Let me digress. Like every car I've ever bought, my main goal is to "drive the car for ten years after I've finished paying it off." OK, so I haven't always made it, but that has always been the goal. And, in terms of my 2004 EX-L coupe, this one very situation probably scares me more than anything. So, do we really mean to say, "We really shouldn't even care about how the auto manufacturers are adding more and more computers and more and more electronics to control more and more functions within their cars -- no worries, the dealerships won't even feel the need to have anyone on board who can work on any of that stuff?"Crimony!So, unless you're bailing out of new cars every couple of years, you're just waiting for the point when some electronic thingamajob goes out, and then the dealership gets to tell you, "Sorry, we don't make it, so we've got to order a new one -- that'll be five thousand dollars, thank you...." And, you either cough up the five grand, or you've got one great big boat anchor.Yes, it appears that Honda is generally trying to do the right thing, but.... It appears that plenty of dealers couldn't care about doing the right thing along with them. For every report of someone getting a "goodwill" replacement, there are others who get at least the runaround with the dealer, if not winding up paying full price for a new unit.I guess this wouldn't bother me so much if the "unit" was only "a radio" -- but this is also the control and display for the heating, A/C and ventilation system, too. That's "part of the car" to me -- the kind of thing that's an absolute abomination if it "goes out" within the warranty period, let alone a few years thereafter.Again, this is really scary stuff to me. I have bought Toyotas and Hondas with the expectation that I could drive them for ten or fifteen years WITHOUT pumping thousands of dollars into them for "repairs" for stuff that falls apart. It doesn't matter if Honda doesn't make the unit, or if it's not a "major mechanical" issue -- it's still "big money for something that crapped out on my new Honda." There are plenty of cheaper cars with crappy fall-apart parts that I could have chosen from, and maybe had the extra dough to replace all of that stuff.Ultimately, my mantra before this Accord had always been "keep it simple" -- little econoboxes with rock-solid reliability and nothing "fancy" to crap out on me and cost a substantial portion of the car's current worth to replace. So, I took my chances, and it appears that all of the horror stories about fancy electronic stuff breaking down are true -- even in Hondas. And the scariest part of the horror story is that the dealerships don't even recognize a need to have someone on staff who can do the seemingly simple electronics repair -- like replacing a burned-out light bulb -- for all of the electronic stuff that all the new cars are getting filled up with.This rant isn't aimed at anyone or anything specific -- it's just a "state of affairs" that stinks. I guess we'll just keep on paying more for more electronics, and paying even more to replace it every time it goes "poof" and leaves us unable to use some parts of our cars, if not shutting them down outright.
