Equipment failures and lack of parts

Manufactor greed, it makes them more money and they can say it's safer for you.

While I didn't need the features the Buick Enclave has, I sure like them. Some features are consumer demand. Right or wrong, the CAN-BUS system was designed to reduce amount of wiring in a harness. More functions on fewer wires. Save weight and material. Don't believe the end user benefits from that. Cousin owns a fleet of trucks. New orders are out two years

YEP... the build cheaper base line models, and fully loaded expensive ones.... FLEET might buy a few base line, but POPULATION wants fully loaded... They only build what people WANT.

jaybmiller wrote: Most people generally buy what they're TOLD to buy.. 'keeping up with the Joneses', TV commercials, peer pressure, media hype. Very few just buy what they NEED. Manufactures want to please shareholders, more money for them selling 100K cars then 24K cars...

Cry that same tune over and over. Yes, it is a want. Yes there is marketing. Yes companies need to please their shareholders. And YES they do all of these things to make money AND they try to make more than they did last year. It’s called business. It’s the same for every company I’ve worked for and the same for my farm.

If what you said was so true, a company would come along, build simple inexpensive stuff, and sell it like hotcakes. Guess what, it’s been tried and doesn’t work so great. NOT ENOUGH MONEY IN IT.   Somebody gets one of those cheap ones, then they get in one that’s quieter, rides better, stereo sounds better, and yep I like it and buy a nicer one next time.

It's definately safer, no one dies in an idle machine!

that's why the prices of older used machines have gone thru the roof! same with used vehicles/farm equipment/industrial equipment/anything that is motorized! a large trucking company has 2 people that travel the country and buy older tractors that don't have all the electronics in them, they get shipped back to the terminal, rebuilt and put back on the road. a friend bought a new green tractor last year, but had to wait to use it because of puter problems in it...after several months wait he went and got his money back and bought a different brand. another thought...would you want to put a new hired hand in a new computerized tractor right away? it won't look/run new very long! pretty soon we'll prolly see a spark plug on a hand shovel, wires going no where cept to a special box that sends a shock to your hands if you try to by-pass something on it! it's another reason scrap iron is high right now too...the big companies want to old perfectly good things to disapear so you have to buy their chit. i say keep the old few a few more years, let the manuf. sit in their junk. course you'd never get everyone to do this, but there would still be a hurt inflicted from it. this story could go on and on...but i'm sure ya'll get the picture! i'll keep my old Allis's and buy some that are headed to the scrap yard, just so the parts from them will allow others to live longer.

They DID do that with some Chrysler machines several years ago, supposedly can do with any of those as GMs system OnStar, Ford and Chrysler as well all the Foreign models can defeat or enable features without entering your car, KIA is noted in the news now doing so making certain features a Subscription and added fees for those.

And that Coke is the basis I wrote this for.  out of four weeks one week is lost to transit time losses and time in a facility most often getting a multiple regens until the damn DPF cleans up(EATING Fuel and DEF) and/or then a swap to a cleaned DPF while sensors got replaced as they too had failed during the events.

As for what we want, what we're offered,  etc.  I get it.  Most of us here are plain country type folks who grew up wrenching on stuff.  So when it comes to "customer input", we are a minority type of customer.  But the reality is, customer input versus offerings ARE a real thing and it goes in cycles one feeding off the other.  A company offers a feature, charges more for it.  Turns out MAJORITY of people (present company excluded) like that feature.  Not only does the company make a little more money on the sale (WHAT THEY ARE IN BUSINESS TO DO), they then offer more features and by golly those are liked and bought by the majority as well, which makes the company more money, which they are in business to do.  If they don't they won't be in business for long.  It may not be a perfect system, but it is what we have and is better than others I've seen.  

for the last week was considering saving my old F250.  Bought new 1999, Super Duty body line Super Cab and has been a dependable old beast.  So after a few days of looking thru availabilities have come to the conclusion NOT worth saving.