Fault in our Cars!

As I promised in my previous article (link), I will get into finer details about the common problems observed in used cars, and how you, as a dealership or an individual buyer, should be aware of these issues.

Just a quick recap- we analyzed over 15,000 cars, divided them into Hatchbacks, Sedans and SUVs and will attempt to identify the top electrical problems faced by each segment.

Before I go any further, if you are unfamiliar with sensors and electrical parts in cars, do have a look at this post (Common Car Sensors and what they Do! ) that quickly explains the role of each of the components discussed below. It’s a good idea to have a handle on these things if you are in the automobile industry, cars are becoming increasingly smarter with each new release.

This is how the segments fared compared to each other-

Let’s get right down to it, this is the one chart you need to look at, whether you are a car dealer, a part supplier or an individual buying a car. This will tell you all you need to know about what to check for, what to repair and what your electrical part consumption will look like-

Key patterns & open-ended questions-

1. SUVs have a much higher number of problems with Turbochargers. This could be due to 1) higher number of SUV engines having turbochargers, and 2) higher usage/load on Turbochargers in SUVs. The minimum cost of an SUV Turbocharger in India is north of Rs. 12,000 ($180).
2. The most commonly malfunctioning part across all the segments was the Oxygen sensor. This seems to be exacerbated in Indian cars compared to cars in the Western countries. Reasons behind this may be a lower quality of fuel used in Indian cars and higher failures/grime collection in air filters (due to higher pollution), which increase the likelihood of incomplete fuel combustion.
3. Intuitively speaking, Mass Air Flow sensors and Manifold Pressure Sensors should show similar patterns. But this doesn’t seem to the case here. If any automobile engineer/technician would like to venture a guess, be my guest!

I would love to hear your thoughts on this slightly more technical post. If there’s anything specific that you’d like to know about our work, do let me know in the comments section. (You can also reach us at fix@carpm.in)