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Unfortunately this one depends a lot where you live.
I never owned a car but I live in Canada and public transit sucks. Our provincial government is actively cutting funds to cities' public transit. And intercity routes are detained by VIA Rail or coach buses >!!<that sucks.
It's easier for me to go to the airport and in another country than move in my own province.
VIA Rail trains are infrequent, always late, pricey and most employees are jaded. They also don't take bikes. It's a problem. Sometimes you can get stuck as a prisoner on the train, without food, water or toilets for multiple hours.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/via-rain-passengers-stuck-1.7311176
Another one was stuck for 12 hours last year.
Coaches are cramped and also have very limited intercity services. The city I need to go to frequently only has three coaches a day at inconvenient times. They are usually full and they charge $15 to bring a bike.
I've been car free for 20 years but I've come to hate taking the train or coaches here. I'm slowly realizing that my province really really wants me to get a car.
There are plenty of places where not having a car isn’t even a possibility. If I didn’t have a car, not only would I be unable to work, I’d probably also starve to death, or perhaps have to eat gas station food the rest of my life.
The place I'm planning to buy a home is so remote that I'm considering a backup car.
It's not like you have no choice changing your plan moving into the middle of nowhere, is it?
Toyota
They're boring, they're behind in tech, they aren't cool, they're more expensive to buy
But seriously, if you want to just follow the maintenance schedule and get to where you need to go with minimal doubt - there's nothing quite like them
Agreed. Bought a used toyota yaris back in 2018. Still runs perfect, and even if something would go wrong. It's cheap so I'm not worried. Good speakers, mpg is decent enough and road tax is like £35 per year. Doesn't make me look super cool, but I'd rather be financially sound.
I can't trust a car no matter how Japanese it is, but... I watched a lil docuseries on dangerous roads, and it seemed like at least 80% of the vehicles (outside of heavy trucks) were Toyota. I dunno if it's because they're the most reliable, or because Toyota just has the market in many of these developing countries, but it was interesting.
Older German cars also are great. My Skoda from ~2000 is still going strong (never had any issues) and I also see a lot of other older VW/Skoda around (also Audi, Mercedes and BMW but those are more expensive). Don't know what it's like today but at that time at least Skodas got the exact same engines as Audis, just not as beautiful bodies.
Can't comment on modern German cars, they haven't passed the test of time yet.
I know, but they belong to VW and at least back then used Audi engines (which also belongs to VW)
Seriously. The ECU in my partner's truck decided that it was done with magic smoke and Marie Kondo'd that shit out, leaving her stranded. Her truck is an old 2002 Dodge Dakota that we've been nursing along while the used car market cools down (we want to get her something small and fuel efficient, but cars cost too damn much). Back in 2000 or 2001, some bean counter at Dodge decided that the company really had to cheap the fuck out with their ECUs for the 2002 model year. Because of this, any 2002 Dodge truck has either had its ECU replaced or is a ticking fucking time bomb.
What's even better is that nobody makes these shit-ass ECUs anymore. The only replacements you can get are remanufactured units, and it's highly likely that you'll get at least one dud before you can find anything decent. We've been a tiiiiiiny bit less lucky than that, meaning we're on our 13th ECU. Our mechanic has gone through everything else to make sure there's not something external that's exploding the ECUs, and he hasn't found anything. Over the course of like 9 weeks, we've completely deleted the stock of these stupid things in Utah and all of the surrounding states. We're now ordering one from Florida that's been remanufactured by a different company which hopefully won't grenade itself.
Fuck American car companies, and apologies to anyone who's currently having a hard time sourcing an ECU for a 2002 Dodge Dakota. We screened all the bad ones out for you. The only good part about all of this for us is that our mechanic isn't charging us for anything more than one ECU replacement. The damn truck has been in the shop for 9 weeks, and we're only going to pay like $1000.
Are the ECUs actually remanufactered, or did they just pull them out of a dead truck, wipe them off, and call it a day?
I know the Ranger from that era has the classic leaky caps that kills it's ECUs. You can easily buy a $20 soldering iron from harbor freight and $5 worth of caps and fix yours if it's the same problem.
This right here, there's not a whole lot on a PCB that can "explode" on their own, and caps is at the top of that short list. And early 2000s, 90s caps are notorious for this issue
Next ECU you get @Badabinski@kbin.social, check the caps or just replace them anyways. Even high quality ones are not very expensive
I've got a mechanic doing the sourcing and work for me, but I might buy one and replace the caps on it, then ask him to try it. Thanks to both of you for the suggestion!
Unless it’s tin whiskers from the early lead free solder…
I fear that shit way more than I was ever worried about y2k bugs.
Is replacing the caps even an option? All the cars I ever owned had the entire ECU potted for waterproofing
at this point your only reasonable choice is a programmable ecu.
you could maybe get a cheap one and a usable tune for that price? idk.
I need the truck to pass emissions, unfortunately :( Are there programmable ECUs that can pass emissions via OBDII tests? I was under the impression that there aren't, although I'd love to find out I was misinformed.
they can pass emissions if properly configured. they can perform exactly like the original ECU if tuned well, if a tiny bit better.
they don't do OBD2 tests in my country though, only the pipe emissions test, so im not sure about that. saving a working original just for these tests is an option.
Hopefully we'll be able to find a working one soon :( our emissions here are exclusively OBD2 based for anything 1996 or newer. I'll probably do what some other folks have recommended and try to "remanufacture" one myself.
EDIT: no idea why my client decided to post my comment twice.
i hope you find it. if its a common problem like "hey its a specific component or set of components that always blows out on these" you are probably in luck.
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does that really count as a car problem, to me a car problem is when ur care breaks randomly, crashing feels like something else, something in a different category.
Slept through my alarm this morning and walked out to my car with a flat tire.
Not as bad as the lemmings that got it stolen today tho
It’s funny to think of life as a board game or a role playing game being played on the “astral plane” or whatever by our “higher selves.” Car problems etc are just really unfortunate dice rolls.
I learned how to repair my own vehicles after I was quoted $2,600 to install a $40 part. I could've also had an entire rebuilt engine shipped and swapped it in myself for about half that, but I ultimately decided to go with the $40 + basic tools.
My only transport related problem is my bicycle's front derailer, I'm so close to tearing the whole thing off and staying on the second chainring.
If wasn't Juscelino Kubitschek and the auto industry lobby, Brazil would be walkable and full of choo choos right now. I hate Kubitschek!
Literally me. Also, freaking AGM batteries... so expensive. To support the auto idle off feature that I despise I have to buy a more expensive battery.
AGMs are actually worth the squeeze even on a car that doesn't necessarily require one, they're genuinely good-ass batteries. Expensive, though. But they'll blow the pants off a lead acid in a stress test.
Also lots of cars have an option to toggle the auto-off. Not all of them though. And some will reset it every time you turn the car on and off.
That's good to hear, this is my first one and had a bit of sticker shock replacing it yesterday. Yeah, my car does have the auto idle off switch but you have to toggle it every start-up to disable it. I dont mind it when I'm in the city stopped at lights but when its shutting off at each stop sign its super annoying.
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What’s your car make, model, and year? I just don’t believe that there’s no permanent disable and I volunteer to help you research a permanent toggle.
I just did some searxng and there is some options, but all require modifying the car in one way or another. I think I'm going to go that route. Thanks for making me look :)
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I have never regretted retrofitting AGMs into cars that didn’t even call for it. Every time they’ve outlived the car.
Facts, my car, despite having the same issues it had when I bought it, will not pass emissions despite passing with flying colors two years ago when I bought it. Of course this is right as my state is cracking down on out of date registrations, and apparently I need to spend over $1k before I'm eligible for a temp emissions waiver. Tough when I spent $2k total on the car, lmao.
I'm barely clawed out of credit card debt and here comes this stupid bomb. Damn you, Toyota, for fucking up the 1zz engine to where it develops oil burning issues that require work that's approaching a rebuild to fix, especially since the car drives perfectly fine so long as it's topped off.
Oh, totally this; but not just car stuff, it can be home stuff too. Just got slapped with a fat HVAC refrigerant refill. I had no idea this shit was so expensive. Over $2k for a recharge.