Modern vehicle reliability

Been researching modern vehicle reliability. Seems the most problematic areas are the electronics and transmissions.
I can kinda understand the electrical problems considering the auto industry insists that we want the latest in whatever self-indulgent selfie stick masturbatory electronical infotainment lubrications they can provide.
But wtf is up with the transmission problems?

 

My guess would be more gears, more moving parts, more electronics, and a greater need to do maintenance REGULARLY.

 

I can assure you there's always been issues with transmissions. Even in Toyota land.

 

This^

 

Perhaps you’re right.
On the other hand I’ve had very few transmission problems in the past.

 

I have had transmission problems on manuals and automatics alike.
My Honda, I had to replace the bearings. It never went over 80 after that, but managed to get 2 tickets doing 75.
Automatics.... its a crap shoot, but maintenance is key.

 

Any time a layer of complexity is added, reliability will suffer it’s just simple statistics that there’s more parts to fail. If you want increased reliability without the downtime, you’re talking more redundancy which means more cost, a big no no for auto manufacturers. So they make the most complicated and convenient product for the consumer for the lowest cost which sacrifices the reliability. They also design things to fail for future maintenance costs and parts markups for profit longevity after the vehicle is sold. There is a nice balancing act they must play as not to turn people away from their vehicle because of so many complains, but enough failures where they can guarantee their mechanics and technicians work long after the car leaves the lot.

Add that to increasing horsepower numbers that engines are producing and the transmission quickly becomes the bottleneck.

Cheap, fast, reliable - pick two.

 

To add, they also need to meet strict emission standards which means faster frequent lock up, catalyst monitored shift patterns and reduction weight. It's a battle that is hard to win.

 

A & C

 

There’s a reason why so many older cars are still on the road, and newer ones end up the junkyard a lot sooner. It’s the same theory of tv, iPod, phone, appliances, etc. The products are a throwaway as it’s not worth to repair, sadly that’s where this county is headed, quantity over quality. That leads to many wasted resources over time. There is no troubleshooting at the circuit level, just buy a new black box “module” at some absurd cost because it’s a dealer only part, and nobody really knows how it works.

 

this is true, our government is driving the root cause behind all the complicated electronics, and monitoring systems. All to save a few carbon atoms. Just think when cars go all electronic you won’t even need a transmission as we know them today. It’ll just be a motor with a VFD connected to a driveshaft.

 

If the county is that interested in “going green”, they should limit the amount of kids we can have. I think China did that years ago because the country had too many people.

I say, give me my carbon tooting, catless, rich running vehicle, and make joe blow down the road have 4 kids instead of 5

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/201...tprint-one-government-isn-t-telling-you-about