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My car has had a troublesome year. I've got a new battery, new exhaust and new
timing belt. The timing belt was replaced after it had broked, which meant
taking the engine out of the car, taking the heads of the block of the engine,
sending them to a machine shop to get restored and then putting it all back
together again.
Right now the car has a broken radiator and will probably need new brakes
(something sounds really bad when driving). From the engine sounds I'm also
waiting for the crankshaft bearings to needing a replacement soon.
Needless to say, it's an old car by now. It's a 2008 Subaru forester.
I want a car that can diagnos itself. If that's not possible I want the
workshop manual, with instructions on how to do error triage and instructions
on how to fix them, built in into the infotaiment system. With todays car it
should also be possible to instead of only manuals, also provide a nice video
on how to do it.
I also want a _minimum_ of needed tools and _no_ special tools needed. Common
and easy tasks should not require lifting the car, for example changing oil.
The FB20 engines from Subaru is closer to this, the EJ20 engines are really
bad at this.
Just give me a car that I can maintain! Easily, without going through workshop
manuals I can't access and youtube videos from third parties.
Newer Subarus have electrically controlled brakes, meaning you need a computer
to release the brakes before doing maintenance on them. This computer can be
bought from Subaru for a subscription, a third party computer is around 2000
EUR. This is ridiculus!
Cars should be easy to repair and extend, just like the Framework laptop. Why
can't I add new functionality to my old car? We need to stop thinking about
cars as consumables and instead think of them as platforms. Where parts can be
exchanged and upgraded.
I think this battle is close to the right to repair battle fought by US
farmers and the software battles of Unix and GNU.
There is actually an open source and open design car. It's called the Rally
Fighter and is no longer in production. Although it looks cool it's way behind
a production car in the terms of safety and gadgets.