Bike Manufacturers Are Making Bikes Less Repairable

Can't get past the intro sentence without getting triggered. No, most people cannot fix a bike. As evidenced by the horrid shape most bikes are in. Heaven help folks that get the brakes so that they need to replace pads. You are as often to see people that ruined rims as you are to see people that did that correctly.

Don't get me wrong, there is something there. Everyone can be trained to fix older mechanical things. This is true. And I, for the life of me, cannot understand why people get bikes that need apps to run. That is just baffling.

So, change this to "ebikes are not being designed with repairability in mind" and I think I lose near all of my complaint. I do have worries about people not realizing how powerful ebikes are. Reminds me of early dirt motorcycles you could work on back in the day. Didn't take too many kids getting hurt before people took those seriously, I don't think. Odd to see us go right back down that path all because a lot of parents assume the battery tech is the same as it was a decade or so ago.

Unlike car maintenance bike maintenance is way more accessible. You need like one or two specialized tools to cover the majority of the work you'll do on your bike compared to a car. People are just lazy.

Exactly what specialized tools do you need to work on a car? Are you counting closed end wrenches and sockets as "specialized" or something?

While it is technically a socket, an oil filter wrench is reasonably specialized in that you won't see it in a standard socket set. Same may be true of a spark plug socket depending on your car.

Otherwise, doing routine/basic maintenance on a car, such as changing the oil, requires a means of getting under the car (ramps or jack and stands) and of handling large amounts of fluids (drain pan and funnel) neither of which you need to do the equivalent work on a bike.

A torque wrench is much more important for car maintenance than for bike maintenance (and you'll need a bigger one!). Depending on the condition of your car you may want a breaker bar.

Obviously doing anything with the suspension requires a spring compressor, and troubleshooting certain engine problems requires a compression tester, but those are needed infrequently enough that they can be rented or borrowed.

And that's before getting into the model-specific specialized tools for something like a timing belt change, or anything electronic (though I recommend anyone with a car should get a cheap Bluetooth OBDII reader).