Thread: Will a new EU directive stop us repairing old cars?

Originally Posted by spudfan

If this is how things are going to end up, the inmates are finally running the asylum.
Will a new EU directive stop us repairing old cars? - YouTube

Watched that. The "unrepresentative swill", to quote Keating, are indeed intent on not only running the asylum, but creating it, in nicely packaged 15 minute cities.

It's interesting to note that Brussels are "apparently" pulling back from this Net Zero garbage, at least for now. The French farmers got Macron running off to see wotsername. I reckon the French in particular, but a lot of others, are starting to see just how much of their sovereignty, economy, freedom and identity the EU is taking away from them, and they don't like it.

I may be clutching at straws, but I think the worms are turning. Not before time.

It's beginning to look like an loony house over here indeed. I'm pretty sure the access media won't report much on it but the Dutch farmers are protesting once again and the former party that was supported by all farmers (CDA, the christian democrats) recently said and I paraphrase "we should take away their tractors and lock them up". I believe this particular gentleman does not understand that he is there to SERVE the public and protests are usually a sign that they should sit up and listen... Whats more, the farmers in Germany also started to block the autobahn which is no small feat with BMW's and the like blasting by at 200kph easy. Turns out the truckers got their back and formed a rolling barrier and slowed down all lanes to get the tractors ON the autobahn. The public is supporting them it seems, which is nice to see.

NOT that that will change a .... thing since that is not what the unelected in brussels want to achieve.

And yes, then there is the french. One should check out Clarkson about their protest/strike behaviour, hilarious. The government at some decided to place traffic camera's to go along with some new speeding rule I believe it was. The entire french public put on their high-vis and lit the brazier. In one protest 60% of ALL traffic camera's were "professionally disabled". Just a reminder, France are the blokes that had a revolution, what, 5 times? and beheaded the elite without pardon. Not sure if it'll ever come to that again but these are certainly interesting times.

I guess it works out for me? Perhaps I can file for political asylum in OZ

Annnyway, I have heard about that as well but the reality is that for my (generally) around 25 year old cars many parts are no longer produced anyway. This is a trend that has been going on for many years. Newer vehicles are harder to self repair and are written off as economically total loss earlier because of it. I had a 10 year old peugeot from a mate of mine last year. The rear left brake light did not work. In the past you would change the bulb, the housing or at worst run a new wire. These days a computer sends a signal from the brake light switch to the PDM/computer in the rear of the car and from there power gets sent to the individual brake lights. The computer in the rear was broken so it did not send out power to the left bulb. Running a wire from the right to the left does not work since it will overload that channel. The only solution is to replace the computer which was 2500 new and 1600 second hand, but you need to reprogram it since it's serial number won't match and simply does not work.

For a car that was bought second hand for 10K a couple of years ago the value in dealer traffic is no more than 6k. Since write offs happen at around 70-80% of the value of a car if you need to replace a computer, reprogram it and count all the labour you are looking at 4k easily. That means that in theory the car is a financial write off. And that is more rule than exception these stupid kinds of things these days. And all that because of one missing brake light... Self repair and repair by independants is getting more and more difficult and because of that the market for car parts (non OEM) has dried up and thus they are no longer made or we get only lousy chinese crap.

So even if they put this into law, which I certainly do not hope so, keeping a car rolling is getting exceedingly difficult...

-P

Originally Posted by prelude

I guess it works out for me? Perhaps I can file for political asylum in OZ

-P

I wouldn't. We're about two years behind the curve, but the gummint is peddling pedalling hard to catch up.

Here in the UK dealers are finding making a profit on sale of cars over 6 years old is becoming difficult. You guessed it cost of repair or replacing a faulty cars eat up the profits. Push the price up and the car becomes to expensive compared to a newer used car

In UK a dealer is deemed to know of any fault that occurs within the first 3 months of sale. After they it a sliding scale of responsibility for up to 2 years. Finance companies are wary of them too as if the dealer does not fix it they are responsible. As a result older cars are now bought via high cost lenders or via credit cards

EU has a law a couple of decades old that all cars over 10 years old should be off the road. This was pushed by the manufacturers as they looked a Japan and the short life of cars and the resulting throughput in the factories

The greens are on board with this one as they see new cars as more environmentally friendly ignoring the cost to the environment of the manufacturing and scrapping process

Originally Posted by 3toes

Here in the UK dealers are finding making a profit on sale of cars over 6 years old is becoming difficult. You guessed it cost of repair or replacing a faulty cars eat up the profits. Push the price up and the car becomes to expensive compared to a newer used car

In UK a dealer is deemed to know of any fault that occurs within the first 3 months of sale. After they it a sliding scale of responsibility for up to 2 years. Finance companies are wary of them too as if the dealer does not fix it they are responsible. As a result older cars are now bought via high cost lenders or via credit cards

EU has a law a couple of decades old that all cars over 10 years old should be off the road. This was pushed by the manufacturers as they looked a Japan and the short life of cars and the resulting throughput in the factories

The greens are on board with this one as they see new cars as more environmentally friendly ignoring the cost to the environment of the manufacturing and scrapping process

All this sort of thing will do is lower second hand resale values even more.

I know one brand they would no doubt keep away from

Originally Posted by prelude

....

For a car that was bought second hand for 10K a couple of years ago the value in dealer traffic is no more than 6k. Since write offs happen at around 70-80% of the value of a car if you need to replace a computer, reprogram it and count all the labour you are looking at 4k easily. ....

There are enthusiasts and there are consumers!

This additional cost burden isn't just on the complicated parts of the vehicle, like the computers, it's slowly, if not yet fully happened where even the most usually basic items that can fail need to be 'reprogrammed' into the vehicle when replaced.

I had this happen a while back on the Hdi Peugeot I inherited from my dad.
An otherwise stellarly reliable vehicle considering the mess he made of it!
This HDi model runs with the DPF fluid additive system. On other cars that I've researched, they have easier access to the fluid reservoir, this Pug being a wagon was made harder, PITA, but doable for the average 'enthusiast'
Small pouch, had a quick connect fuel type connection system. Fluid was bought for about $200 incl shipping, so a no brainer. Job was done, but still the same error message on the small info screen that the Pug has.
It would have had about .5 lt left in the pouch, about 2.3lt pouch, I only got 2lt of the fluid.



Doing a lot of searching, I found out that when refilled the 'new pouch' had to be programmed back into the cars ECU. More specifically the DPF fluid ECU.
(for a not so tech minded idiot, I didn't know that it had a DPF fluid ECU)

So got to thinking .. if it didn't know that it was full, how did it know it was not full. There is no level sensor.
It 'relies' on a count meter(which is really quite stupid!)

Now this cost me $200, but also cost me over $1K in an advanced OBD scanner (that didn't work) and then $150 for a Pug specific scan tool that did work.
Being that I'm an enthusiast, not a typical consumer ... I went the extra mile to get this super reliable little cheap car going.
Average joe consumer wouldn't .. too much 'drama'.
So they would rely on the dealer to sort it, and the dealers quote was in the $2.5K range, $1500 just for the pouch of fluid!

Anyhow, I finally fixed this issue with the correct scan tool(and while it has other issues(ECU based) it's still going strong and does about 1K+ klms a week at the moment.

Manufacturers are making their vehciles in a way that the average joe can't just replace this part, or that, and that it will require programming of the ECU.

eg. same issue with the fuel pressure sensor on the pug. What happened the good ol days when you replaced a benign part ... fuel pump, sensor or whatever and the car was fine again .. now you have to reprogram it to know the part has been changed???

I think this direction is what car makers will head further into to stop folks finding ways around sourcing cheaper fixes for repairs

They don't want you to enjoy anything. They don't want you to have anything. The "Social" credit schemes will spread. Blackrock. ESG and the WEF are our version of the CCCP.

Admittedly, some of the cars in this vid would struggle in Victoria, but they are all cool, and obviously owned by enthusiasts. This is whatever the Mandarin is for verboten (Jìnzhǐ de ). In case you're wondering. JDM stands for Japanese Domestic Market, not sold elsewhere from new. I applaud these guys for their passion. Passion must be stamped out, apparently.

TESLA has been doing that too.... Buy a s/h door mirror from a wreck.... and it must be 're-programmed' into YOUR vehicle, but only a Dealer can do that.... and they won't. 'cos they didn't sell you the part.
There's a YouTube channel about a 'Merican enthusiast who buys up damaged Teslas, and runs into this often.