Those pennies per car saved in manufacturing are costing big bucks. Thats becoming more true with all manufacturers.
Theae computerized actuators and sensors are doing nothing for the car buying public.
> Those pennies per car saved in manufacturing are costing big bucks. <
A friend of mine had a Buick with chronic transmission problems. A mechanic told him what the problem was. A small transmission part used to be made of steel. But then it was made of aluminum. And the aluminum failed.
This is what happens when engineers are not at the top of the design pyramid.
“These computerized actuators and sensors are doing nothing for the car buying public.“
My wife called me and the headlight wouldn’t go off in her escape. I googled the problem. It could have been a faulty switch in any one of the five doors. It could have been a stuck relay. It could have been a bad DRL sensor. It could have been the Body Control Module or a faulty multifunction switch. If it was the body control module, a thing which can figure in in almost any malfunction of a control it’s five hundred dollars and a trip to the dealer to acclimate the computer to the new module. Unbelievable.
“Those pennies per car saved in manufacturing are costing big bucks. That’s becoming more true with all manufacturers.”
This represents a business model change. The dealership sales department is no longer the profit center part of the business. It’s only job is to get the customer behind the wheel.
In Detroit (or where ever) they build vehicles with cheaper materials and designed to not be serviceable by the owner. The higher rate of failure then requires the vehicle to be repaired by the dealer’s service department where the profit margins are hundred of percentage points over what is reasonable.