Old vs New

[Botus]

I never had issues with any car I had - but now spend 3 hrs a day on merc forums trying to help others.... and understand enough to try and keep ahead of the fun I get with mine and my fathers

 

[ajlsl600]

Slightly more expensive than the Minx, but this is tax & MOT exempt (and ULEZ compliant for that matter!)

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Had a look. Not a fan of colour but in other respects prob a reasonable choice. Cud be wrong but minx prob as reliable and parts more reasonable

 

[ajlsl600]

This looks grand to me. No gizzmo, s not attach to any makers pts dept. Pretty confident that my age, so long a little mobile will allow ME to all that needs doing. When I make the "jump" away from lemmingitis. I will change, every wearing pt chassis, steering wise, ensure elect ignition is fitted (theses were prior to dtf.) I will find an old motor n tranny to rebuild. I belive that in my driving life time that will be job done..

 

[ajlsl600]

I have noticed the level of queries being answered is dropping - yet there are still lots of skilled people here (with their knowledge still expanding) desperately trying to help. What I think changed are the faults and the possible causes have started going stupid, way beyond the possibilities of remote verbal diagnosis - and quite clearly heading passed what manufacturer support and dealer online tools can cope with too

with the reliable stuff of 18 years ago, no longer having the toys we expect, meaning they got abused / allowed to rust in our rush for modern toys and features, and with ECUs are starting to fail... how long before we go back to our 1960s British motorbikes, as they are more reliable, more user friendly and far more fun, than the current overpriced rubbish car manu's are peddling ?

Just sold my 10k miles gsx1400. Sad, second best bike ever had. But at 230 kg just to f heavy. Now thinkin on vn1500 or similar for next summer. Also quite heavy, but lower c of g. Possibly making thinks easier.

 

[LostKiwi]

This looks grand to me. No gizzmo, s not attach to any makers pts dept. Pretty confident that my age, so long a little mobile will allow ME to all that needs doing. When I make the "jump" away from lemmingitis. I will change, every wearing pt chassis, steering wise, ensure elect ignition is fitted (theses were prior to dtf.) I will find an old motor n tranny to rebuild. I belive that in my driving life time that will be job done..

The good thing about an electronic ignition retrofit is the old parts can usually be tossed in the boot and refitted if the electronics bits do like they do and fail.

 

[DSK]

Our neighbour whose now elderly has always had Fords. He used to do all engine works, rebuilds etc on a weekend, then taught his son whose my age how to do it. They did some significant work on his 205 gti regularly. He hates the fact his newish Cmax MPV I think needs to go to the dealer for the slightest issue and he doesn’t like the poor trims internal/external that seem to work loose. He says his Mondeo was the best he’s had. I think for me here I’m saying one could do a lot of work and keep stuff going as needed. Now to change a bulb, I refuse to accept having to strip the front end of a car to change a fvcking bulb is common sense. But having to take time off work, get some spanner monkey in a dealer outfit to do it is a nice earner for the dealer. The apprentice who does it will fvck it up and you’ll be back there next week to be bent over again.

I’ve said it before, if I had to take a trek around the world I’d take my c70 t5/s70r then the Supra before anything else! Why? They will do it without a glitch having proven themselves doing 1k a week commutes snow or shine, serious sustained speeds and track days. More expensive stuff I’ve had like M5s, E350, and an XKR which were basically were fragile or, left me questioning the quality in comparison and have seen little issue at best compared to all the modern and fancy stuff in family circles that are usually renewed every 3-6 years.

The 2010 E350 was reliable enough over 100k and felt like it could genuinely do about 200k without significant issue outside a full suspension refresh. However a couple of repeat issues with headlights. A bulb failure resulted in me getting the car back with a condensing headlamp. This then resulted in a new headlight. Followed by the same on the other side. Despite it being able to cover hours of motorways and deliver you comfortably at the other end, it was a nosier cabin than my old Volvo, clattery engine especially when cold. I didn’t like the interior quality, it’s cheap despite how it looks. The S350 is more like it but you can see where they’ve tried to save 50p at every opportunity but it just, scrapes through, with a nice and quiet ride and almost everything feels just nice enough to the touch. The clock air vent area is the same as it was on the E350 but push it, touch it, it’s cheap! It’s turd heavily wrapped in tinsel.

The M5s were just a pitas. They couldn’t handle a spanking and just needed TLC, for misfires (caused by mechanics not changing plugs as I instructed on several occasions) and a few random engine sensors, bearings, suspension mounts and joints. A bit like a bitchy girlfriend that’s the about the best in bed. Things easily fixed but just annoying to have to do it constantly.

The 2013 Astra GTC wasn’t quality but also did 98k trouble free. No issues I think with that seeing 200k easily. However, that I used to get washed on occasion at the local hand wash and every time they did the interior all the stuff on the centre console (buttons, screen and radio etc) stopped working for about a week. Can only assume the spray was getting past the gaps etc. The metal body would dent from the slightest bit of pressure against something, yet I have stood on the boot and roof of one of my C70s with out issue….. the panel gaps were not good and couldn’t retain heat so the car would be very cold in winter and also let in surrounding fumes in traffic. During winter the long drives needed constant temperature adjustments for the cabin which became annoying. I found out myself the ****** fuel tank was not baffled as it always clonked when about 3/4 full or less… fvcking seriously!!!!!! I thought it was something else but the dealer was clueless. The interior seats had the ergonomics of something that Fred flinstone would say is crap but the covering material certainly durable to withstand abuse and accidents. Oh the clutch was duff from the moment I collected it but I lived with it. It also had a slightly dicky idle from new but again, just left it. Cabin noise not good for long journeys. I always felt battered after a drive in that. However the suspension was crude but highly effective around the twisty sections. The styling caused silly blind spots.

No one can argue that the majority of modern cars are not built to last. They are designed to be modular in repairs and replaced more often as part of the ‘keep them poor’ strategy. I did consider the S8 4.0 when, looking at all sorts after the one of the c70s was hit. I heard from my colleague who works on race cars on weekends that they had a common issue with some thing oil related to the turbos, a pipe or filter I think from memory that causes turbo failure in

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Craiglxviii]

Saying “no one can argue that modern cars are not built to last” is plain wrong in and of itself. People certainly can argue that. I shall elaborate:

Prior to ~2009-10, cars had a warranty life of 3 years or 30,000 mikes, whichever came sooner. That was pretty universal and had been for decades. Now, cars of decades before could perhaps- not always!- be repaired more easily by the home mechanic (provided that mechanic had adequate skills to both diagnose the issue and carry out the repair). Also, cars of decades before were just as subject to “penny pinching” (cost reduction) as they are today. I literally have the textbook on this; Ford Motor Company has one of the oldest continuously-operating cost reduction programmes on the planet. So don’t go thinking that “back in the good old days, they were built to last”. They expressly were NOT, they were built to last 3 years with the first owner and that was it. The fact that older cars lasted into the second hand market for as long as they did is more testament to both the margins of error built into their design- due to manual design work, these were needed to ensure cars got past the 3 year warranty without failure- AND to the driveway mechanics who couldn’t afford new cars, and needed to keep older cars running.

Taking us to the early noughties. Kia conducted the very first Total FMEA study across their whole warranty dataset. They looked at every item that had failed in service, the probability of failure and concluded that they could afford to support a longer warranty period on new sales. So, they offered 7 years, and customers were amazed- how could they do this when no one else could? Simple, they very carefully calculated the extreme outliers of probable failure in their warranty and provisioned accordingly. No design changes were necessary to accomplish this.

Fast forward a few years, to around 2010. A series of groundbreaking first-time user studies began to complete, commissioned globally by all of the Big 5 carmakers. Results were not as anticipated. Buyers of new cars were keeping them, on average, not for 3 years but 7 years before selling into the secondhand market (nowadays the global average is 8.1 years). So carmakers had to do something to tempt those buyers into further new sales; warranties crept up from 3 to 5 years (dependent on system), and at the same time design standards began to be improved to squeeze further warranty life out of components.

So, today, new cars rolling off the line have a warranty life of 3, 5 or 7 years with a minimum acceptable design life of 8.1 years, plus the margin necessary to ensure repeat business beyond that.

So, by a quite literal engineering design definition, cars today are designed to last somewhere north of twice as long as they were, say, 25+ years ago or more.

 

[ajlsl600]

The good thing about an electronic ignition retrofit is the old parts can usually be tossed in the boot and refitted if the electronics bits do like they do and fail.

Thought on that, suspect older electronics prob reliable, before break 5 min after 12cmonth dtf came in.

 

[ajlsl600]

Saying “no one can argue that modern cars are not built to last” is plain wrong in and of itself. People certainly can argue that. I shall elaborate:

Prior to ~2009-10, cars had a warranty life of 3 years or 30,000 mikes, whichever came sooner. That was pretty universal and had been for decades. Now, cars of decades before could perhaps- not always!- be repaired more easily by the home mechanic (provided that mechanic had adequate skills to both diagnose the issue and carry out the repair). Also, cars of decades before were just as subject to “penny pinching” (cost reduction) as they are today. I literally have the textbook on this; Ford Motor Company has one of the oldest continuously-operating cost reduction programmes on the planet. So don’t go thinking that “back in the good old days, they were built to last”. They expressly were NOT, they were built to last 3 years with the first owner and that was it. The fact that older cars lasted into the second hand market for as long as they did is more testament to both the margins of error built into their design- due to manual design work, these were needed to ensure cars got past the 3 year warranty without failure- AND to the driveway mechanics who couldn’t afford new cars, and needed to keep older cars running.

Taking us to the early noughties. Kia conducted the very first Total FMEA study across their whole warranty dataset. They looked at every item that had failed in service, the probability of failure and concluded that they could afford to support a longer warranty period on new sales. So, they offered 7 years, and customers were amazed- how could they do this when no one else could? Simple, they very carefully calculated the extreme outliers of probable failure in their warranty and provisioned accordingly. No design changes were necessary to accomplish this.

Fast forward a few years, to around 2010. A series of groundbreaking first-time user studies began to complete, commissioned globally by all of the Big 5 carmakers. Results were not as anticipated. Buyers of new cars were keeping them, on average, not for 3 years but 7 years before selling into the secondhand market (nowadays the global average is 8.1 years). So carmakers had to do something to tempt those buyers into further new sales; warranties crept up from 3 to 5 years (dependent on system), and at the same time design standards began to be improved to squeeze further warranty life out of components.

So, today, new cars rolling off the line have a warranty life of 3, 5 or 7 years with a minimum acceptable design life of 8.1 years, plus the margin necessary to ensure repeat business beyond that.

So, by a quite literal engineering design definition, cars today are designed to last somewhere north of twice as long as they were, say, 25+ years ago or more.

Craig I don't think my Ford escort van broke down once in 8 Yr I had it. I needed no new tools every 12 month and never needed to plug it into anything to keep it going . Near every motor factor in country had the bits and even post apprenticeship when I had no cash. I can't remember any part being vastly expensive.
Think some? Are on different planet to consider a 1000 pound price of headlight either reasonable or practical I think I had my 3rd car before the whole b thing cost me more than a grand.

 

[Craiglxviii]

Craig I don't think my Ford escort van broke down once in 8 Yr I had it. I needed no new tools every 12 month and never needed to plug it into anything to keep it going . Near every motor factor in country had the bits and even post apprenticeship when I had no cash. I can't remember any part being vastly expensive.
Think some? Are on different planet to consider a 1000 pound price of headlight either reasonable or practical I think I had my 3rd car before the whole b thing cost me more than a grand.

I have to say, you’re seeing it through rose-tinted specs! A Ford Escort not breaking down once in 8 years? Just don’t believe it!

 

[ajlsl600]

OK don't. I believe in regular inspection, maintainance n that's why even on my first Cooper I never failed to get home, maybe wire exhaust back up to manifold once 2x. but never walked or needed roadside fix in mk 2xescort van. I used to work ofter normal job building Ford gearboxes. Evh gearboxes chipp. Long gone. I once drove there at 5 pm, removed motor, rebuilt it and drove home again at 6 am following day. I pre arranged I had all poss bits incl prior rebuilt head. Job dun. I did, nt wait for it to b down!!! One did not need to be a rocket scientist to fix ur car or lug around 500 or grand in diagnostics kit. U cud prob fix most things with 8 spanners and a couple of adjustable n screwdrivers.

 

[SL63 Mark]

Why is it my memory of old cars is so different ? We had loads, my parents and I. They were truly horrible compared to todays cars.

Our brand new Austin 1100 had corrosion from the factory and needed a new flywheel after three months.
Our sh*t brown 1983 Austin Maestro brand new had collapsed engine mounts on a trip to Wales with 500 miles on the Odometer.
My Mum had the most appalling series of Metros.
Our three year old Allegro leaked and had rust holes in the floor pan.
My 1971 Marina is well documented as the most appalling piece of junk I have ever owned, it even smelt bad, I can still remember the vinyl.

And no, this is not a pop at British Leyland, that was just what everyone owned. The venerable Botus may look back to the past with nostalgia, but those of us who lived through it have no desire to go back.

My 2 litre 1979 Lancia Beta Coupe was a sweet thing, and compared to the awful British cars of that era I do actually look back with affection on that.

 

[ajlsl600]

Forgot I don't see great design improvement either.
Xrxp sensors made by lowest bidder even on perceived prestige cars engines in wrong way around around turning a 2 hr simple job into an all day specialist tooling job. Water pumps designed so Joe average can't change start without entire housing and stat ( Great on world resources) same on adblue. And much more.

 

[ajlsl600]

Why is it my memory of old cars is so different ? We had loads, my parents and I. They were truly horrible compared to todays cars.

Our brand new Austin 1100 had corrosion from the factory and needed a new flywheel after three months.
Our sh*t brown 1983 Austin Maestro brand new had collapsed engine mounts on a trip to Wales with 500 miles on the Odometer.
My Mum had the most appalling series of Metros.
Our three year old Allegro leaked and had rust holes in the floor pan.
My 1971 Marina is well documented as the most appealing piece of junk I have ever owned, it even smelt bad, I can still remember the vinyl.

And no, this is not a pop at British Leyland, that was just what everyone owned. The venerable Botus may look back to the past with nostalgia, but those of us who lived through it have no desire to go back.

My 2 litre 1979 Lancia Beta Coupe was a sweet thing, and compared to the awful British cars of that era I do actually look back with affection on that.

I 100% agree on. Leyland. I was not referring to old UK cars tho I have a hankering for one hilman. I refer to old any, merc volvo, BMW, and many others. They were built solid today's cars will still look great in 30 Yr u just won't be able to get anything to fix em with. Or any diagnostics. All are entitled to their own, and pay for it. I just believe we are being herded by industry specifically the car industry. And I for one ain't fallin for it.

 

[LostKiwi]

I 100% agree on. Leyland. I was not referring to old UK cars tho I have a hankering for one hilman. I refer to old any, merc volvo, BMW, and many others. They were built solid today's cars will still look great in 30 Yr u just won't be able to get anything to fix em with. Or any diagnostics. All are entitled to their own, and pay for it. I just believe we are being herded by industry specifically the car industry. And I for one ain't fallin for it.

Can't go wrong with old Volvo's. Amazons last forever and the P1800 holds the record for the highest mileage car with over 3 million miles before the owner passed away.

To me there are three major issues with old cars.
1. Parts can be hard to find but in general they can be fabricated pretty easily.
2. Corrosion. Always an issue on old cars.
3. Fuel consumption. They were never economical.

They're also often quite slow but in some ways that's not always a bad thing.

 

[Blobcat]

Saying “no one can argue that modern cars are not built to last” is plain wrong in and of itself. People certainly can argue that. I shall elaborate:

Prior to ~2009-10, cars had a warranty life of 3 years or 30,000 mikes, whichever came sooner. That was pretty universal and had been for decades. Now, cars of decades before could perhaps- not always!- be repaired more easily by the home mechanic (provided that mechanic had adequate skills to both diagnose the issue and carry out the repair). Also, cars of decades before were just as subject to “penny pinching” (cost reduction) as they are today. I literally have the textbook on this; Ford Motor Company has one of the oldest continuously-operating cost reduction programmes on the planet. So don’t go thinking that “back in the good old days, they were built to last”. They expressly were NOT, they were built to last 3 years with the first owner and that was it. The fact that older cars lasted into the second hand market for as long as they did is more testament to both the margins of error built into their design- due to manual design work, these were needed to ensure cars got past the 3 year warranty without failure- AND to the driveway mechanics who couldn’t afford new cars, and needed to keep older cars running.

Taking us to the early noughties. Kia conducted the very first Total FMEA study across their whole warranty dataset. They looked at every item that had failed in service, the probability of failure and concluded that they could afford to support a longer warranty period on new sales. So, they offered 7 years, and customers were amazed- how could they do this when no one else could? Simple, they very carefully calculated the extreme outliers of probable failure in their warranty and provisioned accordingly. No design changes were necessary to accomplish this.

Fast forward a few years, to around 2010. A series of groundbreaking first-time user studies began to complete, commissioned globally by all of the Big 5 carmakers. Results were not as anticipated. Buyers of new cars were keeping them, on average, not for 3 years but 7 years before selling into the secondhand market (nowadays the global average is 8.1 years). So carmakers had to do something to tempt those buyers into further new sales; warranties crept up from 3 to 5 years (dependent on system), and at the same time design standards began to be improved to squeeze further warranty life out of components.

So, today, new cars rolling off the line have a warranty life of 3, 5 or 7 years with a minimum acceptable design life of 8.1 years, plus the margin necessary to ensure repeat business beyond that.

So, by a quite literal engineering design definition, cars today are designed to last somewhere north of twice as long as they were, say, 25+ years ago or more.

Mercedes had 3 yr unlimited mileage warranty in 2000 - one of the reasons I bought my first one.

 

[Botus]

The good thing about an electronic ignition retrofit is the old parts can usually be tossed in the boot and refitted if the electronics bits do like they do and fail.

ready for the EMP ?

 

[Craiglxviii]

ready for the EMP ?

Only occurs if the ignition is powered on. Actually given the proliferation of TEMPEST protocol in the consumer domain since the mid-80s I would not be surprised if many modern ECUs are pre-hardened.

 

[ajlsl600]

Our neighbour whose now elderly has always had Fords. He used to do all engine works, rebuilds etc on a weekend, then taught his son whose my age how to do it. They did some significant work on his 205 gti regularly. He hates the fact his newish Cmax MPV I think needs to go to the dealer for the slightest issue and he doesn’t like the poor trims internal/external that seem to work loose. He says his Mondeo was the best he’s had. I think for me here I’m saying one could do a lot of work and keep stuff going as needed. Now to change a bulb, I refuse to accept having to strip the front end of a car to change a fvcking bulb is common sense. But having to take time off work, get some spanner monkey in a dealer outfit to do it is a nice earner for the dealer. The apprentice who does it will fvck it up and you’ll be back there next week to be bent over again.

I’ve said it before, if I had to take a trek around the world I’d take my c70 t5/s70r then the Supra before anything else! Why? They will do it without a glitch having proven themselves doing 1k a week commutes snow or shine, serious sustained speeds and track days. More expensive stuff I’ve had like M5s, E350, and an XKR which were basically were fragile or, left me questioning the quality in comparison and have seen little issue at best compared to all the modern and fancy stuff in family circles that are usually renewed every 3-6 years.

The 2010 E350 was reliable enough over 100k and felt like it could genuinely do about 200k without significant issue outside a full suspension refresh. However a couple of repeat issues with headlights. A bulb failure resulted in me getting the car back with a condensing headlamp. This then resulted in a new headlight. Followed by the same on the other side. Despite it being able to cover hours of motorways and deliver you comfortably at the other end, it was a nosier cabin than my old Volvo, clattery engine especially when cold. I didn’t like the interior quality, it’s cheap despite how it looks. The S350 is more like it but you can see where they’ve tried to save 50p at every opportunity but it just, scrapes through, with a nice and quiet ride and almost everything feels just nice enough to the touch. The clock air vent area is the same as it was on the E350 but push it, touch it, it’s cheap! It’s turd heavily wrapped in tinsel.

The M5s were just a pitas. They couldn’t handle a spanking and just needed TLC, for misfires (caused by mechanics not changing plugs as I instructed on several occasions) and a few random engine sensors, bearings, suspension mounts and joints. A bit like a bitchy girlfriend that’s the about the best in bed. Things easily fixed but just annoying to have to do it constantly.

The 2013 Astra GTC wasn’t quality but also did 98k trouble free. No issues I think with that seeing 200k easily. However, that I used to get washed on occasion at the local hand wash and every time they did the interior all the stuff on the centre console (buttons, screen and radio etc) stopped working for about a week. Can only assume the spray was getting past the gaps etc. The metal body would dent from the slightest bit of pressure against something, yet I have stood on the boot and roof of one of my C70s with out issue….. the panel gaps were not good and couldn’t retain heat so the car would be very cold in winter and also let in surrounding fumes in traffic. During winter the long drives needed constant temperature adjustments for the cabin which became annoying. I found out myself the ****** fuel tank was not baffled as it always clonked when about 3/4 full or less… fvcking seriously!!!!!! I thought it was something else but the dealer was clueless. The interior seats had the ergonomics of something that Fred flinstone would say is crap but the covering material certainly durable to withstand abuse and accidents. Oh the clutch was duff from the moment I collected it but I lived with it. It also had a slightly dicky idle from new but again, just left it. Cabin noise not good for long journeys. I always felt battered after a drive in that. However the suspension was crude but highly effective around the twisty sections. The styling caused silly blind spots.

No one can argue that the majority of modern cars are not built to last. They are designed to be modular in repairs and replaced more often as part of the ‘keep them poor’ strategy. I did consider the S8 4.0 when, looking at all sorts after the one of the c70s was hit. I heard from my colleague who works on race cars on weekends that they had a common issue with some thing oil related to the turbos, a pipe or filter I think from memory that causes turbo failure in

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

We are close.

 

[Botus]

I was talking to an old boy with Standard 8 on Sunday - his daily driver is one of the most reliable brands out there - but he's fed up.

Gets a flat battery every day !

"I said you mean it needs a good run at least every two weeks"

NO ! it goes flat everyday and won't start !

So I ask "what it is?"

sky active x Mazda 3 (current revision that was smoother and had a bit more go over the first CI petrol's about 3 years back ), then I remember CAR mag had a one off glitch with their long termer that died over a weekend once. so I said "has it had the latest software" - expecting him to look at me like I was some alien,

and he said, oh yes didn't make any difference ...

"is is a hybrid ?"

Oh yes....

"take it back and give them a kicking, it must be under warranty"

I do regularly

So I thought I'll give him some modern consumer advice to save him making another mistake "you've got to lease modern rubbish, or it will just go wrong and eat your money - lease it every two years and throw it in a skip". I really expected the alien response to this point - along the lines that I must be some tin foil nut job.... ....

Its a lease, wouldn't dare do anything else - its going back, I'm going back to BMWs