[1]: https://www.microsemi.com/document-portal/doc_view/124041-ca...
My son drives a 1996 Buck Park Avenue which dates from the beginning of the ODB II era. We got it for about $4k but it has been through a few difficult repairs that took my son or auto techs a while to figure out. For instance the immobilizer system failed with the result that we couldn't start the car, it took a tech a lot of investigation to realize this, but once he did it wasn't hard to disable.
Overall if the car has some sort of devices that limits, mitigates, or eliminates emissions then any modification to it can be considered a defeat device
Verses a carburetor? Have you worked on engines before?
The ECU has fairly standardized interfaces, mostly CAN or just simple switching circuits on or off. You can just get a replacement ECU. These replacement ECUs generally don't do things like using the O2 sensor to adjust the fueling, so they can burn dirtier than the original ECU.
CAN is just the physical and framing layer. The data that goes over it is a whole different matter, and it's proprietary to every vendor, incompatible and generally undocumented.
For a lot of cars you can't even swap the exact same ECU between vehicles (due to bullshit like the VIN being written into it for no reason, and often no official way to change that other than "buy a new module" - so you have to hack around with reverse engineering & EEPROM programmers), let alone mix and match completely different parts.
There is good reason for this: theft protection. A long known crime model is the "chop shop" where they tow away a car, then cut it up for parts. Because the VIN is in the ECU a chop shop has less incentive to exist since there is less money in it.
It does of course make legitimate repairs harder, and probably there should be a process to write a new VIN in - but it should only be available to someone who can verify the ECU wasn't stolen (which isn't free).
Just search for "aftermarket ECU", you'll find lots of them; generally for high-performance cars that gearheads want to soup up further, but the same basic principle applies to most ECUs.
I've an '81 VW van in my driveway that begs to differ. It's got a bad idle stabilizer. The vehicle won't start unless that electronic idle stabilizer is bypassed. It runs fine in the bypass state, and good thing, because NOS parts ran out a few years ago. There might be efforts to create a clone (haven't checked thesamba.com in a while). I'm sure a clone is doable by someone that paid more attention in electronics class than I did, but no one is going to pop one out on their garage lathe.
And that's just the electronics. It has mechanical fuel injection (fuck you, Bosch), but good luck making injectors in your home workshop. I'll not start on suspension parts whose manufacturing require a far larger hydraulic press than anyone is likely to have in their garage.
Sorry to be a stick in the ass, but RTFA. The Arrhenius equation is mentioned and is quite interesting.
The work of Arrhenius I do remember from 1970 myself, and it has been a consideration over these decades, not only with the electronics but the chemicals professionally since then.
But I haven't stepped into a fab lab since the early 1970's, I know they've come a long way though.
I was wondering if much theory was involved or actual lifetimes have begun to be exceeded.
I do remember cars from before, during, and after the arrival of silicon semiconductors, and then chips myself. It did not appear to be a very ideal progression, nor as logical as it could have been. That just makes it more difficult to arrive at very accurate predictions.
Did I mention that the web page is not open to the general public?
Not that I actually expected anybody to read the article to me ;)
Having lots of comments are more informative regardless, and naturally sometimes more helpful than others.
So everybody wins.
Life time estimation for parts has existed for over 100 years. It is not a novel science.
Also a fun little exercise, what do car companies sell, besides new cars? That is right, they all sell used cars. For most car companies used cars are a huge part of their businesses model, their ideal customer buys new cars often AND sells their old car to the manufacturer, so they can sell it again.
>Or maybe one day the only vintage cars will be same ones there are now, only the ones made without chips at all might be capable of operating beyond 30 to 50 years ever again.
All cars are made to die, there is no alternative. If the owner wants to avoid that, they will have to do constant maintenance. Vintage cars do not exist because rust didn't exist in the 1990s, but because they were extremely well cared for and had significant replacements.
Many of the parts of the car are bought from a third party who gives a discount to the OEM because they can sell replacement parts later. (put my alternator in your car, and when it wears out in 5-10 years they will buy a new one from me)
How would they know this unless they were already making them barely good enough to last beyond the warranty period in northern climates?
Or maybe one day the only vintage cars will be same ones there are now, only the ones made without chips at all might be capable of operating beyond 30 to 50 years ever again.
The people up north may have fair warning decades later when the collectors having something like a mint 2025 Mercedes in places like Texas or Florida start having theirs die for this reason.