I am saddened by the loss of American cars. But I do wonder about the future for kids. Someone above mentioned that it would take three years pay for a low wage kid to buy any worthwhile car. I expect that they should diminish in value quickly. All of the computer controls will be the death of them. For instance, I have an '05 Volvo wagon, that I like a lot and have had for a long time. Recently, I lost high beams. The high beam relay is now built into the "Electronic Control Module". OK, $900 for the module, $300 for stealer to reprogram, and I didn't even ask about labor to replace it. So, something over $1200 and what have I regained? High beams, amazing. Fortunately I was a "car kid". I installed a "radio shack" switch, ran power to the high beam fuse and now I have high beams (but inconvenient). Still, it is reasonable to expect a relay to fail, so you build it into a $900 module where it is not independently serviceable. Great. No wonder the Consumer Magazines recommend that you get out of a "luxury" car when the warranty expires.
It was all made clear to me years ago. I was at an auto show and was looking over the '93 Seville with the Northstar (I shouldn't even write that word). The motor was transverse and I mentioned to the salesman that it must be quite a job to replace spark plugs. He said "they last 100,000 miles". I mentioned that sooner or later they would need replacement. He replied "We don't sell used cars". I guess Cadillac survived the Northstar with a pretty good hit to their reputation (some remember the 4-6-8). Then they gave us the 3.6. I really don't know who was running GM, but as they say "When small men cast long shadows, the sun is going down".
I work for a company that builds test equipment. We support a large company that does most HVAC assemblies for a variety of manufacturers. With all of the added convenience features (i.e. I want a cool butt, warm knee, sub-cool crotch, cold right thigh BS, plus the same for the passenger) they modulate and control the ducting using a bunch of custom mechanical link arms tied to a BUNCH of motors. Worst one we ever tested was for the Germans...18 individual motors. All of them individually addressed on a communication BUS. Any of them can fail individually and oh, by the way, good luck getting to any of them to repair or replace. All of this mess is controlled by their own HVAC controller, which again is their own. Yea....once the warranty is gone, run fast and hard.
