehicle or by replacing it; unsurprisingly all OEMs basically choose to do the former outside of very odd edge cases. 2) OEMs make a poo poo ton of money off of parts sales. it's a huge driver of overall profitability. the OEMs are generally therefore inclined to produce and supply parts for your vehicle, whatever it is, for a reasonable time. this is typically somewhere between 7-10 years after the part exits production at minimum. 2a) exits production means is no longer used on any production vehicle by that company. so your Ford Fusion Hybrid might have gone out of production in 2018, but the door handle is probably shared with the currently in-production Escape. probably 40-80% of content is shared with another entirely different model; higher numbers for more mass market cars, lower numbers if you do something like buy one of the toyobaru twins. but just because your car is not being produce doesn't mean that many of the parts are not being used in production. that 7-10 year clock probably hasn't started yet on many of the parts. 2b) since parts are highly profitable, the OEM will still make/buy and supply parts that are still profitable. you can still buy, for instance, the interior mirror for a 30 year old Camry from toyota because they still have demand on it so they keep sourcing and supplying it. 2c) for many types of parts, there's a very robust aftermarket. These are the common parts that wear or break regularly. Ford may no longer be in the business of supplying a gasket for the Fusion Hybrid but I bet Fel Pro will sell you one. 2d) certain safety and emissions parts have much longer mandatory availability periods; you can usually buy airbags, seat belts, seat belt tensioners, etc for ~20 years after production exit. by the time stuff is seriously out of production, it is probably not economically viable to repair the car. ok, your steering ate poo poo on a 15 year old car that's worth $4K. it's probably not economical to repair, or you're going to the junk yard. or you got in a collision and a body part is no longer available, but the car totals anyway. Ford no longer making sedans doesn't matter; there's very little a new Fusion would have in common from a part number level with the old one, so even if Ford kept making the Fusion, you wouldn't benefit much in terms of parts availability in the future. Now, a brand dying can have an effect if they are relatively orphaned - eg Saab - but even after Saab died 95% of what you want was available from various sources for over a decade. for something that's just a badge, like Mercury, there's basically no effect at all.
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Feb 1, 2022 01:07
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:parts support has come up recently a few times so now you get to hear my professional opinion about this poo poo This is an excellent post thank you. Why are parts so profitable for OEMs? With generally reliable vehicles as we've seen post 2010 or 2015, why do end users need so many parts, are a large percentage crash damage or wear items?
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Feb 1, 2022 01:11
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Insane markups. Source: the upgraded oem headlight assemblies I want for my Tacoma are going for $1300+. Had I succeeded in finding one with them on the sticker they were a $400 option
ethanol fucked around with this message at 01:16 on Feb 1, 2022 |
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Feb 1, 2022 01:13
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Inner Light posted:This is an excellent post thank you. Why are parts so profitable for OEMs? With generally reliable vehicles as we've seen post 2010 or 2015, why do end users need so many parts, are a large percentage crash damage or wear items? I'm not in the auto world, but an OEM of a different nature. We have our list price book that we list our prices at. Our reps and different OEM customers pay about half that on new equipment (and we still aim for 30-40% profit). Our parts customers still pay something closer to 67% of list price per part, with far less overhead. Parts sales are great for margins.
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Feb 1, 2022 01:25
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:parts support has come up recently a few times so now you get to hear my professional opinion about this poo poo Thank you for this! Extremely informative.
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Feb 1, 2022 01:31
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Inner Light posted:With generally reliable vehicles as we've seen post 2010 or 2015, why do end users need so many parts, are a large percentage crash damage or wear items? others answered the first bit but I'll answer this: Everything on a car is a wear item, if you drive it long enough. There are parts that are never worth replacing, like say the main unibody frame of a modern car (but not the parts of the unibody that can be replaced after an accident!) and parts that nobody bothers to replace (like the warning sticker on the OEM scissors jack in your trunk) but they're a minority. Every part of the engine, drive train, brake system, steering system, wiring/electrical, cooling, climate control, instrumentation, every seal, every glass piece, every piece of trim, all of it wears out through use, road rash, dings and dents, small accidents that weren't catastrophic enough to total the car... and even totaled cars are often salvaged. It doesn't matter how "good" your car was made, or how "reliable" it is; eventually it's either going to be totaled, or have dozens of parts replaced to keep it running. "Eventually" could be anything from the day you drove it off the lot and in front of a train, to a hundred years in the future when some collector is still lovingly keeping it in concourse condition in their climate-controlled garage for their hoity-toity friends to cluck at during dinner parties. The amount of each part needed per year is a function of how quickly that part wears, the production size of all the models that use that part, and how many competing/aftermarket parts are out there. Also I guess parts quality does make some difference, e.g. some "better made" parts just last longer. But I bet that factor lags behind the other ones.
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Feb 1, 2022 02:02
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:2c) for many types of parts, there's a very robust aftermarket. These are the common parts that wear or break regularly. Ford may no longer be in the business of supplying a gasket for the Fusion Hybrid but I bet Fel Pro will sell you one. The only caveat here is it seems that aftermarket parts quality is increasingly a total crapshoot. Some are good, some are very much poo poo. I had to put a timing chain kit together for my Wrangler from two different reputable brands because one had a cam gear machined too tight and the other had the crank gear machined too tight. But since for most people here "new timing chain" is something they let their mechanic deal with, if they ever deal with it at all, that's an edge case. If you're really super-worried about this sort of thing, stick to main-market brands sold in high volumes, and Ford anything would absolutely fall into that category. Don't buy a high-end low-production vehicle and you won't end up like people paying thousands for working taillights for their Cadivette.
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Feb 1, 2022 02:29
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So... Should anyone really factor in replacement parts for an older car when buying something used? Assuming it's something normal not an exotic or something like Saab.
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Feb 1, 2022 02:38
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Domestic is typically (not always) cheaper parts than imported. Big diameter wheels have more expensive tires than small diameter wheels, on average. Cars that were very expensive when new tend to have more expensive replacement parts than cars that were very cheap when new. And the older the car is, the more likely it is due for some major replacement (like, say, a rebuild of an auto transmission). These are OK rules of thumb to keep in mind, and there are many more. But. The truth is that this is variable based on the specific make/model/year plus the ownership history of each specific car. There are random cars with randomly stupidly expensive repairs. Often the expense is as much in the labor as the parts. The only way to really know is to look up the specific car you're interested in (or ask in here!) and check to see. Like, oh, loads of subarus needed head gaskets right when they hit around 125k miles, an expensive repair, so if you buy one of those older subies with 130k on it, you need to verify if it's had the head gasket done or you might be facing an immediate $1500 service! Or maybe this specific owner just never changed the loving oil, which will turn an engine that should have lasted 300k miles into one that's toast at 75k. Because of that, I'm not super comfortable saying "no don't consider the costs of parts" but I also don't think it's helpful to focus solely on the cost of the parts and not the labor and difficulty. It's better to evaluate the condition and repair/maintenance history of each specific car, especially older ones, ask detailed questions about the likely maintenance, and then if cost of ownership is a big deal for you, take the whole picture into account when deciding what to buy. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 02:58 on Feb 1, 2022 |
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Feb 1, 2022 02:55
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The reason why we're only looking at cars like the Citroen Traction Avant (out of production since 1957) and Ford mustang are that you can buy all the parts out of a catalog at fairly reasonable prices You can get an OEM alternator for a bmw E39 M5 (circa 1999) but it's gonna run you $500-700
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Feb 1, 2022 02:59
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:So... Not really, no. If it was made in large enough quantities, there's enough of them out there that aftermarket parts are still available. The labor is usually much costlier than the part in most cases, regardless.
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Feb 1, 2022 03:39
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Speaking as a mechanic with nearly Genesplicer years of experience, I can count the number of vehicles on one hand where I was unable to get a part required to fix a vehicle. Generally, like the other poster said, by the time you can’t get parts, the vehicle’s at the age where only old car freaks and collectors are still driving them. And if they’re common enough, the collector/antique/specialty restoration companies will start making them(although that stuff’s usually pretty pricey) Of course, like the Caddy XLR taillight issue that everybody cites, there are exceptions, but mostly oddball and limited edition vehicles. Put it this way: if you buy a common vehicle that everybody’s heard of, there will always be parts available. Ford had to have made at least 1,000,000 Fusions(the last body style) in the US, probably more, there will always be some company who will fill the needed parts niche. Interior parts are an exception; plastic trim and such often seems to go out of production before the need goes away. The more pressing issue, for me, is that so many of the aftermarket parts companies are all selling the same cheapshit Chinese crap that doesn’t hold up, but that’s a bitch for another post.
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Feb 1, 2022 13:59
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:So... yeah the only edge case where I MIGHT consider this is a) the car was made in very low volumes without much platform sharing and b) there is not an enthusiast community for the vehicle so something like the Toyobaru twins might apply for the first, but not the second I'm trying to think of a car that would really have both factors apply. OEMs are really efficient at reusing parts, and most low volume product is high margin and oriented towards enthusiasts. In general, most low volume cars share a lot of parts underneath so even if you may have a hard time finding say, a Honda Accord Crosstour specific part, most of the mechanicals are shared with various other Hondas and although you may have to live with a dent in the rear door, you can definitely keep the thing running. Some early orphan EVs and hybrids might apply. Maybe something like the Saturn Astra since it was on a version of GM's Delta platform that wasn't commonly used in the US - but a lot of the mechanicals were shared with the extremely common Chevrolet Cobalt and Cruze. Anyway, this is a really interesting question that I will spend too much time thinking about. Inner Light posted:This is an excellent post thank you. Why are parts so profitable for OEMs? With generally reliable vehicles as we've seen post 2010 or 2015, why do end users need so many parts, are a large percentage crash damage or wear items? as leperflesh posted, everything's a wear item if you wait long enough. the US car market is like fifteen or sixteen million vehicles a year, which means at any given time there are like 200 million cars registered and on the road. even with extremely high reliability of most parts, there are so many cars on the road that demand for parts is very high. and there's always a lot of demand for true wear items like brakes, tires, filters, etc because those are consumed in an essentially perfect relationship with miles traveled. Leperflesh posted:Because of that, I'm not super comfortable saying "no don't consider the costs of parts" but I also don't think it's helpful to focus solely on the cost of the parts and not the labor and difficulty. It's better to evaluate the condition and repair/maintenance history of each specific car, especially older ones, ask detailed questions about the likely maintenance, and then if cost of ownership is a big deal for you, take the whole picture into account when deciding what to buy. the other thing is - if you're just looking at parts and labor cost for various jobs, it is kind of silly and irrelevant. it may be a hugely expensive job to drop a transmission and replace it, but most cars don't ever have the transmission replaced, so if you're weighting that very highly you're making bad decisions. there may be some jobs that are quite complex but on mass market cars they are few and far between. as you said, maintenance history is definitely more important than an abstract accounting for how much it is likely to cost to fix the car when it breaks.
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Feb 1, 2022 14:32
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