Rear seat entertainment for vehicles is a big thing right now. But what happens when one of these systems fails? Does the owner take the car into the dealer when the car is mechanically sound and works well, except for the entertainment system? Perhaps they will decide to let it go until the next regular service, but the kids will probably give them such a hard time that they will want to get it repaired.
I really believe that some automobile manufacturer will think about how to make it a 15 or 20 minute job to replace a screen or other major component/module, if they are not already doing that. I also believe that we will for a while be faced with replacing entire modules for the failure of a $1 component. It is just too costly to staff the dealerships with electronic technicians and continually train them on the newest electronics. It is more likely that some entrepreneur will open a series of shops that will offer a service that will remove a unit and test it within 15 minutes while the customer waits. If the unit is defective, the customer can leave it for repair and return for it in 1 or 2 days. That $1.00 component will be replaced for $10 part cost and $100 labor.
Expensive? Not compared with replacing an entire module. Back in the 1970s had an electronic module in a Mercury Lynx that went out and was faced with something like a $125 to replace it. That was a log of money back then. I decided to take the module home and see if I could repair it. I found a transistor with an open emitter and removed it. With an ohmmeter between base and collector I determined that it was an NPN and replaced it with a PN4400 (if memory serves). I had no way to test it, but took the repaired unit back to the shop within the hour and it was put into the car and worked fine. I had no more problems with in for the next 3 or 4 years, at which point I sold the car (I had that car for nearly 10 years total) and bought a new one only because the car had more that 100,000 miles on it and I wanted to get rid of it before problems developed. Of course, today 100,000 miles on a car is not a problem.
Module repair is practical and I believe that someone will do it. If I were younger I would consider doing this myself. Come to think of it, maybe I should still think of doing that.
