Those are some of the scariest Jack o’ Lanterns gracing the front staircase of a dedicated car enthusiast. And some recent experiences of my own got me thinking about the impending extinction of that particular species. The car enthusiast.
I’ll just blurt it out. The automobile is becoming an appliance. Like a refrigerator. New cars are already starting to look all alike. Ford in North America is no longer making sedans, only SUVs. You no longer see vivid primary colors like blue or green (and an unqualified yellow), just palettes of white, black, and grey. The manual transmission barely exists. The car is losing its appeal as a form of personal characterization and in perhaps the not so distant future personal ownership will disappear. We will borrow a car when needed and it will drive itself to our location and return itself when finished. What type of car culture could possibly exists in that scenario? I used to read every new monthly issue of Road & Track magazine and by then it had already been in print for four decades. Now Road & Track is published only every other month. Motor Trend is now a quarterly publication. Car & Driver …. writes mostly about EVs now.
My ruminations started when I suddenly ran out of fuel on the highway in my Genesis G90. It happened shortly after the low fuel warning came on and I figured I could make the next city only 10 km away and refuel there. It’s not the first time that I’ve driven with the low fuel alarm in that car or in any of my previous cars but perhaps the more rapid consumption at high speeds made the alarm inaccurate. No big deal right? Wrong. Three injectors blew on one bank of the V8 and flooded the catalytic converter on that side and burnt it out. It was an expensive engine out replacement of those components. But why? Wouldn’t the computer shut down the fuel pump before something like this happened? This would never happen in a carbureted car. Doesn’t technological progress mean an improved car ownership experience?
After I get the car back, the low oil pressure warning light comes on. But the oil level remains stable and the engine feels as strong as ever and the light goes off whenever the revs rise. The dealership agrees the oil pressure sensor is failing …. but it means another engine out service to replace it. Cars today are designed for ease of fabrication, with little to no thought on ease of service. Certainly cars are much more reliable than in the past, but they still need servicing. Oil drain plugs at the bottom of the oil pan are disappearing because you can remove the oil from the filler neck but why fight gravity? Is the saving of a few dollars in fabrication worth the less efficacious removal of used oil? I continue driving the car until the dealership can find time to fit me in. Then the alternator warning lamp comes on. I pop the hood and smell something burnt as well as debris on the engine cover clearly reminiscent of a shredding serpentine belt. Damn, has the alternator bearing also failed and so soon? I turn around and return to the city before the battery drains and leaves me stranded. I almost make it before I get a very alarming critical engine overheat warning but it flashes off and I see the coolant temps suddenly return to normal. Not wanting to take a chance and jeopardize the warranty, I park it and get towed.
It turns out, the failing oil pressure sensor was leaking, spewing oil onto the serpentine belt and causing it to slip on the alternator pulley, and then sporadically on the water pump pulley.
I suspect the serpentine belt was adopted to save money and also improve packaging since engine bay space has become such a premium in today’s cars. I can’t even see the belt in the G90, it is that inaccessible. Back in my childhood, they instructed you to tie a women’s pantyhose to temporarily replace a broken belt. Not possible in any modern car. In my vintage 1980s era Mazda Rx7 I have an individual belt for every ancillary device: water pump, alternator, power steering pump, AC compressor and air pump (to inject extra air into the catalytic converter since rotary exhaust is particularly dirty). Isn’t all that redundancy better since one belt failure will unlikely immobilize the car.
While the G90 was in the shop, they gave me a Lexus NX350 to drive. This is their entry level SUV. This is also Lexus’ bid to cash in on their established reputation and sell a model to those who only want to be seen driving a Lexus badged car. Because the car is neither smooth, quiet or in any way refined – those being the core Lexus traits. I know because when I finally graduated university, I ended up owning the very first Lexus imported into Canada. Even though that ES250 was really a reskinned Camry, Toyota took great pains in upgrading the interior and modifying the ride to true Lexus standards. I then went on to own two ES300s (one with the rare factory ordered 5 speed!) and a RX300. In the beginning cars had no radios. Then only the very luxurious cars had radios. Ultimately all cars came equipped with a radio as standard. And once again they no longer have radios. I saw no radio in the NX350. Even though I typically listen to podcasts or Audible books via Android Carplay or my own music library stored on USB memory, sometimes you need to listen to a local radio station for current news updates.
How is this progress? Well, I finally found the radio. It was buried several menus deep on the touch sensitive infotainment screen. It was neither intuitive to access or easy to adjust with touch screen buttons, and that is a serious deficiency in a car control system when one’s attention should always be on the surrounding traffic. The G90 has a beautiful radio with knurled analog controls milled out of solid aluminum even though the radio’s audio source is really coming from the computer, the control system is readily and always at hand. Again I ask, how is this progress?
I think the issue with modern cars is the dual need to satisfy customers with ever increasing engine power while conforming to ever restrictive environmental measures. This requires increasing drive line technology and complexity with systems like multi valve variable timing, turbocharging and ten speed transmissions with all those new avenues for failure. Manufacturers then double oil change intervals and pronounce transmission fluids that last a lifetime to ease the maintenance responsibilities for the owner. Not only are shade tree mechanics dissuaded from working on their own modern cars, but the owner transitions from owning a car to owning an appliance and they only last 5 to 10 years. Manufacturers already unlock optional features via the subscription model. Soon ownership will disappear and cars will be an on call service much like software already is.
Jim Chung's Ramblings 