On May 8, 12:40*pm, Molly Brown wrote:
Up until the sixties and seventies on the weekends I used to see
people in their driveways and garages repairing or doing maintenance
on their cars. I hardly ever see that anymore. It used to be that if
you wanted to have your car repaired you could just go to any repair
shop. Today you have to consider what the repair involves. If it’s
something complicated you need to take it to the dealer and pay the
big bucks or same time next year you’re probably going to have the
same problem. To know why this is just lift up the hood of a car from
that era and then do the same thing to an automobile today.

While your observation may be true, your analysis and conclusion are
complete ridiculous.

If complexity of cars/engines is the reason for fewer shade-tree
mechanics, then for non-complex jobs, the people doing it would have
remained constant. For example, changing the oil is very simple and
not much more complex than it was 30 years ago. So if fewer people
are changing their own oil, then there's a reason other than engine
complexity because engine complexity doesn't factor in to an oil
change.

I would guess that a number of other reasons have a larger influence
on car repairs than engine complexity. Among the likely reasons would
be:

Cars are more reliable and need fewer repairs, so the total number of
repairs per car is going down. In fact, engine complexity might be
responsible for this as points and carburetors have been eliminated.

Lifestyle changes including more single women who do not have "a man
to fix the car".

Employment changes including the shift from mechanical/blue collar
jobs to office/white collar jobs so that many people do not have basic
skills and tools.

Change in retail so that more places are open evenings and weekends.

Air conditioning. People are not comfortable going out in the sun/
heat and working.

TV and other entertainment. The generation that worked on their cars
did not spend the weekend watching TV or playing video games.

I am sure there are others and it would be fun to see what other
people think. But as for the OP, I am pretty sure she is dead wrong.
One must be careful when trying to figure out cause and effect.