Median Age of Cars Jumps to 10.8 Years

The median age of a car in the United States reached an all-time high last year, according to R.L. Polk & Co. As of June 2011, the average age for a new car in the U.S. now stands at 10.8 years — 11.1 years for passenger cars and 10.4 years for light trucks.

The median age of a vehicle has increased steadily over the past 16 years, Polk says, because people are holding onto their vehicles longer for various reasons, including improved vehicle reliability. More recently, the economic downturn has prompted more Americans to keep their vehicles even longer, waiting for a sunnier occasion to buy a new car.

Over the next few years, Polk sees the average age of the vehicle fleet to slow down. The reason has mostly to do with pent-up demand for new cars, which will decelerate the median age rise. According to Polk, the mix of cars to trucks, which was skewed more to trucks in 2008 and 2009, will also bring down the median age over time because trucks age more quickly than cars.

Overall, the United States has some 240.5 million cars on the road, which is slightly down from the peak in 2008 of 242 million vehicles.

Average Age of Vehicles Reaches Record High (R.L. Polk & Co.)

Don't Forget to Change Your Car's Clock for Daylight Saving Time

Daylight saving time has gotten easier since the smartphone has replaced so many wristwatches and DVD players access the internet. In cars, GPS-linked navigation systems often change the time automatically in the same way. Of course, most folks have a clock in their car that not only needs adjusting manually but is often the most complicated function in the entire car.

So this Saturday while you're running errands, don't forget to turn the clock an hour back. The time doesn't officially change until 2 a.m. Sunday, but you don't want to head to work Monday an hour earlier than you need to.

One in Four Don't Have the Dough To Fix Their Cars

More Americans are holding onto their old vehicles longer, neglecting routine maintenance, and some are unable to absorb the cost of a significant repair, according to AAA.

Nearly a quarter of Americans say they wouldn't be able to repair their car if it needed $2,000 worth of work. Replacing a transmission could easily fall in this range. Knock that figure down to $1,000 and one in eight respondents still wouldn’t be able to afford the repairs. 

A quarter of respondents also said they've put off repairs and maintenance over the past 12 months because of the economy. 

Vehicles are lasting longer because of improved reliability, but not attending to basic maintenance or ignoring minor problems can lead to serious repairs later.

Repair bills can cost significantly more than $1,000 to $2,000, especially when motorists aren’t observing routine maintenance schedules or checkups. Transmission repairs can cost anywhere from $2,000 to $4,000, while engine repair can exceed $5,000, says AAA. 

One in Four Americans Could Not Pay for Major Car Repair (AAA)

Repairing Car Tough for 9-to-5 Workers

Finding time to repair your car, especially when it’s your only car, can be tough. Like scheduling a doctor’s or dentist’s appointment or — heaven forbid — trying to get your driver’s license renewed, getting these services done can be next to impossible if you’re single and work conventional hours, as Detroit News columnist Melissa Preddy can attest.

After a recent mishap with her car’s air-conditioning system, Preddy wondered why there aren’t more after-hours or overnight auto repair shops.

Sure, the logic seems sound, but many service shops have tested such a system and have failed, according to Preddy. There are some places that try and succeed, though. Preddy points to All Night Auto in Livonia, Mich., as a shining example of a business that runs long hours Monday through Sunday and can usually repair autos overnight. The shop sometimes will give its clients free rides to work.

Why don’t more shops offer such service? The problem is finding enough certified technicians that want to work late hours, and qualified technicians are hard to come by, according to the Detroit News. There are also issues with having enough spare parts around to run a repair shop for 15 hours a day.

Service shops that don’t offer after-hours service are at least trying to make waits more comfortable by offering Wi-Fi, lounge areas, cafes and salons. Depending on what you do for a living, you could even treat your scheduled car maintenance as a retreat from the office.

Late-night car repairs prove hard to find (The Detroit News)

Related 
Western U.S. Has Highest Car Repair Costs  
GM Gives Makeovers to Buick, GMC Showrooms

Warning Lights Tell of Cheap and, Sometimes, Expensive Repairs

As automobiles become more reliable over time — the average vehicle lifespan is now 10.6 years – minor vehicular problems, when left unchecked, are increasingly causing more expensive or “catastrophic” repairs down-the-line, according to CarMD, a provider of diagnostic tools and information.

The “check engine” light is the canary in the coal mine, indicating often cheap-to-fix problems; however, there are some common expensive fixes, too, according to USA Today.

The most common issues pertain to engine misfires, fuel injection and sensor control problems:

Shell Talks Gas Mileage and Latest Motor Oils

Motor oil is moving ahead to GF-5. Why should you care? Well, it went on sale beginning Oct. 1, it protects engine and emissions components incrementally better than GF-4, and it’s responsible for roughly 0.2 percent better overall fuel economy, Shell’s Jeffery Hsu said.

Hsu, a technology manager based at the Dutch company’s U.S. headquarters in Houston, works on Shell’s motor oil brands, which include Quaker State and Pennzoil. I caught up with him recently at a briefing for journalists in the Chicago suburbs.

With federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards pushing cars and trucks toward higher standards by the 2016 model year, Hsu said he’s never seen automakers come to the table looking for motor-oil providers to help raise fuel economy quite like they’re doing today.

Cars.com Advice: What To Do When Automotive Disasters Strike?

Your car has just experienced a blowout of the left front tire. What should you do? A.) Slam on the brakes and steer your car off the road, or B.) Keep your car on a straight course and ease off the accelerator. If you chose A, chances are you could learn a thing or two from Cars.com’s newest advice section on how to abate an automotive disaster. In this section we tell you what to do in instances of a blowout, a cracked windshield and an overheated engine. We also detail what to do if your car runs out of gas or if you’re in an accident by yourself with no one to help.

Cars.com Advice: Automotive Disasters

Which Factory Builds the Best Cars?

Maybe some factories have happier workers, or maybe their production lines are just particularly snappy. Whatever the case, certain vehicle assembly plants produce fewer defects per 100 cars than others, and J.D. Power and Associates has just released its annual list of the top manufacturing facilities.

The Daimler plant in East London, South Africa, took the top honor with the Platinum award. It manufactures the Mercedes-Benz C-Class and recorded only 28 problems per 100 vehicles.

In the Americas, the GM plant in Lansing, Mich., earned a Bronze award with 37 problems per 100 vehicles with the Cadillac CTS and STS. It was bested for its region by the Toyota plant in Cambridge South, Ontario (30 problems), and the Ford plant in Hermosillo, Mexico (33 problems), which took Gold and Silver awards, respectively.

Check out the winning factories in the Asia Pacific region, Europe and Africa that produce cars sold in the U.S. after the jump.

Grad Student Designs Self-Healing Concrete

What if the solution to potholes was simply using concrete that fixed itself?

That’s the idea behind University of Rhode Island grad student Michelle Pelletier’s concrete concoction. By mixing a microencapsulated sodium silicate agent into normal concrete, Pelletier created a road material that can regain 26% of its original composition after being fractured.

When the concrete tears or breaks, the sodium silicate capsules break as well, releasing a catalyst that mixes with the normal concrete component of calcium hydroxide. This forms a calcium-silica-hydrate that fills in the cracks, strengthening the material.

Pelletier achieved the 26% strength regeneration with only a 2% solution of sodium silicate, and she believes a higher concentration could lead to even better results.

Pelletier also says her solution is relatively inexpensive; cost is usually the major downside to “smart” building materials. If the solution could pay for itself by saving municipalities road-repair funds, it could be rapidly adopted by penny-pinching state and local governments.

College Student Invents Cost-Effective Self-Healing Concrete? (Autoblog)

Warranty Claims Decline for Domestic Automakers

Ford, GM and Chrysler have managed to cut their warranty claims substantially in recent years, but consumers’ perception of a quality gap continues.

GM has seen reduced warranty claims of 45% from 2007 and Ford has slashed warranty repair rates by an average of 40% in each of its global business regions, according to initial quality reports. Meanwhile, Chrysler — plagued with the most quality troubles — had warranty claims fall 48% in the past two years, according to internal data. While some of these gains are because of the sales slump caused by the recent economic crisis, independent quality studies have shown the Big Three making gains over the same time.

Reduced warranty claims save automakers a few hundred dollars per vehicle and boost resale values, which add to an automaker’s operating profit.

While saving money is great, American automakers must also figure out how to close the quality perception gap that exists between their brands and foreign competitors. GM had three models — the Cadillac DTS, Buick LaCrosse and Buick Lucerne — ranked among the vehicles with the fewest problems in 2010 in a J.D. Power and Associates study, but Buick and Chevrolet trailed nine other brands in ALG’s 2010 survey of consumer perceptions.

While Toyota’s recent recall troubles may act as an assist, expect future ad campaigns from Ford, GM and Chrysler to highlight quality gains as those automakers attempt to turnaround consumer perception of their brands.

Warranty Claims Fall for Big 3 (Detroit News)