What is the life span of an automobile
This is a frequently asked question that friends, family and reader ask me.
Being simplistic, each manufacturer establishes a life expectancy for its vehicles, based on their applications and on a safety coefficient particularly determined by product engineering. The technology produces increasingly reliable and longer lasting parts, however nothing is foolproof. To know more, check out: Ford V10 Life Expectancy
In order for the reader to understand how the auto industry, in general, determines the life expectancy of its vehicles, I will give a hypothetical example for an urban car.
The first step is to know in which market the vehicle will be sold. It is easy to understand that each market has its own particularities in terms of weather and driving conditions, holes, dirt roads, gravel roads, broken pavement, bumps, ditches, etc. Nowadays, with vehicles becoming more and more global, the more severe market tends to be the basis for the project, with an emphasis on the communization of its components with cost and complexity reductions.
The beginning of everything is to establish a real route that represents the use of the vehicle with a reliability index greater than 90%, representing the city circuits, highways, secondary roads, dirt, gravel and all the characteristic situations of the market. A test vehicle is then prepared to monitor the route in question.
The test vehicle is fully instrumented for “just in time” readings of the requests on the wheels, efforts on the steering wheel, number of applications of the brake and clutch pedals and also all its operational efforts, in addition to monitoring the operating temperatures of the engine and transmission, gear changes, environmental conditions and engine load in terms of torque and power, accelerations and decelerations, idling time, etc. Anyway, everything is monitored.
Example of testing in the proving ground, in the case of Ford autonomous driving test. PHOTO: disclosure
Being simplistic, each manufacturer establishes a life expectancy for its vehicles, based on their applications and on a safety coefficient particularly determined by product engineering. The technology produces increasingly reliable and longer lasting parts, however nothing is foolproof. To know more, check out: Ford V10 Life Expectancy
In order for the reader to understand how the auto industry, in general, determines the life expectancy of its vehicles, I will give a hypothetical example for an urban car.
The first step is to know in which market the vehicle will be sold. It is easy to understand that each market has its own particularities in terms of weather and driving conditions, holes, dirt roads, gravel roads, broken pavement, bumps, ditches, etc. Nowadays, with vehicles becoming more and more global, the more severe market tends to be the basis for the project, with an emphasis on the communization of its components with cost and complexity reductions.
The beginning of everything is to establish a real route that represents the use of the vehicle with a reliability index greater than 90%, representing the city circuits, highways, secondary roads, dirt, gravel and all the characteristic situations of the market. A test vehicle is then prepared to monitor the route in question.
The test vehicle is fully instrumented for “just in time” readings of the requests on the wheels, efforts on the steering wheel, number of applications of the brake and clutch pedals and also all its operational efforts, in addition to monitoring the operating temperatures of the engine and transmission, gear changes, environmental conditions and engine load in terms of torque and power, accelerations and decelerations, idling time, etc. Anyway, everything is monitored.
Example of testing in the proving ground, in the case of Ford autonomous driving test. PHOTO: disclosure
The standard route established is normally 50,000 km, during which, in addition to the monitoring described above, subjective assessments are made of the entire vehicle and also its maintenance, engine oil change, filters and tire pressure calibration. The brake linings and pads wear analysis is also performed periodically. Stricter inspections to identify possible design and / or quality problems are carried out regularly.
After the end of the 50,000 km run and with all the analysis of the results completed, the engineering establishes a safety coefficient for the life expectancy of the vehicle in question. If, for example, the coefficient chosen is 5, it means that the determined useful life will be 250,000 km. For example, with the average speed of the circuit equal to 50 km / h, the estimated life expectancy will be 5,000 hours. The entire project can then be directed towards these values. In general, the higher the safety coefficient adopted, the greater the cost of the vehicle. The choice of the balance between durability and costs is, by definition, the responsibility of the company's board of directors.
It is important to say that the vehicle's safety systems - suspension, brake and steering - are treated in a special way. As a general rule, components must alert when something goes wrong.
The important thing is that through noises, vibrations, clearances and vibrations felt in the steering wheel, directional instability, loss of efficiency, increased operational efforts, etc., the driver realizes the problem and looks for a workshop as soon as possible.
Another fundamental point is that in the case of strong impacts, in holes for example, there cannot be an easy break, due to fragility, of any component that puts the vehicle's safety at risk. Deformations are allowed within a level established in specific engineering tests, such as impact on a sharp corner hole with locked wheels, strikes against guides and other abnormal efforts.
Then, the external running is correlated and transferred into the proving grounds and / or to the structural laboratories, which have the advantage of maintaining the repeatability of the tests and reducing the time of certification of the vehicle.
After the end of the 50,000 km run and with all the analysis of the results completed, the engineering establishes a safety coefficient for the life expectancy of the vehicle in question. If, for example, the coefficient chosen is 5, it means that the determined useful life will be 250,000 km. For example, with the average speed of the circuit equal to 50 km / h, the estimated life expectancy will be 5,000 hours. The entire project can then be directed towards these values. In general, the higher the safety coefficient adopted, the greater the cost of the vehicle. The choice of the balance between durability and costs is, by definition, the responsibility of the company's board of directors.
It is important to say that the vehicle's safety systems - suspension, brake and steering - are treated in a special way. As a general rule, components must alert when something goes wrong.
The important thing is that through noises, vibrations, clearances and vibrations felt in the steering wheel, directional instability, loss of efficiency, increased operational efforts, etc., the driver realizes the problem and looks for a workshop as soon as possible.
Another fundamental point is that in the case of strong impacts, in holes for example, there cannot be an easy break, due to fragility, of any component that puts the vehicle's safety at risk. Deformations are allowed within a level established in specific engineering tests, such as impact on a sharp corner hole with locked wheels, strikes against guides and other abnormal efforts.
Then, the external running is correlated and transferred into the proving grounds and / or to the structural laboratories, which have the advantage of maintaining the repeatability of the tests and reducing the time of certification of the vehicle.