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Its on google docs, and is very important.

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The car community can span a wide range of individuals, including car enthusiasts, collectors, owners, mechanics, and fans. The car community is characterized by a shared passion for cars and automotive culture. Whether its a Honda, or a Hellcat it does not matter as long as it has four wheels you can be in the car community.

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Some ways the car community, and or the average joe can fight back against this issue is to get vocal about these issues. Have car companies follow certain industry standards that promote the simplification of electronic systems, making them more user-friendly for both professionals and DIYers. Encourage manufacturers to adopt standardized diagnostic interfaces, making it easier for independent mechanics and DIYers to access and interpret diagnostic information. Furthermore consumers can support legislation that encourages manufacturers to design vehicles with reparability in mind.

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Why is it something you should care about?

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Why is it something you should care about?

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Because it saves you money, do you want more money?

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There are many challenges that DIY mechanics face, when working on modern vehicles due to the increasing complexity introduced by advanced electronics and technology. Despite these challenges, this article encourages DIYers by suggesting strategies to adapt with the evolving landscape of the car industry.

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Modern cars have made our lives easier in a lot of ways. They have better gas mileage, more comfort and luxury equipment, they move faster, and brake sooner. But all of these advancements in engineering and technology come at a cost. Have new cars left the realm of DIY repair ability?
New cars are certainly harder to work on for the DIY mechanic. New cars are decentralized electronically, they have more electronic components, and are therefore more complicated. This makes new car maintenance difficult for DIYers without electronic diagnostic equipment and knowledge on how to use it.
Lets take a look at why cars have become more difficult for DIYers to work on. Lets also look at what you can do as a DIYer to continue to save money on car repair and fix some of these problems yourself.

How are cars harder to work on?

Advanced electronics are no longer solely a province of luxury vehicles. You can find things such as seat warmers, active steering assist, complicated navigation systems, smart braking systems and adaptive cruise controls on any new car whether it is a 2021 BMW or a 2021 Honda Civic.

Simple tasks such as changing a battery in a modern BMW necessitates a trip to the dealership to have the computer recalibrated. If you are having an issue with the car not starting after changing a battery, check out this article!

Water pumps today are often electronic instead of mechanic and are not even driven by the serpentine belt. Even a simple headlight can require that you remove the headlight assembly and bulbs can cost more than $100 if your particular vehicle requires specialty HID Bulbs.

Mechanics typically begin a repair in a modern car by plugging an expensive diagnostic tool into the OBD port. Depending on the particular problem your independent mechanic may not even be able to fix it. I have personally had this issue in the context of a BMW because the independent mechanic did not have the flashing equipment to reset the ECU after replacing the anti-theft module.

Going back in the past to vehicles produced as recently as the late 1990s and early 2000s cars had far fewer bells and whistles that the DIYer had to contend with. You still needed a scan tool, but you could get away with owning a cheap $20-$40 tool and it would do everything that you needed it to. In fact, the vast majority of repairs I have had to perform on 90s BMWs did not even require that I crank out a code scanner.

The CAN BUS System

The CAN Bus system allows all of the sensors in a car to communicate with each other without having to use the main ECU every time. This system is extremely important to modern cars because without it you would have to have each wire connect from the ECU to the sensor and back. With CAN Bus you can save an enormous amount on wiring inside of the car.

The CAN Bus system not only saves on manufacturing cost but it also has allowed manufacturers to install more bells and whistles in cars without having to add considerably more wiring. The CAN Bus system is also why most modern cars have dozens of computers.

The CAN Bus system has its benefits but it has also contributed to the increasing complexity of modern cars and the difficulty that DIY mechanics face in diagnosing problems. At this point it is nearly impossible to diagnose a problem with a sensor or car computer without some electronic diagnostic equipment.

Why have new cars become harder to work on?

It's clear that cars have become harder for the DIYer to work on, but why have car manufacturers universally moved in this direction toward ever more complex systems and technology?

Car manufacturers don't have a lot of incentive to make DIY friendly cars

There is a lot of competition within the car manufacturing space. The most effective way for any business to outcompete their competition in a relatively free market is to respond to their customers, and the automotive industry is no different.

Unfortunately for us DIYers the vast majority of people don't consider ease of repair as an important factor in selecting a new car. Many people may buy Hondas or Toyotas because of their reputation for reliability, but most people don't consider how easy it will be to fix problems as they arise.

Intuitively, this makes sense because most car owners nowadays don't replace much more than windshield wipers and seat covers. Car manufacturers don't have a lot of incentive to make vehicles that are easy to work on. They are much more concerned with bells and whistles, interior comfort, exterior styling, gas mileage, and driver assist technology. Luxury car manufacturers can focus even less on ease of repair because most people driving new BMWs are not interested in fixing it themselves anyways.

Not only do manufacturers not have a lot of incentive to make DIY-friendly cars. They have some incentive to make cars less DIY-friendly. If car manufacturers strove to make the perfect car that the average sixteen year old could rebuild they would never earn another dime from dealership service departments. Dealership servicing is a big business for car manufacturers and no one would take their cars to the dealership if they didn't have to. Here are some examples of what you get when manufacturers have no incentive to make DIY-friendly cars:

On Mercedes Benz E-Class 2010-2016: To replace a headlight, not a headlight assembly, just a regular old headlight you have to remove the wheel well liner and move around some components to gain access to the headlight bulb!

Ford Duratec V6: To replace the spark plugs on front-wheel drive models you must remove the manifold, along with all of the hoses and wiring that attaches to the manifold.

Consumers want more bells and whistles

Modern car owners love bells and whistles. Reverse cameras, entertainment centers, push to start ignition, heated massage seats, I could go on for days about the latest technologies that are being thrown into vehicles. Recently, automatic start-stop systems have become all the rage and now your car will automatically turn off when it is stopped in traffic. It seems like every year now something new is coming into the market. The problem is that each new sensor that a manufacturer throws into a car makes the vehicle more inaccessible for DIYers. One example that shocked me is that apparently there is more computer code in a modern Mercedes S Class than in a Boeing Dreamliner.

What can you do if you are a DIYer?

All is not lost, I still take a stab at most problems on the modern cars that my family owns, although my diagnosing procedure is certainly different than what I do with my older BMWs.

Modern cars still have lots of the same components

Brake pads, water pumps, radiators, spark plugs, mass air flow, idle control valve, throttle body, coolant hoses, what do all of these components have in common? You can find them on any car from the 1990s, but you can also find them on any new car.

The more things change the more they remain the same. Yes, new cars have changed a lot but there are a lot of components that are the same. Brake pads usually do not require any specialty equipment whether the car is a 2020 or a 1995. Despite the increasing complexity of cars, there are still lots of repairs that a DIY mechanic can diagnose and repair with relative ease.

Get a scan tool

Scan tools are an absolute most for the modern DIYer if you want to do more than change the brake pads or spark plugs. You don't need to spend thousands of dollars on the latest software and electronic equipment, but the days of buying a $25 OBD 2 scanner are behind us. Cheap generic scan tools are not utterly useless, but you would be amazed with how much you can do with a higher end scan tool.

$100-$300 on a scan tool sounds like a lot of money, but with mechanics frequently charging $100 or more an hour for labor you really want to give yourself the option to fix a lot of this stuff yourself.

You can check out one of my favorite scan tools here.

There are a lot more resources available

The modern era brings along a lot of pluses and minuses, but one of the biggest pluses is the mass availability of free video resources. YouTube is an absolute goldmine and it is so helpful that we sometimes overlook the fact that it is still a relatively new resource. YouTube is absolutely packed with thousands of resources for automotive DIYers. Use YouTube to your advantage and remember that if you have a problem with your car, chances are that someone else has and it has been uploaded to YouTube.

Stay away from new cars that have been in wrecks

I mentioned the CAN Bus system earlier, but one of the disadvantages of it is that it makes wrecked vehicles even more undesirable. With more than seventy on board computers it can be nearly impossible to locate exactly which ones have been damaged after a vehicle collision. This is one of the reasons why cars are so much more frequently marked as totaled after car accidents than they used to be.

It's just not worth it to buy a newer discounted car that was in a wreck. You will likely drive yourself bananas trying to find which electronics are damaged.

Be aware that some cars are less DIY-friendly than others

You should also be aware that not all vehicles are equally as difficult on DIYers. Luxury vehicles such as Mercedes Benz, BMW, and Audi have long held a reputation for being hard to work on. American and Japanese car manufactures do not have that reputation, although Japanese cars have long been considered more reliable.

If you want to perform most of the maintenance on your new car, I recommend that you research what the DIY forums say about the vehicle. You will get a better impression of what you are in for by seeing what other people have to say about the ease of repair.

Will new cars get more difficult to work on?

If current trends in vehicles continue, I suspect that automotive DIYers will be a very rare breed within the next ten to fifteen years. A 1996 BMW is light years behind a 2020 BMW in complexity, cost of maintenance, and difficulty of repair, and this has made DIYers an ever rarer group among BMW owners. The same fate is likely to awaits other car manufacturers if trends continue.

A few years ago I had the opportunity to pick the brain of an old school mechanic. When I mentioned that I was tacitly considering opening a mechanic shop when I moved back to my hometown, his grin quickly turned to a frown. "Stay out of this industry, with the way cars are changing today, and the rising cost of various diagnostic equipment and scan tools, the dealerships are going to run everyone out of business eventually."

Conclusion

There is no denying the fact that new cars are becoming more complex and less DIY friendly. They are faster, more fuel efficient, and have more safety features, but they are also more difficult to repair.

While it's true that new cars are more difficult to repair, I believe that a motivated DIYer with a good quality scan tool can still save lots of money and perform most of the repairs himself. I still maintain my family's personal fleet of vehicles and they range in age from 1996-2019. With the enormous amount of resources available and relatively inexpensive diagnostic equipment I believe that there is still some room for the DIYer!

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Are New Cars Harder to Work On? | A Better BMW

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Modern cars have made our lives easier in a lot of ways. They have better gas mileage, more comfort and luxury equipment, they move faster, and brake sooner. But all of these advancements in engineering and technology come at a cost. Have new cars left the realm of DIY repair ability?

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Have you ever tried to change your sparkplugs, only to find that there on the bottom of the engine. Now you have to go to a specialized mechanic to change your spark plugs instead of doing it yourself at home. Currently it is getting harder for the average person to repair their car themselves. Thus requiring them to go to a mechanic and pay more money.

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The evolution of vehicle repairs have brought many wonderful advancements in cars, but is also has hindered the DIY crowd. Modern cars, particularly those produced after the 1990s, have become more intricate due to advancements in technology and changing consumer demands. Nevertheless there can be some ways to combat this if you 2024 cyber-punk vehicle breaks down. To start you must identify the complexity of the issue and it should be evaluated by the process of deduction, with the consideration given to the nature of the problem and available resources at your disposal.

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Have you noticed a change in the picture you see under the hood of your car? There's more there. Vehicle repairs are certainly a lot more complicated than they used to be a couple of decades ago, and for a good reason.

Over time, what we need from our vehicles has changed, and the mechanics have changed as well. If you have noticed that fixing your car isn't quite as easy as it once was, you're definitely onto something.

Let's work together to dispel the mystery of the situation.

Are Modern Cars Harder to Repair?

Modern cars are a bit more in-depth than ones made before 1990. Vehicles have more components these days, as drivers' demands have shifted. Technology is the name of the game now, and people want their cars to be more capable and safe. The added functionality means less space under the hood and more complicated fixes when something breaks.

Additionally, people before the 1980s spent more time fixing their own mechanical issues. But the vehicles people were working on in the 80s were much less intricate. Today, dropping your vehicle off with a mechanic for repairs makes more sense.

When Did Vehicles Become Harder to Work On?

There is no specific moment when vehicles became more challenging to repair, but you could narrow it down to a specific period. Before the 90s, cars didn't have onboard computers that controlled things. The addition and evolution of those digital components have complicated the process.

Though it is not the only reason attributed to the rise of the complicated repairs. Technology has completely reworked a mechanic's job description. A good mechanic should have a working knowledge of the moving parts of a vehicle and a strong understanding of electrical mechanics. It takes a lot more schooling to educate a professional mechanic properly.

As vehicles become more complex, it might become easier to take your vehicle to a mechanic for repairs.

Why Do They Make Cars so Hard to Work On?

Well, carmakers don't set out to make it difficult for you to work on your car. Many variables go into the design of a new vehicle. Engineers consider the needs of today's drivers. Safety, style, aerodynamics, fuel efficiency, comfort, cost, performance, and a few more elements all matter in the design of a new vehicle.

People's wants in a vehicle have shifted immensely in the past 30 years. For instance, all newly produced cars legally must have a rear backup camera. This requirement didn't exist in the 80s, and the camera components require wiring and other electrical work. Not to mention the newest electric vehicles, which require new knowledge as well.
Pro Tip: When you buy a new vehicle, you might consider buying an extended warranty with it. We took a closer look at Are Extended Vehicle Warranties a Gimmick?
Why Are Older Cars Easier to Work On?

Older cars are much easier to work on for a few reasons. When designers came up with new car concepts back in the day, they focused more on making the vehicles easy for the typical owner to repair. Engineers designed vehicles to have more open space under the hood, and they had fewer electrical components to manage.

Mechanics and owners could trace an issue to its source more easily when it had fewer reasons why something might go wrong. Cars had a straightforward design. Parts were made of more sturdy materials too, so you didn't have to worry about breaking something in the middle of a repair.

Older cars tend to be easier to work on and repair yourself.

Is It Harder to Modify Newer Cars?

Modifying a newer car is worth it if you feel like you need it. However, consider the fact that vehicles today are built for performance. You may not really need an upgrade to get power.

Modding your vehicle's body style or look may cause some trouble on a newer car, but you can still do it. The difficulty doesn't all lie with the physical changes. You'll need to consider the legality of it.

To effectively modify the body of your car, you'll have to talk with the insurance provider. You also need to consult your warranty stipulations because modding your car could void the warranty. Additionally, some municipalities have laws against modifications such as undercarriage lights.

What Is the Most Difficult Car to Work On?

The answer to this question is subjective. What do you hate the most as a mechanic? A vehicle like the Mini Cooper is terrible to work on because everything about the car is "mini." You can't get to anything, and the tiny parts seem to break frequently.
Pro Tip: Some vehicle repairs are easier than others. This is How to Easily Reset Your Check Engine Light.
The Ford F-250 has a different sort of problem with mechanical maintenance. It may even be hard to believe what the designers did to this truck. To begin performing any serious repairs on the rig, you first have to remove the entire cab from the vehicle's frame. That's quite an undertaking for a repair.

Is Working on Your Vehicle Yourself Worth It?

Here is another subjective question on your plate. You may have specific instances where working on your own vehicle is still wise. If you need to fix a simple problem that doesn't take much disassembling, you'll probably save money doing the work yourself.

If you have a larger issue like a bad alternator, you might not want to tackle that on your own. It's best to use good judgment before diving into any project under the hood. Use the resources you have at your disposal to decide. Take a look around online, and talk to your local auto parts store to gain more insight on your next repair.
You should give it a try!
Have you found your vehicle to be harder to work on recently? Tell us your thoughts in the comments!

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When Did Vehicles Become Harder to Work On?

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It is much harder to repair your vehicle today than it was with older models. But what caused this change and when? Find out...