"Charles" wrote in message
...
Modern autos are amazing. Much better reliability for engines, as one
example, since I started driving.

However, the electronics are often a nightmare. It seems the auto-techs
and dealerships are often clueless.

My take on this is to buy a car with air-conditioning and a radio and say
no to the rest. Hard to find a new car like that.


Why ? The electronics in modern vehicles are extremely reliable, despite the
anecdotal tales that people always seem to have about their friend's
brother-in-law's aunty's cousin who had to fork out 1000 quid for a new ECU
because the headlights wouldn't come on. For sure, back street service
outfits are often clueless about the systems, but main dealers and proper
authorised diagnostic centres have the appropriate tools and skills to
effect correct diagnoses and repairs. Most ECUs are self-monitoring anyway,
and if you have the correct tools such as an OBD analyser, the ECU will tell
you what it thinks has gone wrong with either itself, or one of its
peripheral sensors.

Without the electronics that modern cars have, they would struggle to
achieve the required emission levels to satisfy legality testing, and would
be nothing like as efficient in terms of fuel usage, and power curve
utilisation of the engine. I really think that it is one area in life that
has benefited hugely from modern technology, and you should embrace it and
all of the advantages that it brings, rather than just trying to reject it
out of hand, in favour of old and tired techniques that no longer have any
valid place in the grand scheme of things, except as collector pieces, and
interesting curios in museums. And no, I'm not a kid who has never known
anything except cars filled with electronics. I passed my test over 40 years
ago, when the most technical item in a vehicle was the radio and I, for one,
am heartily glad that I no longer have to worry about whether the car is
going to start in cold weather or overheat in hot weather, or fail to start
because the points have burnt out, or run like a dog because the plugs need
replacing and on and on and on ...

Arfa