I do most of the work myself tbh. Bought a code reader as well which can save you a fortune.
You can often reset the ecu yourself, but they don’t like to tell you that.
Mine only goes to a garage if it specifically needs to go up on ramps - exhaust replacement for example.
But yes, some sensors are in absurd places.
Trouble is, a lot of the electronics etc are there for efficiency / emission control etc.
Some things are easy mate.
For example, when I still had my Crossfire it suddenly refused to start one morning. Turning over, but would not fire.
I plugged in the code reader and it came up with failed camshaft sensor.
I nicked the wife’s car, bought a sensor from a local auto factors for fifty quid. Ten mins to replace it and car back in action.
Code readers are quite cheap these days.
Well from a safety point of view cars are much better today, it’s very rare you see a rusty ten year old car nowadays, compared to back in the 70s/ 80s, but they are much more complicated especially as a diy option, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been underneath a car, repairing something or other, I used to service and repair most of the cars I’ve owned, but now I can’t be ar#ed, and I can pay someone to do it for me
On my car one cannot even change the battery without resetting the electronics, or so I believe. My old Moggies they were just a spanner and screwdriver job. Not even a seat belt to worry about being nicked for not wearing one, they were not fitted with them.
You can get a memory saver RS, quite cheap and you can change the battery without issue / resetting the ecu / losing the radio code etc. It’s what the garages use.
Didn’t know you could get one.
When i got the battery changed at the main dealer it was even cheaper than going to the well known high street outlet.
To be honest working on cars now i really can’t be bothered with, not like years ago when I did car repairs in an evening saving to get married. Stripping down a car engine back then was not too hard, even down to replacing the big end bearing shells/clutch or a simple decoke.
Did a complete rebuild on a 4 door Moggie that was a non runner (Picked it up for pence and towed it home) replaces rear doors got from scrap dealer(hard to find any at the time), - suspension-engine overhaul etc etc , even down to giving it a respray.
did the Spitfire have the same offset pedals as say the herald did ? never worked on one myself.
I hired a compressor and spray gun but had the paint ordered to the original colour. Used nitromore to remove the old paint back to bare metal before rubbing down- masking up- adding primers and topcoat etc, that took longer than repairing the mechanics’
My first car was a 1954 Ford Anglia 100e, which was the middle of the ford range of popular-anglia-prefect. Remember it cost me £125. The excitment of having ones own first car, only just passed the test in 1962?
Wish I had gone for the zephyr/zodiac instead now
I spent many hours under my old cars when I was younger, have changed a gearbox a clutch and even fitted an engine without pulleys. These days I hardly lift the bonnet.
Manufacturers have purposely made it difficult for the DIYer to repair their own cars. I just happened to be looking at accessories for my car and an LED headlight can cost up to £700. :shock: That’s for one, not a pair.
The same with me, except for removing or refitting an engine, far too heavy for one person! Nowadays I just check fluid levels once a week, I don’t really have to do that as they have sensors, even low tyre pressures are notified to the driver.
While having the ACC sensor re-calibrated recently on my VW Golf I was speaking to the Service Manager about the extortionate cost of that sensor. Had it needed replacing it would have cost £1,400 rather than the £450 to re-calibrate. As it was it was an insurance claim (see link at end as this was posted on OFF).
He was commenting that a front-end crash, not a really serious one, could actually write-off an older ‘modern’ vehicle: two new headlights £1,000 each, ACC sensor £1,400, plus new bumper, two new wings, new grille and a new bonnet and maybe new airbags as they can deploy at just 16mph. All in addition to any damage behind the bumper/wings which when considering how tight everything is to the bodywork could easily be possible, everything is designed to crumple anyway. All the above plus main dealer labour costs at £100 an hour!
The ever-decreasing value of cars, especially diesels, is also an issue. My own car, an unmarked 2014 VW Golf Blue Motion TDi 1.6 with 18,000 miles on the clock cost new around £23,000, it is now worth between £9,000 and £10,000 trade-in (depreciation £50 per week! :shock:). So it wouldn’t take much to write that off considering the cost of parts and labour.
Mad isn’t it. My vehicle was recently written off because of the cost to repair, there was nothing wrong with it despite being twelve years old.
Again, if I was younger, I would have probably bought and fitted the parts myself. Spare wheel cover £700 :shock: Could this be why insurance is so expensive these days? I know for a fact that when they repair vehicles, they charge for new panels but use parts from the breakers yard and just spray them up.
I don’t have a lot of comparison for my insurance so difficult to say it’s expensive or not.
My insurance is through a broker, they always get me what seems to be a good deal. (I also insure my house and contents through them.) In fact the last claim I had was when that pheasant ran out in front of the car damaging the ACC sensor. Other than that I’ve had two windscreens replaced after being damaged, one on this VW Golf, another many years’ ago. So just three small claims in 57 years. This time round after the pheasant incident my insurance came out at £355, an increase of £55 and that’s for the VW Golf. My other car, insured as a classic with an Agreed Valuation of £6,750, costs me about £90 a year for 1,500 miles a year.
All this new technology and the costs of that in claims if damaged plus the spares ‘rip-off’ probably is responsible for ever-increasing insurance premiums, not overlooking of course those who drive without insurance so costing every insured driver £30-£50 more annually on their premiums!
I agree. Plus they were falling over themselves to give me a hire car, I just wanted something to get me around until I sorted another vehicle but they insisted on a new BMW3 sport… totally unnecessary but somewhere along the line, it has to be paid for.
