This TTAC article on modern electronics is a real wake-up call. Does anyone have any general suggestions on how we can prepare for this problem if the car will be a keeper? Thanks for your insights.

 

This guy's summery sums it up nicely.

"# Pch101 :
December 14th, 2007 at 11:22 am

Well, this is the part of the trilogy that I was waiting for. And you’ve hit the nail on the head with this one.

When I read on bulletin boards about car owners who intend to own their cars for 15 years, I just shake my head and wonder if they’ve ever looked under the hood or elsewhere to see what makes a 2008 car different from one built in 1988 or 1978. Those electronic gizmos are going to die long before that ever happens, and take the car down with them because the parts are too costly and the DIY mechanic won’t be able to replace them.

Cars today are far more reliable than they ever have been, but they are less durable. They will give more trouble-free service, but their total service lives will be shorter.

The age of passing your 20-year old beater onto your kid so he can travel cheaply and learn how to keep it running is dead. The analogy of the 8-year old computer is very much on point. The beater won’t be worth fixing, a computer swap will cost more than the car is worth."

 

sounds like a silly article to me... BS crap

 

This Doom & Gloom scenario is not as truthful as you might think. Comparing an 8 year old car (computer) to an 8 year old computer is totally bogus. Before you start to dismiss my comment, understand I have been working for Intel for the last 11 years and have been in the computer industry since the early '80s.

One of the respondents mentioned the same thing. He pointed out that the 8 year old computer had to contend with all the operating system and software upgrades, something that is not necessary with an car's computer. In 8 years it will still be doing the same job with the same software and firmware as it did when it was new.

As far as reliability goes, it is the moving parts within the computer and not so much the electronics (especially the CPU) that fail into the "when not if" failure category. The processor and electronics associated with them fail at a very low rate. One of my jobs My job is to convince independent manufacturers that their customers really need a new computer to keep up with all the changes. There is something called "Moore's Law" that says that computing power and speeds double approximately every 18 months. This has held true for over 20 years and in fact has accelerated in the last two.

Again the problem isn't so much with the computer, but with all the new strides in the OS and programs. If those things had not changed, those 8 year old (and older) systems would still be state of the art.

This is not to say they won't fail, just that they are far more reliable than the mechanical parts. The biggest problem lies with, if they do fail 10-15 years down the road, will they be available? I think I just might have to buy a replacement and keep it in a dark dry place just in case. LOL

 

Thanks for your expert analysis above, which makes perfect sense. My concern, like yours, is with the availability of replacement parts, not with potential conflicts or upgrades. I wonder if it might make sense for some of us long-termers to start warehousing some of these parts as a hedge for the future? A centrally available source that we could trust (i.e., a member of this forum) with the space and the knowledge to do that would be a real blessing.

 

Rip out all the emissions control crap and install a standalone fuel management system. You'll lose 100 lbs and spend $500. BIG DEAL.

 

There are indeed 2 valid points in this discussion. One, whether or not our car computers are actually like or similar to our PC's & Two, will our car computers fail in the long run.
SRT Six answers the first point & he's absolutely correct with the reliability of the actual electronics. In 30+ years of working on computers (PC's to mainframes) I think I've replaced maybe 10 or so actual CPU's & related processors. Memory cards & chips, power supplies, cables & connectors - enough to fill a landfill but the actual electronic brains? Nope.
Now will the whole shebang fail in the future? Probably. It's not the electronics; it's the stuff that keeps it connected. Cold or cracked solder joints, oxidized connectors, loose boards, heat, split cables, rodents, nuclear war, Rosie O'Donnell (OK, I'm only semi-kidding about the last 3!) all those will be the killers & just try staring at the back of a circuit board sometime trying to find a cracked or crappy solder joint. Such fun shouldn't be legal.
It might not be a bad idea to slowly build up a wee collection of some of the more vital electronic components. Forget the switches & little things; odds are that in the future you'll be able to score those from junk dealers. Keep them in anti-static bags (available from Radio Shack or you can ask your IT guy at work) & keep them in a cool, dry place. Voila'!

 

Well, a good way to prepare is to do what we are already doing on this forum. Keeping a knowledge base of issues and the fixes for the issues. This will help in diagnosing problems and narrowing the repair.