PING: Ted Mittlestadt

"Bill Putney" > wrote in message
...
> Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> > "Rick" > wrote in message
> > . ..
> >
> >>Of the many 19-24 yr old "young male" friends I occasionally meet that
hang
> >>with my kids, it is a rare one today that has even a clue or interest in
> >>learning about how to do the simplest car repair or even maintenance.
> >>Most say, "Wow, I wish I knew how to do that!" when they see me changing
> >>out a thermostat or belt. But then they walk away with no further
interest.
> >>
> >>So, unless a they pay a store to install such a device for them, it wont
get
> >>installed.
> >>Why is that?
>
> > Because mommy and daddy have enough cash to pay for most of the costs
> > for junior to drive a car around.
> >
> > When your kid turns 16, 17 do you want to be driving him around all day
long
> > to his firends, band practice, dates, football practice, etc. etc. etc.?
> > When you and
> > spouse are both working? He can't do half of the activities he wants to
do
> > if
> > he has to rely on the bus system.
> >
> > What happens is with any "good kid" ie; teenager who is getting B's in
> > school,
> > mommy and daddy go through a process of convincing themselves that the
> > kid "deserves" the car when the reality is mommy and daddy just don't
want
> > to
> > be bothered acting as driver. So they go find a car for junior, and pay
for
> > the
> > car, pay for insurance, pay for major repairs - and the kid gets a
> > rediculous
> > view of the costs of actually running a vehicle.
> >
> > 3-4 years later the tone has been set and it's a lost cause.
> >
> > What you want to do is start in with them when they are 14-15 years old.
> > You teach them to do all the maintainence crap, changing fluids,
changing
> > wiper blades, tires, etc. You start teaching them on the theory of the
> > internal
> > combustion engine. When they hit driving age you tell them they can get
a
> > car
> > but they have to pay everything for it. Including insurance. You tell
them
> > that
> > you will buy any tool they need to fix their car - but they have to buy
all
> > parts,
> > do all labor - or pay someone to do it - with thier own money.
> >
> > When the kid realizes that if they do the work themselves it means the
> > difference
> > between being able to afford the car or not afford the car - they are
going
> > to do
> > the work. Even if they dislike doing it. And of course, once they do
the
> > work enough
> > it gets easier and easier to do, and their stock of tools is built up
more
> > and more,
> > and eventually its second nature to them.
> >
> > Ted
>
> Though I agree with you Ted, that today is considered, to quote Radar
> O'Reilly, horse and buggy thinking. It's almost to the point that if
> you did that, social services would take the kid away from you for abuse.
>

Sigh. I know. Somehow in the 60's I think the idea took place that
children
spring from the womb possessing a complete sense of empathy, a strong
sense of responsibility, and the desire to practice delayed gratification,
and
parents **** that up by interfering in the kids normal development.

Children are
like water, they will always choose the easiest thing to do at the time,
even
if a succession of such choices leads to them being a 300 pound couch
potato that sits in front of a Sony Playstation all day long and flunks out
of High School.

Maturing is the process of developing motivation and responsibility, and
there are a great number of adults walking around today whose parents
have never forced them to mature.

I suppose it's a bit much to ask the MasterCard generation to teach
fiscal responsibility to their children.

Ted

Come on, chaps. Cars are much more reliable than they used to be and car
repair skills are just not that important any more. Plus some parts of cars
are much harder to repair yourself.

Get over it... ;-)

AND: it's "black boxes" with NO apostrophe.

DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling
---

"Ted Mittelstaedt" > wrote in message
...
[...]

> Sigh. I know. Somehow in the 60's
[...]

More reliable????

I have calculated the Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) for Electronic
Assemblies using the MIL-STD-217E.

I can tell you definitively that todays cars are NOT more relaible
than those of yesterday! The more plumbing and electronic modules
incorporated into the car, the LESS reliable it is.

Just because the systems have self-diagnostics which can detect and
advise of a problem BEFORE the system fails does not make it more
reliable!

The main problem with cars of old was that regular maintenance was
required, and people FAILED to do that maintenance! So those cars
would break down, and could well leave you stranded if they were not
properly maintained.

Cars of today are less likely to leave you stranded, but they still
will require the replacement of a defective part or module. And those
electronic modules are NOT CHEAP! Not to mention the $100+ per hour
"special electronic diagnostic" charge to determine what the problem
is in the first place!

North American Auto Makers are in business to make money. This is done
in two ways: 1) Sell you a car, and 2) Make damn good and sure that
you will either have to buy a new car within 5 years OR make darn good
and sure you will be shelling out for maintenance should you not
decide to buy a new car!

The more complicated a system is, the more difficult and expensive it
is to fix.

In the summer I camped next to a couple who had a 1948 Chevrolet. This
car was equiped with a "straight six" of around 230 CID. That car,
even as heavy as it was, got comparable (or better) gas mileage than
my 2002 Grand Caravan. So there has been little or NO improvement in
the figures that COUNT - M.P.G. Safety has improved. Creature comforts
have improved. However, cost of lomg-term ownership has been
deliberately made prohibative by overcomplicated designs which are
designed with one thing in mind - obsolescense! Evenif you decide to
keep your new car "forever", you may not be able to! All that has to
happen is that a critical electronic module gets discontinured (even
in the aftermarket), and then that "module" fails. Voila! You WILL be
buying a new car.

The difference is that their 1948 Chevrolet still has the original
steering gear! I cannot say the same for my GC as mine was just
replaced at 98,000 kms. Shameful.

I used to have a 1968 Nova with a 250 CID engine. Regular Oil Changes,
Annual Tune Ups, and VERY INEXPENSIVE and very simple mechanical
repairs - many of which I could do myself! That car NEVER - and I mean
NEVER left me stranded. And it did NOT cast me a small fortune to
maintain either.

Newer cars are harder to repair yourself because they have been
DESIGNED that way - deliberately! The big 3 want your $$$$!

On Mon, 8 Jan 2007 13:10:51 -0000, "Dori A Schmetterling"
> wrote:

>Come on, chaps. Cars are much more reliable than they used to be and car
>repair skills are just not that important any more. Plus some parts of cars
>are much harder to repair yourself.
>
>Get over it... ;-)
>
>AND: it's "black boxes" with NO apostrophe.
>
>DAS
>
>For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling
>---
>
>"Ted Mittelstaedt" > wrote in message
...
>[...]
>
>> Sigh. I know. Somehow in the 60's
>[...]
>
>

NewMan wrote:

> More reliable????
>
> I have calculated the Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) for Electronic
> Assemblies using the MIL-STD-217E.
>
> I can tell you definitively that todays cars are NOT more relaible
> than those of yesterday! The more plumbing and electronic modules
> incorporated into the car, the LESS reliable it is.

Exactly. The reliability of each component may have increased, but the
number of parts (not just the black boxes, but the number of integrated
circuits, resisotrs, diodes, transistors, etc., etc.) has probably gone
up by over two orders of magnitude. When you do the statistical
calulation of so-many-parts-per-million failures (multiplying that times
the number of parts that there are to fail), you have to improve that
more than you increase the number of parts that there are to fail.
Probably the net effect is that both factors have increased neck and
neck, possibly the overall reliability is ahead - BUT, the cost of the
repair when something does fail has increased an order of magnitude (and
so has the complexity and cost of the diagnosis process if it is
something that doesn't specifically get identified by a plug-in
diagnostic tool).

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

"NewMan" > wrote in message
...
> More reliable????
>
> I have calculated the Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) for Electronic
> Assemblies using the MIL-STD-217E.
>
> I can tell you definitively that todays cars are NOT more relaible
> than those of yesterday! The more plumbing and electronic modules
> incorporated into the car, the LESS reliable it is.
>

Ah, but what matters is if the plumbing is part of a critical system or not.

A failing electronic climate control model does not make the vehicle more
unreliable. You can live with it.

> Just because the systems have self-diagnostics which can detect and
> advise of a problem BEFORE the system fails does not make it more
> reliable!
>
> The main problem with cars of old was that regular maintenance was
> required, and people FAILED to do that maintenance! So those cars
> would break down, and could well leave you stranded if they were not
> properly maintained.
>
> Cars of today are less likely to leave you stranded, but they still
> will require the replacement of a defective part or module. And those
> electronic modules are NOT CHEAP! Not to mention the $100+ per hour
> "special electronic diagnostic" charge to determine what the problem
> is in the first place!
>
> North American Auto Makers are in business to make money. This is done
> in two ways: 1) Sell you a car, and 2) Make damn good and sure that
> you will either have to buy a new car within 5 years OR make darn good
> and sure you will be shelling out for maintenance should you not
> decide to buy a new car!
>

I disagree with this. The factories don't make much off of the vehicle
maintainence. For starters most people only take their cars to the
dealerships during the warranty period and once the warranty is out they
find a cheaper independent mechanic, and that mechanic will often
use NAPA or other aftermarket part that does not go through the
factory parts network. If the factory designs a part to fail frequently
and often they are just making it cost-effective for the aftermarket to
design a substitute. Sure, the factory makes money off specialty parts,
but they have to inventory those parts too. I don't see how the factory
makes much money off a $5 emission hose that they paid a vendor 50
cents for - but then had to inventory for 18 years.

The ones that make the real money off maintainence are the dealerships.

Now you might argue the factory is doing this to give the dealerships
money, but I think a much more obvious explanation is that the factory
thinks they are saving money when they replace a mechanical system with
an electronic one.

The factories insure a new sale every 5 years by convincing people who
have too much extra money floating around in their bank account that
they need to buy a new car every 5 years. And they do this with marketing
and advertising campaigns, the same as everyone else, and those
campaigns work very well as witnessed by the flood of used vehicles
on the market that have many more years of life in them.

Anybody other than a fleet like a rental company who sells a car with
only 80K miles on the clock has fallen for one of these campaigns. You can
prove to them they lose money when they do this, quite easily in fact,
but they will refuse to believe the figures even when placed right in
front of them.

> The more complicated a system is, the more difficult and expensive it
> is to fix.
>
> In the summer I camped next to a couple who had a 1948 Chevrolet. This
> car was equiped with a "straight six" of around 230 CID. That car,
> even as heavy as it was, got comparable (or better) gas mileage than
> my 2002 Grand Caravan. So there has been little or NO improvement in
> the figures that COUNT - M.P.G.

Yes, that's a given.

> Safety has improved. Creature comforts
> have improved. However, cost of lomg-term ownership has been
> deliberately made prohibative by overcomplicated designs which are
> designed with one thing in mind - obsolescense! Evenif you decide to
> keep your new car "forever", you may not be able to! All that has to
> happen is that a critical electronic module gets discontinured (even
> in the aftermarket), and then that "module" fails. Voila! You WILL be
> buying a new car.
>

Not true, since the wrecking yards are going to have replacements, and
if the module is so failure prone that none of the wrecked cars in the
wrecking yards are going to have working replacements, then the
aftermarket will be there to supply a replacement since the market
for one will exist.

The only place where this has validity is if you really do intend to keep
your car "forever" Such as the 48 year old Chevy. Yes, you will probably
have difficulty finding replacement electronics for that. However, someone
who is a collector can probably fabricate mechanical systems to replace
the electronic ones. Or retrofit an entirely different engine into the
vehicle.
It can be done. But, you would I think be surprised how much old
electronics are available nowadays on places like Ebay. If you really are
determined to keep that 2002 GC going for another 50 years, I would
bet that 50 years from now you can still get old engine computers for it,
although you might have to wait 6 months for one to become available
on the used market.

> The difference is that their 1948 Chevrolet still has the original
> steering gear! I cannot say the same for my GC as mine was just
> replaced at 98,000 kms. Shameful.
>
> I used to have a 1968 Nova with a 250 CID engine. Regular Oil Changes,
> Annual Tune Ups, and VERY INEXPENSIVE and very simple mechanical
> repairs - many of which I could do myself! That car NEVER - and I mean
> NEVER left me stranded. And it did NOT cast me a small fortune to
> maintain either.
>

The downside is that it most likely discharged a whole lot more pollution
than a modern vehicle does. It makes it unworkable in a place like LA
today

Ted

> Newer cars are harder to repair yourself because they have been
> DESIGNED that way - deliberately! The big 3 want your $$$$!
>
> On Mon, 8 Jan 2007 13:10:51 -0000, "Dori A Schmetterling"
> > wrote:
>
> >Come on, chaps. Cars are much more reliable than they used to be and car
> >repair skills are just not that important any more. Plus some parts of
cars
> >are much harder to repair yourself.
> >
> >Get over it... ;-)
> >
> >AND: it's "black boxes" with NO apostrophe.
> >
> >DAS
> >
> >For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling
> >---
> >
> >"Ted Mittelstaedt" > wrote in message
> ...
> >[...]
> >
> >> Sigh. I know. Somehow in the 60's
> >[...]
> >
> >
>

In article >,
"Ted Mittelstaedt" > wrote:

> The only place where this has validity is if you really do intend to keep
> your car "forever" Such as the 48 year old Chevy. Yes, you will probably
> have difficulty finding replacement electronics for that. However, someone
> who is a collector can probably fabricate mechanical systems to replace
> the electronic ones. Or retrofit an entirely different engine into the
> vehicle.

Electronics in a 48 Chev.?
Oh yes, the radio which is better replaced anyway because vacuum tubes
are now a very premium price if you can even find them.