Current IC vehicles (cars in particular) seem to be highly susceptible to being scrapped quite early in their potential lives due to problems with the complex electrical systems making them uneconomic to repair.
We've had this conversation befofe, you are talking to club weilding cavemen about your computer. If they blame the demon box ask them why. Last week I visited the first customer who took a particular ECU type. This unit is still in service on the exposed chassis of a commercial trailer after 14 years. The same fleet was changing an earlier type dated 2000. At 17 years old it will have done millions of miles. The average trailer ECU lasts 8 years, longer than any other component except the axle hubs or the pneumatic back up valve.
Andy
I guess everybody's experiences will be different, but I've been forced to scrap two cars so far, both about 8 years old, and otherwise fully functional because the ECU warning light was on and nobody could tell me what was wrong. I also know somebody who bought an expensive 2nd hand Merc, only a couple of years old which kept going into limp mode. He took it to 3 different Merc dealers, the 1st two diagnosed 2 completely different things and the 3rd advised him to buy a gizzmo off ebay so he could reset the ECU himself! My boss has just bought a 1 year old LandRover approved Range Rover Sport for circa 40k, and the dealers have had it more of the four months he's owned it than he has, sorting out issues with various electrical systems....
The final sentence (in bold) is not unique, I believe from speaking to many owners of these 'badges' of effluent living that these problems are 'normal' rather than 'exceptional'!
What nincompoop designs a vehicle that requires the body to be removed from the chassis to carry out some service and repair operations. The gearbox fails before 50,000 miles and the electrics, please themselves.
Go and buy a SeriesII, at least they don't depreciate and spares are available. Jethro are you still with us?
My regards, Bill
