In the ongoing effort to shed light on immoderate car repair prices, we can't allowance the manufacturer's role. During a appealing seminar in an automotive forum, the comments below from Ray Fast highlight the role the builder plays in taking money from the repair customer's wallet.
The seminar revolves around the strangeness of replacing an alternator in an Acura. The Acura, like all front wheel drive vehicles, has a transverse mounted engine. Transverse engines are the ones mounted sideways. Because of this "sideways" design, the alternator is mounted low and behind the engine, development it difficult to take off and replace on the year and model we discussed.
Car Alternator Repair
Front wheel drive has some good features, but is it great than its rear-wheel drive predecessor? Front wheel drive has created a host of supplementary repairs, none of which were principal in years past. These repairs have been costing you, the assistance customer, a fortune.
Ray writes:
The shift to transverse engines and front wheel drive was a major marketing coup for the automobile industry. Vehicle manufacturers managed to dupe the market at large into believing that the new proper was somehow great than the former convention of rear wheel drive.
[In reality] vehicles with transverse mounted engines and front wheel traction systems are less trustworthy mechanically, less stable, and less effective than their original counterparts.
Advanced technology has compensated for these downfalls considerably; however, vehicles with original power and traction systems using similar technology are more reliable, safer, and more efficient. This is why high operation vehicles that are designed for applications requiring maximum stability "still" utilize inline engines and rear traction systems.
The riposte to the request [Why is the alternator in such hard to reach place] lies in this fact: cars with transverse engines and front wheel drive are much less high-priced to build.
By assembling the power plant and traction theory as a faultless module, then dropping the whole thing as one unit into the car, automobile manufacturers save gobs of money. The fact that the vehicles are considerably less serviceable (for instance, inescapable components are virtually impossible to way without removing the engine and transmission) is obviously of little, if any, concern to the manufacturer.
For that reason, anything shopping for a new or used automobile should determined evaluate the design, arrangement, and complexity of a potential buy with regard to serviceability. The cost of owning a car is not confined to the fastener price. If you drive it, you're finally going to need to fix it.
Ray's comments speak to the rising costs of car repair. Gone are the days of positively "fixing" cars. Now we oftentimes spend extra time throwing hard-to-reach, high-priced parts in them.
Importantly, we need to remember that manufacturers have two original objectives: selling cars and selling parts. How long it takes, how much it costs you, or how frustrated one gets removing and replacing components, means very exiguous to the manufacturer. It doesn't work on their lowest line.
Fortunately, most manufacturers have moved away from "low-mounted" alternators (such as the Acura in our discussion) as the elements: rain, snow, dirt cause them to fail prematurely. However, the remaining cons of front wheel drive and a whole plethora of new builder technological breakthroughs will continue to cost the assistance customer significantly in repairs.
(Comments from Ray Fast reprinted with permission from the author)
Car mend Prices: Are Manufacturers to Blame for excessive Auto mend Costs?
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