Technology

is one of the main reasons why new cars today aren’t as reliable as ones from the early 2000’s.

I’m curious about the data that supports this claim? I’ve often heard people lament how cars have “gotten worse” or aren’t “as reliable” as they used to be but I recently read an article from Worse on Purpose that highlights how cars are better manufactured than they used to be.

Or are you using reliability to refer to the accessories and features newer cars have that can fail or require more difficult repair without actually impacting a modern vehicles primary function of transport?

I will be honest, I don't think that will be the case. Also even Chevy moved to a thicker oil that should maintain fuel economy on their newer engines and maybe fix it. It's still 0w. Its probably not going to do much of anything tbh and GM is covering their ass.

Also the recall is literally manufacturing debris on the Chevy trucks. It's a race to the bottom in quality. Making cars less efficient isn't going to make them magically more reliable.

We have 2 cars that are 4 years apart in build. 2008 sienna, paint is perfectly smooth, (ignoring the many scratches on it from it being a work van). 200k mi. The 2012 VW Passat, the paint quality is actually horrific. You can see the orange peel 10 feet away after all the jpeg compression and the denoiser in a photo. The 2gr is a new engine for that platform. The 07K in the Passat is oops all plastic for literally everything. Mind you this is the second revision of an engine that came out in the mid 2000s with a gearbox that came out in the early 2000s. So they're cost saving where they can, the plastics do kind of break. (I'm also aware that it's an iron block so it's gonna be heavier than a comprable aluminum block engine)

The engine issues are almost always manufacturing failures. WHAT DO WE MEAN SWARF/METAL DEBRIS is in the engine block. How the fuck do we forget how to clean an engine.

It's the Hyundai GDi recall all over again. Also, these are new engine families. Even if we reduce the fuel economy limits, it will happen again when car manufacturers introduce new engines.

Edit: the last engine recall I can think of that wasn't a manufacturing issue was the Saab oil sludge issues.

the ultra light oil they are using is bad for the engines

Conspiracy theory; as long as oil film is maintained, oil is doing its job. Just having higher pressure (i.e resistance to flow) doesn't make it better in reality.

Modern ICE vehicles are shit if you're in the US because American manufacturers have gone from shit to diarrhea. The Japanese still make very reliable cars even though fuel economy is almost as atrocious as the Americans. The Germans make cars that, if maintained, still last a very, very long time with tons of power on low fuel consumption, though you'll occasionally run into issues with stuff like plastic coolant pipes since they, too, have gone down in quality to save money and weight and the engines themselves are very complex to achieve the balance of power and fuel economy.