Use to own a 66 Fleetwood. Mechanically it was perfect. No where near the comfort of my bosses 2019 ATS-V. Not even close. I was never a big fan of the floating cars. The ATS-V is extremely quiet. Very comfortable. A joy to drive…but no where near as reliable as my wifes 07 Lexus.
From the comments here, the vast majority of new car buyers seem to be perfectly happy to pay increasing repair costs; considering them to just be a necessary a compromise for all the new car features they insist upon having. So in summary, no solution for increasing repair costs appears to be forthcoming. For the car owners who need to pay less for car repairs b/c they need their cars to get to work & there just isn’t room in their family budget for high car repair bills, the work around appears to be for these folks to avoid newer cars, and instead own older cars.
Thanks for the good, honest comments. Fair enough.
Once again, you pay very little repair costs on a new car. That’s the idea of a new car. So worrying about repair costs on a new car is somewhat meaningless. Now when it gets ten to 20 years old is when people think about repair costs.
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Oh well… then Toyota is not being as nice as I thought.
In any case, like I said, I bought an Autel scanner that does everything I need AND is more universal (works with brands I’ve never heard of :-)) and user-friendly so I am not using Techstream anymore.
Maybe 30 years ago micro soft or somebody put a price on the heads of anyone using pirated software at work. It was a melee with one employee reporting another for having something on their computer. A great social experiment.
No dispute that new car buyers are universally looking forward to a few years of low repair costs during the warranty period; but I also expect many new car buyers research the “total cost to own” stat when selecting which new car to choose. Otherwise what would motivate the author of the article in the OP to say lower car repair costs will help new car sales?
I’m not sure I agree with the premise at all-
And they must be affordable to repair, or else we’re going to have fewer vehicle sales.
This doesn’t make sense to me. If your current car is too expensive to repair, you’re going to be looking to finance a new car. That’s driving an increase in new car sales because people are forced to dump the old car they can’t afford to repair anymore and get something with a warranty. It’s not like most people can just go without a car. Financing will just extend again to 6-7-8 years to keep the monthly payment affordable.
Fair comment. That’s another way to look at the situation. In which case the CEO quoted in the article must not know what he’s talking about.
The buyer can estimate the maintenance costs, but it is very difficult to predict the repair costs.
Leaking high pressure fuel injector: $5000.
Leaking EGR cooler: $2000.
Remote folding outside mirror hinge broke: $2000.
Leaking ride control strut: $1500
Failing park assist sensor: $800.
Warranties are generally 3 to 5 years, not 10 years.
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My wife drives a 2018 Cadillac and no matter what I do I just can’t get comfortable in that car. Must be something wrong with my buttcheeks. 
Hard pressed to find anything as reliable as that generation of Toyota/Lexus. On a separate note, recently I rented a '23 Corolla for a week and man, what a disappointment. That was the tinniest, loudest, cheapest-feeling car I’ve driven in recent memory. I’ve always liked Toyota products but I’d take anything GM or Ford over that Corolla any day.
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Tonight my friend and I were talking about this community as well as this topic. He’s a mechanic on the island. I told him the price we pay in the United States for repair and I sent him a screenshot of the conversation on here.
He said he wouldn’t want to live here. Lol.
Just looking at those seats, I can imagine how soft and plush they are. You won’t find seats like that today, that’s for sure. Modern seats contain airbags and sensors, and aren’t nearly as soft.
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Maybe it’s your body that’s changed.
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It certainly has. If we’re going back in time far enough I can say that High School was 75 lbs ago. It’s interesting to look at my 5’11" 195lb son and think I was once that same height and weight.
Nonetheless, even before I became a fat old man I have never in my life been able to sit in a chair or seat that had any kind of lumbar support or side bolsters and feel comfortable. If I stand on an anti-fatigue mat my legs and feet hurt. I’m just difficult.
I’ve always used Snap-On for scan tools, scopes, diag stuff. But I tell people that as far as bang for the buck, Autel beats all the second-tier stuff out there. What the tool does vs what you pay for it makes it an easy choice, as long as you’re ok with it all being back-door and reverse engineered. Snap-On costs what it does because they’re above board, they go to Toyota, GM, etc, and buy the info etc. Autel doesn’t do that, that’s why you see so many typos, mispellings, dead links, etc in their product.
Talk about old bodies, I guess I was 19 when my vw got t-boned on the drivers side. Smashed side, injured passenger, but I ended up going out through the sun roof. Don’t know if I would still be able to do that today.
Sure, our bodies change as we age, but that’s not the explanation. I can go to a junkyard today, and sit in an older car now, and the seats are still comfortable. Similarly, I have a 1993 Sundance in my garage, and the seats are as comfortable today as they would have been 20-30 years ago. It isn’t just misguided nostalgia to suggest that car seats in the past were softer and more comfortable.
If I were a shop, I’d probably go with Snap-on but since I use it for my vehicles only (and occasionally for a neighbor), Autel fits the bill. $800 vs $5K+… easy choice for me. I am a bit skeptical about brand names - they used to mean something 30-40 years ago, now it’s mostly price tag based on an outdated reputation. I understand that a Snap-on wrench is good but I can’t justify paying $70 for it. Most of my tools are - don’t laugh - Harbor Freight, and not all its sutff is junk but some sure is. I remember a brand name hi-tech gm OBD1 code reader that was sold for $30. I knew that a paper clip did exact same thing but I was so curious that I bought it, opened the case and found… a split metal plate serving a paper clip function. And an aluminum chunk glued to the cover for weight…
The 2 vehicles that were the most comfortable to me and my bad lower back was my 1995 Intrepid and my 1999 Dakota, if I could buy them again in good condition (probably never find one, they pretty much turned to junk later in life lol), I would jump on them in a heartbeat… I have driven everything from escorts to top of the line high end luxury cars/trucks/SUV’s and just about everything in between… They were not the fastest, best looking or even fancy, but they felt like they were built just for me, my wife loved the Intrepid also, to bad they fell apart in their golden years… 
Back around 65 my boss always bought fords and I found the seats in the wagon and our merc seemed to fit me better. Chrysler of that vintage was the worst. Now I like the Gm buckets. My 74 and 81 olds though were very comfortable and could drive all day without a sore posterior. For some reason the plush 86 park ave was not great on long drives. I guess you never know.
