Implications for all of us.

[ambermarine]

• Why can't the CAR WIZARD fix this 2009 Lexus LS460_ - YouTube.pdfHi Guys

I have decided to come clean on a fact I kept back when I gave the reasons for sticking with a LS400 back in 2012 when I parted company with my Mark I after sixteen years .At that time I had been informed by a very close Lexus associate  that the days of working on our own cars were going to be limited to a time when we would have no option but to take them into a dealership but I was sworn to secrecy and I did not want to break a confidence that had been given to enable me to make a very important decision.

I am putting in a link from the USA that explains my admission and you can draw your own conclusions as to what it means for all of us and not just Lexus owners.

[Herbie]

I don't think it's any secret, it's just the way technology is going.

My interest in 'spannering' came from helping my dad maintain his old Austin Cambridge A60 and it had an engine bay that you could almost stand in, there was so much room. You could see quite a bit of the road surface if you look down.

Engine bays have filled up since those days and now you can hardly pass a sheet of paper between some of the gaps. Even so, it's still been possible to do a lot of work as a DIY or hobbyist mechanic, but as more ECUs appear and cars become more computerised, it's less spanner work and more electrical/electronic, with the required test gear and cables costing far more than a DIY mechanic can justify spending.

For the same reason, a lot of local garages will find themselves unable to buy test gear and associated cables and connectors for each make of car. !t just won't be financially feasible, ergo the only place we can go to is the main dealers.

This has been on the cards for many years and won't (shouldn't) be a shock or surprise to anyone.

[cruisermark]

I think when we will look back at our driving life in the years to come (I'm early 40s) we would see we have been very lucky to own and drive such great cars.

I'm not sure the same can be said for the coming generations, I think the use of cars is going to decrease and owning and driving a car maybe for the wealthy.

We are already being enticed to giving up our cars

Drivers are being offered up to £3,000 ‘in credit’ to give up polluting cars (thesun.co.uk)

Recently I rang BMW garage for a part number because I wanted to ensure I was buying the correct part from the manufacturer (same manufacturer BMW use) and they wouldn't give out a part number - I have never encountered this before

 

[lex - eleven]

Perhaps it's a way the government can rid the roads of all petrol and diesel vehicles in favour of electric. A stealthy way of making it impossible for the d.i.y mechanic to work on and too expensive to take to main dealers and that's if they will still work on them.If prices of new electric cars stay high that will also reduce traffic on the road beacause many people will not be able to afford a new electric car. Lets face it when my car was registered in 2005 I certainly wouldn't have been able to pay £55,000 for it but 15 years down the line and sub £3000 for a superbly reliable luxurious car is easily feasible.

[Las Palmas]

27 minutes ago, Herbie said:

I don't think it's any secret, it's just the way technology is going.

My interest in 'spannering' came from helping my dad maintain his old Austin Cambridge A60 and it had an engine bay that you could almost stand in, there was so much room. You could see quite a bit of the road surface if you look down.

Engine bays have filled up since those days and now you can hardly pass a sheet of paper between some of the gaps. Even so, it's still been possible to do a lot of work as a DIY or hobbyist mechanic, but as more ECUs appear and cars become more computerised, it's less spanner work and more electrical/electronic, with the required test gear and cables costing far more than a DIY mechanic can justify spending.

For the same reason, a lot of local garages will find themselves unable to buy test gear and associated cables and connectors for each make of car. !t just won't be financially feasible, ergo the only place we can go to is the main dealers.

This has been on the cards for many years and won't (shouldn't) be a shock or surprise to anyone.

We can still wash our cars. What are you talking about? And I have a portable vacuum cleaner so can tidy it a bit inside too. Fill window washer fluid.

Had a VW beetle in 1974. All you needed to fix problems was a screwdriver and a little more.

Things have changed.

 

[Malc]

aha ! ............. so how do I take my 1932 Triumph back to the Main Dealer ?

Malc

[Britprius]

2 hours ago, ambermarine said:

the days of working on our own cars were going to be limited

Phil there is also a strong movement in the US to make it compulsory for manufacturers to give the ability to customers to repair there own vehicles. This rely started in the farming community to enable farmers to repair there equipment. Action being taken to name but one company "John Deer" in a number of states.

Imagine the scenario where a large combine harvester fails in the middle of harvesting. In the US the dealer could easily be 200 miles away. The machine would need to be loaded on a low loader in the middle of a thousand acre field, and transported to the dealer, repaired and returned just because a sensor had failed. During this time the crop being harvested could be ruined.

When we go to all electric cars this is going to become even more of a problem. It would cost pennies to enable the modern vehicle displays to display any fault codes, and even give information on the probable cause of the code. In a similar vane the workshop manual could be included in the information screen.

As vehicle owners surely we have the right to the information already available stored in them.

John.

[BigBoomer]

apple are currently making it easier to repair rather than replace their devices. This is because of the "right to repair" movement. Repair is WAY greener than replacement in just about every case, even cars, once you factor in total cost of ownership over the lifetime of the item. With cars, our governments have all signed up to pretty severe reductions in greenhouse gases and they would rather go after you and me to reduce our carbon footprint, than go after the big polluting companies as we are less likely to withdraw "donations" and less likely to deploy lawyers. You can expect more and more of the green nagging in the future but industry will continue to get let off and let their targets slide in direct proportion with their bungs,... errrr donations. I'm for reducing our carbon footprint, but I believe it can only realistically be achieved by having LESS PEOPLE. More people = more consumption = more environmental damage.

[hockeyedwards]

Wouldn't beat yourself up about it, think we've seen over the years it has always been coming. My dads mk1 golf is peanuts to work on compared to the LS, but the LS is peanuts compared to my GS... enthusiasts will always find a way to tinker and don't forget as tech improves, our knowledge does too - could lead to it being easier from a DIY perspective, who knows.

I'm happy as long as I can do something 🙂

[m4rkw]

This is indeed no secret and has been happening for a long time. I think sometime around the mid-90s manufacturers started realising that people were keeping their cars far too long and not buying new ones.

This was one of the motivators for things like encrypted computer modules and extended oil change intervals (kills engines faster).

Most manufacturers probably design cars to last about 100k miles, so when you look at the service schedule they give you that's worth bearing in mind. I would expect that Toyota/Lexus is probably somewhat of an exception to this but i'm still changing my oil every 3k miles.

Other forces that operate on them are:

1) Need to make money, obviously. People want the latest shiny tech, features etc. this all costs a lot to R&D
2) Must comply with ever-changing emissions regulations
3) Must comply with ever-changing safety regulations

If you want toys and nice features expect to have expensive repair bills at some point. I like cars that are as simple as possible with as few toys as possible, built around the mid to late 2000s. Eventually good examples of such will dry up and that will be a sad time.

[ColinBarber]

1 hour ago, m4rkw said:

This was one of the motivators for things like encrypted computer modules and extended oil change intervals (kills engines faster).

I think that is stretching things to the point of needing a tin foil hat. The main driver for extended oil changes was the fleet purchasers who would decide what company car vehicles you could choose based on the TCO including servicing costs. It created a bit of an arms race between the European manufacturers to extend service intervals. The same vehicles with the same engines still had the old 3k to 5k service internals in the US.

I don't believe there is any evidence that the engine mechanicals have suffered as a result of extended oil change intervals anyway, due to improvements in the oils being used and improved engine designs. The amount of people needing to rebore an engine has been decreasing year on year for decades.

In the 80s and 90s getting to 100k was a big achievement and made a vehicle almost impossible to sell. Now, many people don't have an issue purchasing a vehicle with 100k miles on the clock.

[m4rkw]

10 minutes ago, ColinBarber said:

I don't believe there is any evidence that the engine mechanicals have suffered as a result of extended oil change intervals

I appreciate that anecdotes aren’t evidence, but I’ve heard enough experienced mechanics tell me this is so to believe it. One garage owner I spoke to described the number of sub-100k engine failures they we’re seeing as “phenomenal” and was convinced it was caused by extended changes.

[ColinBarber]

5 minutes ago, m4rkw said:

One garage owner I spoke to described the number of sub-100k engine failures they we’re seeing as “phenomenal” and was convinced it was caused by extended changes.

I think it would be too simplistic to state that is all just down to the oil without doing a fair amount of research. For example stresses are much higher with compression ratios averaging 11:1 or greater now compared to 9.5:1 back in the 90s.

The number of people on these forums that have mechanical issues with their engines is minute compared to other issues and I don't believe Toyota are so much better than anyone else, certain not the other Japanese manufacturers. Many issues on European manufactured engines are poor designs/poor electronics that when failing stress the engines, but I acknowledge these are also the ones that push oil change intervals to the extremes.

[m4rkw]

2 minutes ago, ColinBarber said:

I think it would be too simplistic to state that is all just down to the oil without doing a fair amount of research. For example stresses are much higher with compression ratios averaging 11:1 or greater now compared to 9.5:1 back in the 90s.

The number of people on these forums that have mechanical issues with their engines is minute compared to other issues and I don't believe Toyota are so much better than anyone else, certain not the other Japanese manufacturers. Many issues on European manufactured engines are poor designs/poor electronics that when failing stress the engines, but I acknowledge these are also the ones that push oil change intervals to the extremes.

As you allude to there are a lot of factors to take into consideration, it's certainly not always one thing. That garage owner I spoke to said that it was after BMW and others introduced extended changes that he started seeing loads of cars coming in needing new engines at relatively low mileages. Perhaps there were other causes, who knows.

I had an E46 BMW for a while that had a specified oil change interval of 15,000 miles. In my opinion that is patently absurd. It matters a lot how the car is driven, one person could be doing 1000 miles/week on the motorway in which case their oil is likely to be in pretty good condition most of the time. Another person might drive two miles to work and a mile to sainsburys on weekends, and nowhere else. The first person could probably go 7, 8, maybe even 10k miles between oil changes. The second person should probably change a lot sooner *if* they plan to keep the car a long time. To specify 15k for everybody just seems insane and certainly not in the best interests of the owner.

Lots of people don't really care to keep a car beyond 100k miles, they'll trade it in well before then, so not really any strong incentive to care much about the oil change interval.

I change mine at between 3000 and 5000 miles depending on how it's been driven in the intervening period. Maybe that's changing too often, there are certainly some people who claim that modern engines can go a lot longer on modern oils, but there are also a lot of people who say this is a bad idea for long-term longevity. The amount of money I'd save on oil changes by changing at 10k is peanuts compared to any kind of major engine repair. An oil change is £100, a new engine I'm guessing would be £3k minimum, probably more once it's been installed. Since I plan on keeping the car for as long as possible it just doesn't seem wise to take chances with extended oil changes.

[JamesIS220]

I think the mid 90's was the best for ease of maintenance.

I have a 1996 Volvo 940 2.3 litre petrol automatic. Easy access to service, reliable and when I bought it 5 years ago cheap to buy at £250 then. Now run in at 205,000 miles. Not heard of any red block engines dying at 100k miles. One I know through a rod through the block at 180k and was leaking oil prior.  Odd headgasket, as different thermal movement of cast iron block and aluminium head.. I change the oil at around 5k miles. They are agricultural and not stressed. Literally here!

traktor racing volvo terror - YouTube

[ColinBarber]

19 minutes ago, m4rkw said:

I change mine at between 3000 and 5000 miles depending on how it's been driven in the intervening period. Maybe that's changing too often, there are certainly some people who claim that modern engines can go a lot longer on modern oils, but there are also a lot of people who say this is a bad idea for long-term longevity.

The only way to find out is send a sample for oil analysis to see if the oil is holding up and there isn't too much metal which would indicate wear. It isn't too common in the UK but many people do it in the US.

[m4rkw]

1 hour ago, ColinBarber said:

The only way to find out is send a sample for oil analysis to see if the oil is holding up and there isn't too much metal which would indicate wear. It isn't too common in the UK but many people do it in the US.

Well I'd be testing oil that has (probably/maybe) been changed more often than is strictly necessary, so I doubt they'd find metal in it after only 3000 miles. I guess I'd have to push it a bit longer and then test to see if I'd damaged anyway but meh, who has time for that. Seems like a lot of effort to save a relatively small amount of money. I'll just change the damn oil and sleep easy 🙂

[BigBoomer]

A lot of this is caused by changes in design. Most 70s engines used pushrods and were normally non-interference, later used camchains and were mostly interference, and these days almost all use cambelts and are interference. Camchains tend not to break so damage was unlikely, but cambelts can let go destroying the engine regardless of what oil you used or the frequency of it's change. There are so many variables involved that it's impossible to compare older vs newer as they are just too different. No, the hobbyist today is not likely to repair their ECU but then the hobbyist in 1975 wasn't likely to rewind their Alternator or re-bore their engine either. Those jobs get/got farmed out to specialists and often the cost caused the vehicle to get scrapped.

My Dad had a Volvo 145 bought new in 1972 and he is a by-the-manual servicer. The original B20 engine lasted 90,000 miles and was replaced with a very low mileage B19. At 120,000 miles the car got rear-ended by a tram and insurance paid for a new estate door, which was the ONLY rusty part on the car . At 140,000 he sold it and the guy who bought it neglected it. It lasted 15k miles before it seized and he tried to make my Dad refund him. Dad asked to inspect the car there and then. The guy refused, probably because he had run it out of oil or it was otherwise obvious how it had been neglected.

If well maintained and treated, almost all modern cars will outlast older ones given the same maintenance and treatment.
These days a LOT of people neglect their service intervals which is why a full service log is worth so much when buying used vehicles.