Have car manufacturers really technologically advanced at all?

[bluehighway]

Currently theres a 'chip shortage' which some industry folk claim is affecting sales and production, it got me thinking about when cars didnt rely on chips to run an engine and Im wondering if 'fault finding' wasnt a much simpler task given engines and drivelines were not so hi tech. Would an LS series V8 engine run better with a 4 barrel and dizzy?........lol Now we have higher emission standards and safety features but does all of the technology combined make for a more reliable vehicle if we compared such to mechanically operated control systems over electronically controlled systems... Im thinking the technology has advanced design but im not so sure it has made for a more reliable vehicle?...Your thoughts?
https://www.kinaxis.com/en/blog/how-automotive-manufacturers-can-prepare-ongoing-chip-shortages

 

[vc commodore]

Short term new technology makes an engine run better...For the long term, I don' t think so....Engines naturally produce heat and with the wiring that sits on top of the engine to help it run, this can only effect the wiring.....this will then, in the long term cause the wiring to become brittle and start to fail....When it starts to fail, then the engine won't be running to it's optimum and will be hard to find the cause/s....

The older days, with carbs and dizzies, you only had a few parts to replace to find the problem to keep it running at it's optimum...

We could go into the rest of modern vehicles and do some research on issues that raise their heads, which can be traced back to electronics....even a battery starting to fail causes problems which can be extremely difficult to track down, unlike older non=electronic reliant vehicles

Here's one example that has recently cropped up on here relating to a possible battery issue, which wouldn't crop up on older vehicles

https://forums.justcommodores.com.au/threads/ve-stability-and-air-bag-fault.291075/


Oh and yes my thoughts maybe controversial and it maybe seen as me being well behind the times, but that's the way I see it....

 

[bluehighway]

Yep ,I see so many threads that mention endless electronic fault code problems which it seems sometimes can be related to other system issues and the way electronics interprets an error, sometimes folk have resorted to systematically changing random parts in order to find a solution....mechanical systems that dont rely on electronic monitoring seem to have the edge still...also does a car actually really need abs if its driven correctly according to road conditions and speed restrictions? We probably have made safer cars due to their structural design and the way roads are better engineered but have we made better drivers along the way? How many folk jump in a car and floor it everywhere relying on electronic systems and safer road design to enhance what might actually be flawed driving skills? Im thinking folk these days drive like lunatics compared to days gone bye...

 

[vc commodore]

Yep ,I see so many threads that mention endless electronic fault code problems which it seems sometimes can be related to other system issues and the way electronics interprets an error, sometimes folk have resorted to systematically changing random parts in order to find a solution....mechanical systems that dont rely on electronic monitoring seem to have the edge still...also does a car actually really need abs if its driven correctly according to road conditions and speed restrictions? We probably have made safer cars due to their structural design and the way roads are better engineered but have we made better drivers along the way? How many folk jump in a car and floor it everywhere relying on electronic systems and safer road design to enhance what might actually be flawed driving skills? Im thinking folk these days drive like lunatics compared to days gone bye...

I do agree with your thoughts, however about 6 months ago, I mentioned similar things, that I feel better drivers are the ones in older cars, but others thought I was plain stupid and can't be right....

Interesting times ahead with others when they reply

 

[hademall]

I do agree with your thoughts, however about 6 months ago, I mentioned similar things, that I feel better drivers are the ones in older cars, but others thought I was plain stupid and can't be right....

Interesting times ahead with others when they reply

Ah yes I recall. I believe that discussion came about after I suggested to a young lad that he may be better off buying a cheap new car rather than possibly wasting his money and more on an old Commodore.
I’m not sure anybody implied you were plain stupid, but that’s a matter of interpretation I suppose.
To save a lot of time and effort:- OP=Good first car. Page 7, post 62?

 

[bluehighway]

One thing is certain ,it was very easy to swap out a 202 and whack in a 308 into an HQ , servicing was much less complicated, yes engines had their weak spots, usually cam related but better design has countered some of this for example the cams now are larger diameter around the bearings or geared better ,with technology has come a ' jam it all in there' approach and shift from making it possible for the layman to tinker with settings or service.... I think about some of the 350 cast blocks Ive had and t350-400 trans and know when you kicked it down it did as it was told...not so these days ....the computer processes the input and if its not pulling the right revs according to the onboard program it might decide to lock out your kickdown request...lol.... thus we have the rise of aftermarket chipsets etc.... which in themselves can be problematic .... then we have the 'green mentality' that wants all cars to emit less emissions so vectored into it all comes a playoff between power output and devices that strangle the way an engine breathes, yet another issue that impacts performance and reliability whilst raising production costs.... Nice to think the LS engines are a breakthru ...but are they really that amazing? Seems to me keeping it simple from a manufacturing perspective has gone out the window .Seems to me many of the bells and whistles modern cars have do nothing but raise manufacturing costs and affect durability (now swapping an engine can be very problematic)...Holden hit on something when they had parts across model ranges interchangeability but lost it somewhere along the way and I suspect that it was a drive to increase dealership dependence on servicing and that this caught them out...they went after the servicing dollar when they should of been happy with just supplying parts......and making cars that lay folk could service/modify/tweak.....Did too much technology bury them?... My 10 cents

 

[hademall]

Currently theres a 'chip shortage' which some industry folk claim is affecting sales and production, it got me thinking about when cars didnt rely on chips to run an engine and Im wondering if 'fault finding' wasnt a much simpler task given engines and drivelines were not so hi tech. Would an LS series V8 engine run better with a 4 barrel and dizzy?........lol Now we have higher emission standards and safety features but does all of the technology combined make for a more reliable vehicle if we compared such to mechanically operated control systems over electronically controlled systems... Im thinking the technology has advanced design but im not so sure it has made for a more reliable vehicle?...Your thoughts?
https://www.kinaxis.com/en/blog/how-automotive-manufacturers-can-prepare-ongoing-chip-shortages

I agree with what you say. I think cars, although advanced in lots of ways, are more difficult to diagnose a problem because of the control systems.
Back when I didn’t mind having a go at a problem with a car, things just seemed a lot simpler.
Amongst the usual car maintenance tasks and fixes, I once changed out a blown piston in a Humber Imperial I owned, as well as taking the head off a Volvo 244 DL and grinding all the valves.
Surprisingly to me it all went well and the cars started and ran fine.
Now I just look under a bonnet and scratch my head with a glazed look in my eyes

 

[J_D 2.0]

The advancement over the last 40-50 years has been a double edged sword. On the one hand modern cars last a lot longer than they used to and require less maintenance but when something does go wrong it now costs you a bucket load to get it fixed.

A big part of this problem is that “mechanics“ have basically turned into oil and filter changing centres who now charge you a metric shite tonne to do anything remotely difficult as normally they dont have to do difficult anymore as cars arent blowing head gaskets every 50-100k kilometres.

Back when the man of the house did all the basic servicing work on their families vehicle/s because the factory warranty was only 20,000kms anyway and the family couldn’t afford to take the car to the mechanic every 5000kms for a tune up the mechanic had to compete for the proper work.

Now that they have a constant stream of suckers who don’t even know what a dipstick is they don’t need your business on the big jobs and will actively quote against you to make sure they don’t have to do that job.

 

[vc commodore]

The advancement over the last 40-50 years has been a double edged sword. On the one hand modern cars last a lot longer than they used to and require less maintenance but when something does go wrong it now costs you a bucket load to get it fixed.

A big part of this problem is that “mechanics“ have basically turned into oil and filter changing centres who now charge you a metric shite tonne to do anything remotely difficult as normally they dont have to do difficult anymore as cars arent blowing head gaskets every 50-100k kilometres.

Back when the man of the house did all the basic servicing work on their families vehicle/s because the factory warranty was only 20,000kms anyway and the family couldn’t afford to take the car to the mechanic every 5000kms for a tune up the mechanic had to compete for the proper work.

Now that they have a constant stream of suckers who don’t even know what a dipstick is they don’t need your business on the big jobs and will actively quote against you to make sure they don’t have to do that job.

We also have the catch of the modern car needing a "qualified" service centre to do the basic service at the specified interval to retain the "factory" warranty...

As for less maintenance....Possibily...The last of the V6 Commodore engines asked for 15,0000K intervals between services, which is more than the older engines at 10,000K...However general consensis around the forum is every 7,500K to avoid the dreaded oil sludge build up...Older engines didn't seem to suffer this problem unless of course you left it for 10's of thousands of kays.....

On the flip side there are modern engines that do over the older 10,000K services....Modern diesels for example can do 30,000K inbetween services....
.

I'm a little confused with your comment about head gaskets on earlier model cars blowing around the 50 to 100K mark....The first I recall head issues rearing up, was when alloy heads started becoming common place....Of course this is one area modern technology has come into play, where that problem has been solved, but the old iron headed cars didn't suffer from head gasket problems that I recall....

 

[J_D 2.0]

We also have the catch of the modern car needing a "qualified" service centre to do the basic service at the specified interval to retain the "factory" warranty...

As for less maintenance....Possibily...The last of the V6 Commodore engines asked for 15,0000K intervals between services, which is more than the older engines at 10,000K...However general consensis around the forum is every 7,500K to avoid the dreaded oil sludge build up...Older engines didn't seem to suffer this problem unless of course you left it for 10's of thousands of kays.....

On the flip side there are modern engines that do over the older 10,000K services....Modern diesels for example can do 30,000K inbetween services....
.

I'm a little confused with your comment about head gaskets on earlier model cars blowing around the 50 to 100K mark....The first I recall head issues rearing up, was when alloy heads started becoming common place....Of course this is one area modern technology has come into play, where that problem has been solved, but the old iron headed cars didn't suffer from head gasket problems that I recall....

Head gaskets in my experience seemed to mostly be an issue when you’ve got alloy heads on an iron block, which most cars had from the 1980s until relatively recently. I’ve only ever had to do the head gasket on one iron head (VH blue motor) but did a few on various alloy head engines with iron blocks.

The only full alloy engines I’ve had are the SV6 and SSV I’ve got now. The SV6 is over 320,000kms without any head gasket issues. Can’t verify the provenance of the SSV so I don’t know if it’s still on its original head gasket.