Electronic Problems

[Autocar]

 I watch the advertisements about the new cars that unlock there doors on impack, brake when your day dreaming or back into parking spaces on there own. Or even the new semi's and logging equipment that totally depends on computter chips to keep them going. What will the future hold for these machines once they get alot of hours on them ? A fellow will go broke paying the repair bills or will they just throw them away and replace them ? I believe all the older fellows will agree that the older engines and equipment was alot of work to repair sometimes but sure was alot better then today when you lift the hood and you wonder to yourself if thats the engine compartment  :D.

[red oaks lumber]

amen brother!

[sprucebunny]

I'd rather have a carburetor than a computer any day 

[Norm]

Gee let me think would I rather not be working on my new doesn't break equipment or pulling on the starter cord of my b&s motor for the thousandth time.  :D

I'll send the carb off of it right after I run over it with the dozer a couple times.  ;D

[Magicman]

This push button age has made us all prisoners, especially with our autos.  Our latest doesn't have a key, but you gotta have that fob in your pocket.

I can't imagine stepping onto the sawmill with only a fob.  I guess with a little wireless display, I won't be stepping on anything.  I can sit in a chair, sip pink lemonaide, watch a display as the blade quietly chews into a big old nail.

[northwoods1]

Gee let me think would I rather not be working on my new doesn't break equipment or pulling on the starter cord of my b&s motor for the thousandth time.  :D

I'll send the carb off of it right after I run over it with the dozer a couple times.  ;D

Yah but Norm, the "old" equipment didn't need a lot of working on most of time!! Now this new stuff, specially with automobiles they design it so you have to go to a dealer... it is all a plan to make them more money. Parts??? That too... they don't want you to fix, just keep trading in and buying new. That is so wasteful and I think it is one of the major problems in this country. Now I know you farm, right? And the advantages of having new state of the art tillage equipment, well, they are obvious. But my old man, he farmed his whole life and did real well by anyones standards. For most of the years it was only with a MH 50 tractor :D he finally traded up to a mf 245 to pull a haybine and boy was that luxury.
I don't like all this new sophisticated equipment and vehicles myself. If they made a pickup like about a mid 70s model in any brand I would buy it. What the auto manufactures need to do to is make some simple basic models... that they sell parts for at reasonable prices. Right now we have to rely on china to keep our old vehicles in used parts.
That isn't to mention the cost of some of this new equipment and vehicles. What about the folks who want to pay for what they have and not be running heavily in debt for the stuff?

[Brucer]

I'd rather have a carburetor than a computer any day 

Ferget them stinkin' carburetors. Mechanical fuel injection!  ;D

Autocar, you're behind the times. My '94 Cavalier had 7 computer chips in it -- and it didn't even have airbags. The only thing on my wife's Smart car that isn't controlled by a computer is the accelerator pedal.

[AvT]

What the computers saved me in gas over the last few decades paid for the few parts I had to buy many many MANY times over.