Legal Bill

Kids will hate what their parents love. Yeah, I know that isn't true for all kids, but it happens.

paS2K

^^^ My two "kids" (now 27 and 36) don't hate cars, but certainly only view them as a utility item....like a can opener or a food processor.

Funny that Melissa is a LITTLE more interested than Ben....thus enjoys her Honda Fit with a manual tranny. Living in DC, Ben rarely drives and is a big mass transit booster [a good thing too]

paS2K

Well, you can still buy a car cheaply, but you would need a lot of knowledge and TOOLS to wrech on a car that was built in the last 10-15 years

Hemmings "Classic Car" magazine often has a feature hear the end of the mag called "The Next Generation", showing kids between 16 and 25...with the OLD cars that they've fixed up. It's always fun to read the stories and amazing what these young guys (almost always guys) can do...

ace123

Gen X kid here, 27 years old. I turn a wrench now and then and have fun doing it, but I'll also gladly pay somebody else if it will take me a few days to fix something. Quite honestly, the car is complex enough that at a certain point, the simple fact is I don't have the time left for it. I think that is tied to the digital environement you describe, Spokes Man. We're always busy with something that's somehow both meaningless and important enough to drain our time.

But then, I'm a mechanical engineer, so me and most of my graduating class are all gearheads by definition--probably not terribly representative of the overall demographic. More than half of us planned to spend an inordinate amount of money on a new toy car upon graduation, though I think many relented in that concept. I think the concept of a car as an appliance is the dominant theme.

It's a pity; a car with soul and style can be art.

RedY2KS2k

The vast majority of the parts and the problems with today's cars are the same things they've always been. I've driven my last 3 new cars ('88, '94, and '00) a total of 390k miles and none of them has ever had anything more sophisticated than an old Radio Shack analog VOM (volt/ohm/amp meter) hooked to it. I still have the '94 (175k miles) and the '00 (70k miles) and drive them regularly.

I won't mount/balance tires or do wheel alignments or bodywork. Those are the only things ever done outside of my garage at home.

Triple-H

Interesting article Dave, good read
Never really thought about it before
I guess I can see how this might happen with the increase in electronic stuff
My question though is where this data was gathered, rural or urban
I know for myself, growing up way out in the country, a car meant the ability to get away from the farm, a strong motivator to like cars