Since I came home to Baltimore for the holidays, my parents decided that we should go look at new cars for the family. One of our cars is fairly new and in good shape, but the other one is 13 years old and has 166,000 miles on it, and it’s starting to show its age. The air conditioning doesn’t work; it has an engine oil leak; and the last straw for us came a couple of weeks ago, when we found out that the valve lifters in the engine were wearing out. We like the car, but it might not last that much longer, so we have been exploring our options over the last couple of days.
My parents have decided that we need to have an all-wheel drive car, and we’ve always driven manual-transmission cars, so that’s also a requirement. That narrowed the field considerably. We decided to look at the Subaru Legacy, Mazdaspeed6, Audi A4, BMW 325xi, and Volvo S40. Right off the bat, we eliminated the Volvo S40 because it was too small, and the BMW because it was too expensive (although we will be looking at a Certified Pre-Owned model).
We eliminated the Mazdaspeed6 once we drove it, because the shifter and clutch felt weird and it was way too easy to forget how fast we were going and speed – the engine was simply too powerful. And we decided the Legacy wasn’t as nice as the A4, so we’ve been investigating the A4 very carefully.
What does this have to do with technology, you ask? Well, it struck me how much technology has impacted the world of cars and car-buying. To start with, the A4 has tons of gadgets and techno-safety. For example, the AWD system, which 25 years ago consisted of manually-locking differentials, has advanced so much that now the car constantly monitors road conditions and which wheels have traction, and can transfer the majority of power not just from front to back, but also from right to left, in order to maintain control.
As if that wasn’t enough, the car has Dynamic Stability Control, which monitors acceleration and yaw rates (which indicate loss of control in the form of understeer or oversteer) and uses all the car’s systems, from ABS to AWD, in order to keep the car on the road. It has been estimated that in severe weather conditions, DSC has reduced fatal accidents by up to fifty percent. And of course, if you do get into an accident after all, the A4 has eight airbags if you order the optional rear side airbags, to protect against pretty much any type of crash. All of this stuff is monitored by a powerful computer under the hood, which also controls the very technologically advanced engine, a 2.0 liter with a turbocharger and direct fuel injection that has more power and yet gets better fuel economy than many other four-cylinders, especially older ones.
This electrical stuff (along with things like power seats, the trip computer, and the 10-speaker audio system) may seem like it’s just more stuff to go wrong, but amazingly, both Audi’s reliability and that of cars in general has improved significantly over the past twenty years. The reason has been computer-aided design techniques, which allow significantly more sophisticated components and simulations to ensure that those components do what they’re supposed to do. Of course, once you start factoring in stuff like BMW’s iDrive, more things really do start going wrong – there’s only so much technology that current techniques can come up with that will be foolproof. But if you had told a car engineer thirty years ago that cars with such sophisticated electronics as the A4 has would be this reliable, he probably would have laughed you out of his office.
Of course, that’s what has changed about cars, but car buying has also changed. There are many online resources, from review sites to automotive blogs to car forums, which let you research cars before you go in and look at any. No more digging out your ancient Car and Drivers and Consumer Reports; just sign up online and you can search through past reviews and detailed reliability histories at the click of a mouse. Then, online inventory systems allow you to check dealers’ lots to see if they have a car with the options you want. And once you’re ready to buy, services like AutoByTel and CarBargains allow you to pit car dealerships against one another to get the absolute best price possible, and email allows you to haggle remotely so that you’re not under as much pressure on the spot.
Twenty years ago, cars were cheaper, but much less full-featured and not as powerful or reliable. Furthermore, getting enough information to know you were buying the right one was a real chore. Now, most any car will be dependable for years, and you’ll know you made a good choice beforehand and got a good deal.
