Indeed,
all the sensors to reduce emissions etc and no room to get at things make repairs a pain.
it is nice to be able to read fault codes and look at live data ,which you could not fo back in the day .
no one bothers doing big ends these days,just scrap the car, I did a full rebuild on a corsa including shells ,rings,lifters etc etc early this year and parts alone was £400 ,more than the car was worth if you included labour (which was fee because i did it) but it meant the engine was sorted and the corsa was for a family member,
I feel sorry for people who don't have a clue ,and just take their car to a main stealer for £500+ of repairs on a regular basis .
cars seem to be built in chunks now, computer says replace this chunk , so that big expensive chunk gets replaced,rather than stripping it to replace the 10p O ring ,that caused the issue.
A "throw away society" that talks about recycling
A bit like telecomms. I used to drive around in my little van taking people's telephones to bits to fix them. Then someone had the bright idea of plugging them into a socket and sending a new one out in the post.
Sadly Mr STEMO , a plug in phone (if anyone still uses one) costs about £5 now ,so I can't argue your case and get you your job back
a better example would be a fuel gauge on a car not working, 20 years ago you'd fit a new gauge to the binnacle ,about £15. now the computer says replace complete binnacle ,£350 plus programming because it is coded
ok, so savvy motorist would buy second hand virginised binnacle , but most would sell or scrap the car,or pay the £500+ bill to a dealer to sort