On Aug 18, 2:43*pm, newshound wrote:
On 18/08/2012 02:52, Arfa Daily wrote:











"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

+1. Let's not forget that the MPG has nearly doubled too.

No it hasn't. Thirty-four years ago, a co-worker bought a 1978 Diesel
VW Rabbit. He got consistently over 43 MPG. I see no conventional cars
getting 86 MPG today.