Quote:
Originally Posted by GenXer
Most everyone is awed by BMWs from the past, and some restore them with lots of enthusiasm and reverence.
Fast forward 40 years from now. Will anyone in the future be restoring F and G generation vehicles like today's collectors do? Will anyone fuss over trying to restore a broken circuit from an LED headlamp and painstakingly reprint a circuit board to make it work? Or perhaps try to find an old computer to recode iDrive?
Have modern cars become as disposable as plastic bottles, or will future generations find today's BMWs worth restoring?
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All cars, except a select few, will be disposable because of the electronics. It's not even just replacing PCB obsolete components that is the issue, it's the firmware that you can't get and really can't modify. I suspect future rebuilds of current cars will use 3rd party engine management for the most part. You could in theory read the firmware out of flash on a working example, but probably not on the newest cars that have actual security measures in place.
As cars get more and more software-heavy the likelihood you will be able to get it up and running 30 years from now gets lower and lower.
Once EVs take over it's going to be even harder.