There are many costs in making cars, not the least of which is assembling the thousands of parts into a finished automobile. Often the engineers are forced to sacrifice ease of maintenance for easy assembly on the factory line.
One place where the benefit might outweigh the cost is in fleet vehicles. Savvy business people in search of the best deal could be sold on lower lifetime maintenance costs, as cars could in theory be repaired quicker with slightly higher upfront costs if designed with more weight on maintaining them.
The business model should of course focus on parts manufacture rather than simply selling cars to avoid the incentive to limit the lifespan of such vehicles.
Any thoughts on this?
Most manufacturers today plan on built in obsolescence, some do take maintenance into account, but nowadays most dealers have the ability and equipment that makes most smaller shops struggle to compete. I have seen dealers pull the entire engine and tranny on the subframe just do fix a head gasket. Quicker for them to do so depending on the model of the car. Also if you have ever wondered why some dealers try to get out of warranty repairs? The manufacturer dictates how long and how much repairs cost. With the dealer some times not making any money to carry them out.
Exactly. For trucks/vans, they will sometimes just lift the entire body away from the chassis.
The labour is often more expensive than the parts.
It’s counter intuitive. They want to do the best they can to have you bring in the vehicle to the dealership, rather than to an independent mechanic.
Fleet sales would mean the dealership will earn $$$, if the owner is forced to bring in their vehicles for repair.
They’re a business, out to earn money.
