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by moandcompany 846 days ago
While many individual components may be better, or the chassis may be stronger and more rigid due to manufacturing improvements, materials, adhesives, etc, a lot of newer cars seem to have far more subsystems, arguably more complexity, and accordingly more failure modes.
1 comments
XorNot 846 days ago
Having more potential failure modes is not the same as being more likely to fail. In fact in a car it's not even clear that it makes the unusable.
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moandcompany 845 days ago
It is technically correct that having more potential failure modes is not the same as being more likely to fail, but... now there are many more ways that car subsystems can fail, and they can render the car unusable, force the car into "limp mode," or reduce overall long-term reliability. The added complexity can also increase the cost of repair, rendering the repair a non-economical choice for the owner.

For a car, examples can include drive/brake by wire controls, traction controls, a variety of fuel efficiency (e.g. variable cylinder management), additional emissions controls, etc.

Some examples of non-powertrain related features can include windshield rain sensors, headlight leveling sensors, etc.

The manufacturer trend toward smaller-displacement turbocharged engines in ICE designs in pursuit of emissions and fuel economy performance is one of the most obvious areas of added complexity and failure modes where the long-term trade-offs are questionable. In general, serviceability has gone down, with greater need for maintenance. Fuel economy in actual driving applications often aren't as good as promised on paper and end up being comparable to the naturally aspirated engines they replaced.

The ownership experience of stuff when new versus after five or ten years is now a very different experience. Many things seem to be more obviously designed for lease or designed to be "reliable" within its factory warranty window.

If I paid for a heated seat subscription in a new vehicle, would the manufacturer would also ensure that the heated seats were still physically working if it broke?

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