NEW CAR EVERY YEAR ANYONE?
The Increasing Cost Of Technology
Looking back over our job sheets over the past few years, something has become more apparent that I feel I should share with you.
As manufacturers look for more intricate ways of cutting emissions and gaining MPG for their vehicles, they are increasingly relying on expensive engineering or computing solutions. On the face of it this is a good thing for the consumer as vehicle purchase costs remain relatively stable but performance and MPG increases. But what happens when something goes wrong and the vehicle is out of Manufacturer’s Warranty?
I can cite many examples of engineering changes on modern vehicles designed to improve emissions that have somewhat backfired from the point of view of the motorist. Two I want to mention today are “The Dual Mass Flywheel” as a general example and The CVT gearbox used By Honda in a 2007 Hybrid Civic as a more job specific example.
Firstly, the Dual Mass Flywheel. These have now been around for several years but have drastically changed the concept of replacing your clutch on your vehicle. Pre DMF days a clutch consisted of the Plate, Cover and Bearing and could be replaced on the majority of vehicles for a few hundred pounds. These parts where coupled to a solid state flywheel that virtually never required replacing. Then along comes the DMF which as a concept improves the efficiency of the clutch operation and therefore helps cut down emissions and improves MPG.
However, the flywheel has now become a complex piece of engineering, rather than a “plate of Steel” and as such is prone to failure. Based on our experience I would say that 80% of clutch failures now require a DMF replacement as either a consequence of the failure or a direct cause of the failure.
The result to the consumer? Increased cost!
Clutch replacement jobs where a DMF is replaced at the same time are costing on average £250.00 more than a clutch on its own!
Secondly, and more specifically the CVT gearbox fitted to a 2007 Honda Civic Hybrid. We have one of these vehicles in our workshop at present; the vehicle was presented to us with a noisy gearbox. We have removed the gearbox, stripped it down to find the fault, and have found a bearing that has collapsed. Simple, you might think. Not so, the CVT type transmission is again a product of manufacturers’ desire to save fuel and cut emissions, and more and more manufacturers are turning to this type of transmission for use in their automatic drivetrain vehicles.
The problem with this particular one is one of availability. The bearing we require to fix the gearbox is not available from any source, not even Honda themselves. It is only available from Honda in an assembled drivetrain (half a gearbox). The cost of this drivetrain? £3626.00 plus VAT!
So a bearing which should have cost between £40-100 max is now costing £3626.00, and we still have the labour to add to this cost.
What do these examples and others I could mention tell us about the future for car ownership, well to my mind it clearly shows that in the used car market as cars get older and therefore cheaper to buy, they are becoming increasingly expensive to fix. In some instances the cost of repair is close to or exceeds the value of the vehicle. Meaning more cars ending their life prematurely and consequently more new cars sold!
Could it be that one day cars become disposable like so much else in our modern world? Remember the TV repair man?
Conspiracy? You decide!
TTFN
