Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 14th Jun 2012 02:49 UTC
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Member since:
2007-04-06
If my glasses are too rose-coloured, mehtinks yours are maybe too tinged with cynicism.
It is certainly doable, and I think not as difficult as you imagine it. I think there are some people who would see the value of a self-serviceable car; perhaps not enough to make it marketably viable, but there are people who would pay for the ability to repair and *tinker* with their vehicles. If there weren't people like that, things like Linux and Arduinos and Raspberry Pis wouldn't exist at all.
So yes, I might buy it, if it could be made at not a significant premium, which I think it could be, if there was sufficient demand.
And I don't think that the old self-serviceable cars were really THAT unreliable. In fact, I tend to think that when the trend toward non-user-servicable vehicles took off in the 80s is when we really started to see a decline in quality and reliability. Don't make the mistake of comparing a 2010s vehicle with one from the 60s and concluding that user serviceability makes cars unreliable. That's hardly a fair comparison.
Nor am I suggesting to get rid of things like computerized safety controls, only to make them accessible to the amateur technician. Many modern cars are basically designed to lock out all but the dealer-certified mechanics; not even that modern, I remember I had a 94 Sable that required special, impossible to find tools to do even the most basic maintainance tasks.