Is 3D Printing in the Future of Auto Repair?

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just 3D print small car parts when they broke, rather than pay exorbitant prices to the dealerships to replace them? Customers frequently come to us with car windows that won’t roll up because some tiny piece has broken on the regulator. Since dealerships don’t sell the parts on a regulator separately, the whole device usually has to be replaced.

Take for example the regulator on a 2002 Audi All Road. The entire regulator had to be replaced when one tiny part of the plastic clip broke off (see the difference between the blue section on the left versus the intact clip on the right). Audi sells the regulator assembly for about $300 after tax. Since each regulator comes with two of these clips, it seems reasonable that we should be able to just 3D print an intact part based on the one that is still good. Given the high cost of scanning and printing in 3D, and the unreliability of the materials used for 3D printing, we’re not there yet. But perhaps in the near future…

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