Expensive To Repair

Just was posting about a 1964 Mercury Comet with 576K on it. I think that high mileage vehicles are going to become rarer as time passes. What are you going to do with a 5 year old Focus and it needs one of the several computers that it has for a horrendous cost, could be as much as half the worth of the car. The constant transmission goes out on your rice burner and again the cost is prohibitive, you have to go borrow money at the bank to repair might just as well buy a new car, same payments just for a longer period. Body shops have been seeing this for a while now, blow a couple air bags and a little body damage and your car is headed for the salvage yard. This may be a blessing in disguise as more used parts will be available. Have you ever noticed where most computers are located, where are are likely to be destroyed in an accident, there are a few under the dash which is a little safer. Mounted on the inner fender is not a good choice however in the event of an accident. ABS and HVAC controllers are the same story, expensive and poorly placed. We fight to keep home computers cool and the manufactures place them in the engine compartment. As engine compartments become more cramped and hotter I believe we are going to start seeing heat problems on several components as the current day cars get some miles on them. It is going to cause some difficult decision making if we should repair or replace, of course if the price of cars keep going up this may not be that large of a problem.