She stopped responding to him, she said, even though he texted and called her hundreds of times.
Ms. Dowdall, 59, started occasionally seeing a strange new message on the display in her Mercedes, about a location-based service called “mbrace.” The second time it happened, she took a photograph and searched for the name online.
“I realized, oh my God, that’s him tracking me,” Ms. Dowdall said.
I find it very hard to believe that almost any car made before 2012 or so is tracking me.
My aftermarket radio may be tracking me though.
Sure, but cars have a useful life of about 20 years. Using only old cars is not a long term solution
I was making the point that “your car is spying on you” probably isn’t true for a huge section of people, since there are lots of 10-15 year old cars on the road.
Also, older cars are much more repairable than people consider. We just have a huge economic infrastructure set up around having the “next best thing”.
Yes, they can be repaired but it stops being cost-effective eventually. So almost everybody eventually replaces old cars
Yep. We got a new car since repairs were billed at the fucking value of our old piece of crap. Tired of paying that price every year lol
Not really. The insurance premiums on a new car will dwarf repair costs of an old car. That is if you buy it in cash which almost no one can do. Chances are you are going to take out a loan. Plus you are going to lose 5k the moment you take it out of the lot. Go ahead and prove me wrong, there are a whole mess of calculators online that will show you complete total cost of a vehicle.
Factories are infamous for having old equipment. They pretty much only throw stuff away a machine when they are totally out of room. When you are only concerned with money you repair, when you want to impress your “friends” you buy new.
Not arguing, but one thing I want to note: I’ve never had a new car cost more to insure than an old car (well maybe a few dollars, but not a significant change). Most of the time the premium is essentially the same, though one time it went down significantly because the safety features were better - that was going from a 2001 Saturn to a 2012 Honda. Going from a 2012 Honda to a 2020 Mazda did not significantly change our insurance premium.
Wish I still had that 2012 Honda. Alas, it was totaled in a crash. :(
Tell that to my 97 Astro
I retired my 22 year old sentre when my wife became pregnant.
They have a useful life like that because people are whiny bitches. Any car ever made can be kept going forever. Something doesn’t work right with us. We see a 3 grand repair estimate and a 30 grand new car with high insurance premiums and high interest rates and decide to make the wrong decision.
Buy a car used when you get your license. That is the last car you need for life.
Its less about the cost of repair and more about its ability to safely get you where you’re going. Even well maintained vehicles break more the older they get. You dont want a vehicle to leave you stranded and a vehicle prone to issues will be much less trustworthy on longer trips. Sometimes youll also spend a couple grand on repairs and realize that the issue was misdiagnosed or caused another latent issue to show up and then your vehicle is in the shop for even longer. Its one thing to have to pay a couple grand in repairs but its a whole nightmare to be without transportation for potential weeks
Much less than that now assuming you do average mileage, probably 5 years tops before major maintenance. Around 50k miles, most direct injected engines start to have problems due to significant carbon buildup on intake valves, because PCV and no fuel in the intake valves anymore. Just Google - it’s a huge issue that is affecting virtually every brand.
I’m the market for a slightly used car right now. Avoiding anything with over about 10-15k miles and I want something fairly luxurious for the size. It’s depressing knowing I’ll still be spending $30k and it will have a shorter life than either of my sports cars.
Same with a current year Nissan. Shit is so half baked. Everything is in the head unit. Just swap out out for an aftermarket one