Have car repairs been more expensive for you lately? After one TikToker shared their frustrations with the price of car repairs, a mechanic weighed in with some food for thought.
“But I am kind of curious, like, when did the labor costs on fixing cars go through the roof?” Bemusing (@bemusing) asks at the beginning of their video. TikToker and mechanic Gorillapatester (@gorillapatester), who has over 80,000 followers, responded with several reasons why car repairs can be more expensive nowadays than before.
One reason Gorillapatester sheds light on is the growing complexity of cars. He says that this, in turn, makes them more complex to fix. He mentions that mechanics need to stay educated on these updates almost more than doctors need to stay educated. An example he gives is the increased use of technology being embedded into cars.
Another reason for the growing price of repairs, according to Gorrilapatester, is that given the complexity of newer cars and the varied ways they are engineered, sometimes repairs take more time to address than expected. He shows an example with the current car he is working on. He says that although the book says it should take about three hours to fix the radiator, he found out two hours into the repair process that he needs to take out the refrigerator to to fix the radiator. Additionally, the refrigerator is a new model that is very expensive, he says. This means that he needs to add an additional charge.
Lastly, Gorrilapatester says that even though some new cars are complicated and expensive to repair, it doesn’t mean the pieces are of high quality. He notes that several pieces are typically made out of plastic in more recent years, which makes them bound to eventually fail.
“When you have plastic parts you put on your vehicle, it’s going to fail. Your newer vehicles are going to fail. It’s cheaper to, labor wise, fix older vehicles, which are much better designs, because these newer vehicles are designed in a manner to where they want you to spend as much money as possible regardless of the situation,” Gorrilapatester states about car repairs.
@gorillapatester #stitch with @Bemusing #plannedobsolescence its almost as bad as #shrinkflation #mechanic #mechaniclife ♬ original sound – Gorillapatester
His video has over 398,000 views and over 2,800 comments.
People in the comments agree with the sentiment that cars are just not as high quality nowadays as they use to be.
“Mechanic here … It’s gotten way harder to work on vehicles the past 10 years. He ain’t lying. Engineers make cars to fail and more expensive to fix,” one comment reads.
“Facts, they make it so hard just to change a head light. had to take the whole grill and half the inside out just to get to it,” another said.
Others are still skeptical about the high costs of repairs.
“I hear you but that should mean my 2002 f150 should cost less labor wise correct? it has zero new tech,” another said.
Car quality is decreasing
According to an article on the car blog Autofleet, car professionals agree that car quality is decreasing. There is evidence to back this up. There has been an increase of reported problems with cars since 2021.
“J.D Power released a study that shows new vehicles are becoming more problematic, evidenced by the number of problems per 100 vehicles (PP100) rising a record 30 PP100 during the past two years,” the article states.
Increased use of technologies in cars is being cited as one of the culprits.
The Daily Dot has reached out to @bemusing and @gorillapatester for comment via TikTok comments.
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