To summarise my woes, I have spent a fair proportion of the last fortnight attempting to nurse an ageing but well looked-after people carrier towards its MOT - and as a result researching whether the sensible thing to do would be to bite the bullet and simply buy a new one. The latter route involves dropping a substantial amount of cash, the former potentially throwing more good money after bad. No one I've spoken to seems to be able to offer up any particularly conclusive advice as to what ailments my trusty old Zafira is suffering from, where I might find a reliable mechanic, or what car I should buy should it in fact be time to send it off to the scrapyard ("Japanese" is pretty much all I've got so far). Even the much-maligned retail financial services industry seems easy to navigate by comparison.
It's certainly much easier to be a DIY investor than a DIY mechanic these days. Cars are very different beasts than they were even a decade ago, and without specialist computer diagnostic equipment it is virtually impossible to tinker with your own engine to keep it running. If something goes wrong it’s almost impossible even to work out just what has gone wrong, such is the reliance on electronics to keep modern engines in the fine balance at which they need to operate.
With the safety and emissions criteria required to keep a vehicle on the road growing ever more stringent, and cars themselves continuing to grow in sophistication, it is a trend that shows little sign of reversing. The electronic content of cars by cost has doubled in a decade to around 40 per cent, and while that is bringing a better, safer and more economical driving experience it also means an expensive trip back to the dealer is fast becoming the only option should any problems arise.
One way to hedge against this inevitability is to invest in one of the many UK companies tapped into this trend. Chipmakers like Imagination and Arm are increasingly finding their way into in-car infotainment products, or sensors that prevent accidents and will even, one day, allow cars to drive themselves. And interesting new companies are springing up all the time to take advantage of the melding of transportation and big data - Simon Thompson's spotted one for his column this week. Then there are the car dealers, who've been quietly building up their highly-profitable aftermarket businesses for years and look well positioned to benefit from the technology squeeze faced by independents. And judging by the ominous silence from the third garage to look at my car, they'll probably be selling me a new motor soon, too.
