Long *ss reply, you've been warned.
OP: Others have already poked holes in your letter and I don't really want to as well with 5 pages of comments but there are additional points that I think need to be put out there.
As jiho was explaining, the knock sensor isn't there to tell you that the rods are knocking & the engine needs to be replaced. It detects "knocking" aka pinging aka pre-ignition in the combustion chamber. And too much of that leads to a burnt hole in your piston. It can happen from too low octane gas, overall bad gas, too much timing advance, among other things. When it detects pinging it tells the computer to back off the timing. It also helps the computer to optimize the timing under normal circumstances. Kind of like having someone constantly twisting the distributor under the hood of an old school car to optimize timing. The car not running due to the failure of that sensor is probably a fail safe measure programmed into the computer. Now that you know what it does you know why the engine shouldn't run without it when the timing is reliant on it. I'd much rather have to deal with changing that failed sensor at 200k miles, (meaning possibly once over the entire life of the vehicle) than to deal with rebuilding/replacing an engine with a hole in the piston.
O2 sensors tell the computer whether the engine is rich or lean and the computer adjusts to maintain optimum air/fuel ratio. Can't do that with an old school carb.
You made a gripe about crumple zones. Why? In a major collision they absorb more of the impact so less is transferred into the passenger cabin & by default, your body. Sure, by design it weakens the structure of the car & causes way more damage in less severe collisions than older cars without crumple zones. Tends to render a car non repairable. Guess what? For the safety aspect of the major collision, I'll take a ****ed up car over a ****ed up body any day. I may be pissed that my newer car is destroyed but at least I'm alive to be able to be pissed off.
Those Chryslers with the battery in the fender... So what? Again, how often do you change a battery? My second to last vehicle was a 2006 GMC Envoy that I bought brand spanking new and traded in with exactly 280k miles on the nose. Replaced the battery once. Battery technology has gotten good enough that if you're replacing batteries often then you either have some other problem in the charging system that's eating batteries, or you're buying shitty batteries. For something that I might replace once during the life of the car, I don't care if I have to dig a bit to get at it.
On that same note... Who cares if the spark plugs are buried? Modern platinum plugs really do last 100k miles or better. I'd rather replace plugs that are a pain in the *ss once than easy plugs multiple times. So many things on cars nowadays don't require the attention as often that they used to. How often do you hear people bitching about power window motors going out on modern cars? They're far more reliable than the power window motors of the '70' & '80s. I love it whenever I get a new ride there's always someone who's going to tell me "that starter/alternator/gizmo/doohickey/whatever is a b*tch to get to." And my answer is "so f'n what? How often will I need to get to it?" As long as I can easily access the filters, the fluid check/fill/drain points, the fuses & relays... I'm good. Heck I don't even care about accessing any bulbs on my new truck because every single light is LED.
Here's the beauty of the sensors & computers & all of that "hard to work on" crap: Modern naturally aspirated 4 cylinder engines make the same or better power that V8s made 20-30 years ago while getting 2-3 times the fuel economy. That is what all those sensors making constant adjustments do. A byproduct of that is because the engine is constantly running efficiently you're not getting the various gunk buildups in various engine related systems. And the more efficiently & precise the engine runs the less that the EGR and the cat have to work to clean up the exhaust gases so those systems by default become more reliable. The only benefit of those systems is to pacify the government, but if there are other aspects of the car that make those systems better, than it's a win-win.
I also love the modern tech with OBD because while my buddy with the old school rig is spending day after day, weekend after weekend trying to figure out how to get rid of that stumble or hesitation or whatever, more often than not I can plug a code reader in and it'll tell me exactly what's wrong. Could be a sensor is reading something outside of the parameters therefore I can go straight to the problem and fix it, whether it be an actual problem or just that sensor went haywire.
My 2006 Envoy with 280k miles was traded in on a brand new 2014 F150 Ecoboost crew cab. I racked up 100k miles in 3 years (yes I drive a lot) so I traded that in on a brand new 2017 F150 Ecoboost crew cab last summer while the 2014 could still fetch good money. I love that little turbo 6 cylinder. It has power that'll rip the face right off of most V8s (including late model ones, not just older ones) and I can set the cruise at 70 and get 22 mpg. I love all the convenience tech it has... Bluetooth built in to the stereo, heated & cooled leather seats, adaptive cruise control, 1 touch down/up power windows, memory settings so my seat & mirrors go back EXACTLY where I had them if someone else drives my truck... Also the keys never leave my pocket, the doors unlock as soon as I touch the door handle & it's a push button start. Something else that's cool... I can remote start the ****er from an app on my phone so I can heat up/cool down the interior a few minutes before approaching the truck. It was pretty nice to start my truck from my phone as I was leaving a Seahawks game on a brutally cold day & have a toasty warm truck waiting for me. And no, the auto makers didn't condition me to want that stuff, I want that stuff on my own free will.
You can't buy a stripped down GM 2500 diesel with a manual transmission & no options besides A/C and a radio because almost nobody ****ing buys those anymore. That ONE dealer is probably willing to pay top dollar for that ONE stripped down truck because they have ONE farmer in coveralls who's willing to pay top dollar for such a truck should one ever come up for sale. That's the exception, not the norm. They don't make 3/4 ton Suburbans anymore because nobody ****ing buys those anymore either.
If any of you are still reading, here's the business side of things. No, the automakers aren't purposely making a car that only lasts 3-5 years so you'll come buy a new one. The average new car buyer only keeps a car on average 3-5 years. And they typically don't do their own work and typically bring it to the dealer. So they make a car that appeals to them. The second or later owner is more likely on average to keep the car longer, work on it themselves, or take it to an independent shop. So, be honest here... How many AC Delco boxes do you see in the trash can of the independent shops? And when you're buying a part on Rock Auto are you buying the $41.99 AC Delco part, or the $29.99 Brand X part? The factory parts are usually only bought out of necessity. (There's your reason why many parts are "dealer item only" for a few years after a new car is released. It's not that the Brand X part makers haven't "caught up" it's the OEMs not allowing them to manufacture those parts for the aftermarket for a period of time so they can get ROI on the development & launch of that car.) Here's the thing: The car manufacturers don't give 2 flying sh*ts about the shade tree mechanic. Because what the hell are you going to buy from them? How do they benefit from building your wet dream, simple to work on car? They'll get your warranty business and that's it. In the meantime for the maintenance items it's going to be Fram filters & etc from the parts store with the cheapest price, and once it's out of warranty, for the repair items it's also going to be Brand X parts from the parts store with the cheapest price. Those are the facts.
Some components are tough to get to because when you're building hundreds of thousands of vehicles you have to be as efficient as possible on the assembly line to maintain volumes as well as be price competitive. In nearly all cases the components that are tough to get to either rarely or never need to be accessed. People bitched like no tomorrow about how stupid it was on the 4th gen Camaros that you had to take the engine out from the bottom. Yeah? Point is...? How often is someone going to yard that engine out? The performance folks who are most likely to do so are a drop in the bucket of the buyer market. The catastrophic engine failures that will require engine removal are also just another drop in the bucket. Sure they can build the simple wet dream car with every component easily accessible but the assembly line rate will be so low as well as the volume of buyers, and those buyers aren't buying anything after the sale of the car anyway so their only chance to make money is on the initial sale of the car. Be prepared to pay $100k for that simple car. For that kind of money you can buy the complex car & pay someone to wrench on it.
Sorry for the long *ss post. But so many people sit there and give themselves brain aneurysms & heart attacks bitching about what auto makers could and should be doing without really looking at the brutal truth or the big picture. Or, making such directive about what the auto makers could and should be building with absolutely zero intention of buying that product should it become a reality. Look, I'm obviously an enthusiast (why else would I be on this forum?) But I grasp the realities and accept & embrace them.
