The Horror of Modern Cars

kyleb said:
I had to play the ahole card.
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Racerx said:
That is both natural and a very fun card for me to play.
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My mom claims that any negative trait I have she can trace directly back to my father or hers (these things have been known to skip a generation on the mother’s side.) I got stubbornness and lack of tact firmly from both my father and my maternal grandfather. Playing the ahole card is one of the things I do best.
 
cowman said:
I don't think I've seen an aux battery in a regular passenger vehicle before, what's it's purpose?
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Remote start. Not sure why it's a separate battery for that system, but in Jeeps, it is.
 
kyleb said:
SWMBO got a new car this weekend. A Toyota Grand Highlander to be specific. She'd already worked out the deal and the financing before we went to the dealership on Saturday so it only took 3 hours (bash my head into the wall) to finish the deal. A fair portion of the time was consumed being pitched for the extended warranty. On one hand (the buying process)..."Toyotas are insanely reliable...last forever...top tier in all of the consumer reliability data." But once the topic turned to extended warranties "Modern cars are much more complicated than older vehicles. Just the big screen or inverter alone could cost you $5K in repairs and avoiding that would more than pay for the extended warranty." I think the price offered for the 10 year/100K mile warranty was $4K. After listening to the pitch for far too long I asked if the offer would be good tomorrow. "Yep." "OK, we're outta here."

A) I hate pressure sales.
B) If you can buy an extended warranty at about half of the initial asking price, it becomes a reasonable choice.
C) The complicated electronics thing is real. Even a windshield replacement on a modern car is stupid expensive because they not only have to replace the windshield but also have to recalibrate all the sensors, which can run a couple thousand bucks.
D) That used Miata I've been contemplating sounds better and better all the time due to its <relative> simplicity.
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100% correct.

Cars have turned into computers, but these computers are operating in a not so computer friendly environment. Invitation to disaster. A brake light went out on our Denali. You cannot just replace a bulb. You literally have to buy an entirely new light, $400.00. The price is absurd enough, but imagine the waste--all that plastic has to go somewhere.
 
Clip4 said:
if you can’t afford to buy the car without a loan and can’ afford to repair it unless you purchase an extended warranty you most likely will never use, you can’t afford a new car.
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I used to feel that way. I was talked into buying an extended warranty on our Denali, primarily insisted upon by the wife. I figured it was a complete waste of 2500.00. Early this year, transmission failed as did some other components. Total repair bill, 11K+. I ended up walking out the door for 200.00, out of pocket. The cars of today are far more problematic and the cost of repairs on common items is far more than most could conceive.
 
WJG-GMT-RootBeer said:
I used to feel that way. I was talked into buying an extended warranty on our Denali, primarily insisted upon by the wife. I figured it was a complete waste of 2500.00. Early this year, transmission failed as did some other components. Total repair bill, 11K+. I ended up walking out the door for 200.00, out of pocket. The cars of today are far more problematic and the cost of repairs on common items is far more than most could conceive.
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So you bought a truck with well documented transmission issues and paid extra for it? Interesting logic.
 
Omalley1537 said:
RE the reprogramming, it’s not for the settings. In the one I’m familiar with they designed a system that adapts to an aging battery by charging at a slower rate (or similar) to preserve the battery. However, when you put a new battery in, there is nothing to tell the battery management system to go back to “new battery” mode. Thus, without programming intervention, it undercharges the new battery to the point that the vehicle starts disabling features that pull current such as heated seats, etc.

At the end of the day, they could have easily allowed the system to self-reset. Dealers want desperately to force everyone to them for maintenance and this is one way.
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My make/model, you just plug into the OBD2 port and toggle one of the settings. Hardly a "major programming event". But also, my make/model only uses the battery monitor as a data point for the stop-start feature. Since I drive a stick, I don't have the start-stop feature and hence I do not have the battery monitor.
WDD said:
Seem to be saying that insurance is good because you think you’ll be the 1 in 1000 that will need it. The probability of a return on your investment on this insurance is close to nil.
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No. I'm saying that insurance is a form of risk amortization and that it may be appropriate for some circumstances. I've never bought it, but far be it from me to say that my situation is universal and that everyone should do as I do.
 
Got all of you beat.........

iu
 
Bill said:
I just replaced the main and aux batteries on the ‘22 Wrangler. The main battery was easy, the aux battery was a big pain. Had to remove the main battery, then remove the fuse box/PDP, then remove four honkin electrical connectors, then remove the connector tray, move more wires, and then remove the lid to the aux battery box, and then finally fish the battery out of the hell hole where they buried it. Dealer wanted $400 labor plus the cost of batteries, and I said eff that and dove in.


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Did everything work when you were done? My daughter and her husband have a 2021 Chrysler Pacifica. Getting the battery replaced was $600 at the dealer and they found a local garage that did it for $300, but there are a couple of minor electronic features that no longer work and apparently require the dealer to reprogram the systems for $400.
 
My last new car(RAM truck) purchase was in 2022. I knew I was going to go through the extended warranty before buying, so I rolled the process into the sale of the truck. We negotiated over email, and I told them I didn't want the ext warranty and I didn't want to discuss ext warranty, and I would not buy from them if we didn't cover that process in advance. Of course they said no, and I said no sale. Three days later the dealer salesman emails that they will make an exception for me. We can go through the ext warranty before purchase.

Then, he sent an email with some ext warranty info and a link to the post-sales guy, who was rightly confused that I had not already paid my money. He was nice enough and said if I don't want it, that I don't have to buy it(I knew this of course). In closing, he said they offered discounts for vets, and first responders. So I sent him an email back saying load me up the price discount for me: A. Vet, B. First responder, C. Teacher, D. Senior citizen. He gave me a number and it was pretty reasonable, but I know the ext warranty has a poor payout record.

I took the price of the ext warranty back to the sales guy and said 'hey, let us split the cost of this and I'll pay cash'. He refused, ok then thanks. Another three day wait and he emails back that we could do the ext warranty cost split. I'm facing 70, and I don't want to get under or in a big truck to mess with powertrain ever again.

FF to 2026. I'm driving along and when the green ECO light comes on the dash, I get a very mild hum. I drive(towing) it some more and the hum when in ECO gets a bit worse. I know that hum. It's a U joint going oval. Back to the dealer service and I tell them one of my four U joints is failing. They tell me that can't happen they are a 'lifetime' component. I said to the service writer that it's going to fail catastrophically within 3000 miles, and after that they can tow it in(at their cost) and fix it then, or go do it now. 48k miles, mostly towing. We get it on the rack and I tell them what to look for. Yup, the third U joint is disintegrating. No zerk fitting to grease them either. My ext warranty just paid for itself.

I advise them to replace all four but they can't do it. I've got good money says one more of them is going to **** the bed before 100k. I tow 90% of the driving time because that's my use case for having a 3500 RAM 4x4. To tow ~10k Lbs often.

Just wait for the 2027 models anti-drunk driving surveillance features. Should be interesting how that shakes out.
 
eman1200 said:
I just bought a new car and I was shocked how easy it was to tell them to shove all the extras they wanted to sell me right up their arse. They didn’t argue at all and 100% of my negotiating was done before ever stepping inside a dealership. I had the OTD price in an email and I didn’t pay $.01 more while picking it up.
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I spent ten years in a dealership; I tell them that, they become quiet.
 
I leased a car back in January. I did all of my negotiating via email. I had a boilerplate email I would send to a dealer that had the car I wanted, and when they responded, I put all the numbers into AI, and let it sort them out. Every dealer had different fees so it was hard to do an apples to apples comparison. Once I narrowed down the top three, I played each of them off of each other until i got the deal I wanted. Took some time, but having the help from an AI program was super useful. I showed up at the dealer, they tried to upsell me on a few things which I shot down, and that was it. I wanted the lease to be the name of the trust I have vs my name, which took the finance guy a little bit to figure out, and I hit the road.

I was also amazed at some of the BS that I heard from some dealers. I live in NH, so there is no sales tax. You pay the sales tax of the state you are registering the car. There was a dealer in CT that would not budge on charging me sales tax. I also got a quote from a dealer that had a $200 line item for "IT security training". I asked what that was about, and I got a speech on how all their employees are trained to spot IT fraud, and how valuable it was to me as a customer. $200 on a $60k car is a rounding error, but the principle of it was really annoying to me.
 
A lot of you are giving me more good reasons to never again buy from an American car company. My last reminder was when my mom asked me to replace the cabin air filter in her Ford. That requires removing half the dash.
 
Lindberg said:
A lot of you are giving me more good reasons to never again buy from an American car company. My last reminder was when my mom asked me to replace the cabin air filter in her Ford. That requires removing half the dash.
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That’s WHY I bought my Ford…a1992 F-150.
 
Tesla is different.
No negotation or upsells. Most everything done online first, not as organized as I’d hoped for.
30 minutes at dealer, mainly waiting on prior customer, then signatures.

No service pressures either. I’m still getting calls and emails for service on a Honda I sold years ago. VW from 10 years ago finally stopped. Out of state diesel truck now bugging me for oil change from 10 hours away…
 
Clip4 said:
So you bought a truck with well documented transmission issues and paid extra for it? Interesting logic.
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Many manufactures have had serious issues these days, GM is not the only one by far. Pick your poison and roll the dice.
 
Lindberg said:
A lot of you are giving me more good reasons to never again buy from an American car company. My last reminder was when my mom asked me to replace the cabin air filter in her Ford. That requires removing half the dash.
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Times have changed. Ford and GM are basically a truck company now. Chrysler is a brand owned by a Belgium company.

Prices for a new vehicle are so high I’ll not be buying one.

I think vehicles are designed today for low assembly cost and no consideration for maintenance.
 
Groundpounder said:
I live in NH, so there is no sales tax. You pay the sales tax of the state you are registering the car. There was a dealer in CT that would not budge on charging me sales tax.
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I think that some states require a buyer to pay their sales tax if they take delivery within the state. To avoid it, you have to have the car shipped out of state. I don't know if that is true in CT.
 
WDD said:
I think vehicles are designed today for low assembly cost and no consideration for maintenance.
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I said the same thing back in 1975 when I had to loosen the engine mounts and lift the engine about two inches in a Chevrolet Monza to replace that 8th spark plug. That had a lot to do with me finishing college instead of becoming an auto mechanic.
 
I bought two extended warranties (serially) on the same car. Best money I ever spent. But the car was a 2006 Mini Cooper S convertible 6-speed. Bought it used from CarMax. Bought their warranty for $3500. 3 years, unlimited miles if memory serves. Covered nearly $18,000 of repairs. When it expired a bought another one from an after market company after talking with the garage who serviced it for me to find out who actually paid for stuff. ~$4,500. Paid for $8,000 in repairs then they canceled it because the total cost of repairs exceeded the value of the car. Traded it within the month.

Awful car but what a blast to drive!
 
I took my 2016 BMW X3 in for only the second time for a repair of something that cost around $1000 each time for different failures in 153000+ Miles. Routine maintenance like tires, brakes, etc excluded. Never an issue with iDrive infotainment system.

During the time I had a 2026 X3 as a free loaner. Impossible for me to deduce how to operate the infotainment system without at least a 6 hour class. I cannot imagine what all the additional gadgetry will cost on the 2026 version when it inevitably fails.

I also drove my GF’s 2022 Cadillac during this time which only would probably take a 2 hour class to fully understand.

Trying to connect CarPlay was an adventure on both the Caddy and the X3 with the Caddy being the simpler of the two.

I am hoping to wear myself out before the 2016 gives up the ghost and thus avoid a plethora of anguish associated with obtaining a new vehicle loaded with crap I don’t want, won’t use and can’t turn off permanently.
 
jsstevens said:
Did everything work when you were done? My daughter and her husband have a 2021 Chrysler Pacifica. Getting the battery replaced was $600 at the dealer and they found a local garage that did it for $300, but there are a couple of minor electronic features that no longer work and apparently require the dealer to reprogram the systems for $400.
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So far, yes, everything works!
 
If any of these warranties were a screaming deal for consumers, they wouldn’t be pushing so hard to sell them. They sell them because they make a butt load of money on them. I decided long ago I was going to be on the dealer side of making money. So I self ensure everything. Sometimes I lose, most of the time I win over the long run, using that money for more productive endeavors is usually gonna pay off. Even if you buy them, there’s so many things that can happen where you can’t cash them in. Some mentioned above. The sales people know that.
 
asicer said:
What metric are you using to assess awfulness? Is it simply downtime (since the MX was prepaid)? Or was there more?
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Downtime was part of it, though it really was never in the shop for too long. But the sheer volume of repairs and the expense. While warranty covered most of it, it's still a whole bunch of repairs. I replaced it with a 2017 370Z six-speed convertible which has required a wiring harness repair (rats! Not the cars fault) and replacing the soft top and having the top mechanism refurbished due to age and wear. So very different experiences.
 
all this talk of gadgetry makes me want to run out a buy a new car.

not.

but I'm also a guy that doesn't camp out to be first in line to get the latest iphone.
 
kyleb said:
SWMBO got a new car this weekend. A Toyota Grand Highlander to be specific. She'd already worked out the deal and the financing before we went to the dealership on Saturday so it only took 3 hours (bash my head into the wall) to finish the deal. A fair portion of the time was consumed being pitched for the extended warranty. On one hand (the buying process)..."Toyotas are insanely reliable...last forever...top tier in all of the consumer reliability data." But once the topic turned to extended warranties "Modern cars are much more complicated than older vehicles. Just the big screen or inverter alone could cost you $5K in repairs and avoiding that would more than pay for the extended warranty." I think the price offered for the 10 year/100K mile warranty was $4K. After listening to the pitch for far too long I asked if the offer would be good tomorrow. "Yep." "OK, we're outta here."

A) I hate pressure sales.
B) If you can buy an extended warranty at about half of the initial asking price, it becomes a reasonable choice.
C) The complicated electronics thing is real. Even a windshield replacement on a modern car is stupid expensive because they not only have to replace the windshield but also have to recalibrate all the sensors, which can run a couple thousand bucks.
D) That used Miata I've been contemplating sounds better and better all the time due to its <relative> simplicity.
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There is a guy on tiktock delivrd that negotiates it all for your for $1000. I would do that, or buy direct from a manufacturer in a heartbeat before ruining a day at the dealership. Like honestly, it's often the better part of a DAY even if you aren't really trying to get much of a bargain. I hope all the dealerships go under and are burned down.

I've bought one new car in my life, but it was easy because we walked into Porsche, test drove like 3 cars and said, we'll take that one, how much for the trade in. They successfully sold us the extended warranty (I wouldn't own something like this without one, way too many $3,000 computers to break). We got out the door in like 2 hours, including test drives, but it was $115k.

Other times I've tried to buy a more mainstream car like a Chevy, Volvo, etc, it's freakin' asinine and they end up not selling me a car at all, ever, because I'm so fed up with the games.
 
Familiar architecture akin to the Conti-Lycoming engines we fly.
Minimal moving parts.
Fewer fluids to leak.
30 minute engine swap.
Almost no special service tools required.

How many of you complaining about modern cars have not ever had one of these?
VW_K%C3%A4fer_Baujahr_1966.jpg
 
asicer said:
Familiar architecture akin to the Conti-Lycoming engines we fly.
Minimal moving parts.
Fewer fluids to leak.
30 minute engine swap.
Almost no special service tools required.

How many of you complaining about modern cars have not ever had one of these?
VW_K%C3%A4fer_Baujahr_1966.jpg
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We had this instead. Honda N600. 2 cylinder air cooled transverse mounted FWD.

1778804421821.png
 
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