They're cheap and don't corrode
Is the use of plastic on new vehicles out of control?
- Thread starter grampi
- Start date
It makes sense to reduce or eliminate single use plastics that do not get recycled...
Cars last a long time and they are almost all recycled. Apparently almost 500,000,000 plastic straws are used daily in the USA. Even if that number is inflated 50%, and I don't think it is... That's a lot of waste.
And make assembly quick and easy.
It's a good way to capture carbon, long life plastic.
I love push pins. They shear instead of destroying stuff.
Tire alligators and 40 lb racoons say otherwise from my experience. But generally i like them. Especially for the upper part of the bumper. Ford makes small #4 sheet metal screws with a big flat washer head and a 5.5mm hex. Great with a backing quick nut. That's what I use on the bottoms of the bumpers or something that need more securing.
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I use a plastic straw that lasts for months. Yes for fast food etc. I can understand not using it there, but don't make it so I can't buy a package of them when I need it.
Also no plastic should be wasted, it is a potential fuel.
When? On the Euro vehicles?
On the Taurus SHO engines so I guess it was really Yamaha who speced them as they were the ones who made the engines.
I don't mind plastics as much as electronic modules for everything. Plastic doesn't corrode and rust in 5 years like everything else in New England, but with modules you have bright shining stars like GM putting control modules in places that get direct salt spray from the wheels.
Interesting conversation. I’m a chemical engineer with 35 years of experience in the “plastics” industry. I worked on many of the parts mentioned. Thermoplastics and thermoset polymers are used for light weighting, corrosion resistance and cost savings. There is nothing “cheap” about any of these highly engineered resins. We aren’t talking toys here but again some are just that “adult toys”. Have fun with that comment
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I have no complaints about the plastics in my 12 year old 4Runner. Point in fact, my wife has tried 3 times to drag home a planter box from Starbucks, however the plastic bumper always lets go of it before she gets very far, saving me the trouble of having to take the box back.
I know a number of plastic surfaces in my '99 Camry have distorted over the years, I'm guessing very slow outgassing. So they haven't held up well.... but well enough, as the car is still functional, despite one airbag cover looking like it's 80 years old and the power window buttons that are in a plastic insert are loose. The plastic bits that just snap off under the hood, those are more annoying. Oddly enough our 2003 CRV seems to have less plastic damage--but it spent over 15 years garaged in CT while my Camry probably spent that much time instead in AZ (might explain a lot, really).
SammyChevelleTypeS3
$50 site donor 2023
Yes. They have proven to themselves , there is a large segment of the auto buying public who will pay any (even outrageous) price just as quick as they can slap on the window sticker.
No plastic is as crappy as the plastic interior pieces in late 70's, early 80's GM vehicles. The plastic would flake and appear to delaminate. You could drag your thumbnail across the surface and gouge a nice trough in it.
