I cannot say I applaud the self-congratulatory advocates of Bangernomics.
The industry spends billions in making cars safer and environmentally friendly for all road users and of course the motoring public foots the bill.
Yet we allow cars that do not come close to these modern standards to remain on the road. To compound this we have a flawed system that does not even enforce the minimal standards of the MOT.
Whilst I don't blame those motoring on a shoestring for taking advantage of this system, I suspect many of those with bangers pay scant attention to the safety aspects of servicing.
Without being facetious there is little point in Backroom members saying how meticulous you are in caring for your cars - you are atypical. Many paying a few pounds for a car are not going to spend the money necessary to keep it in a safe condition.
I think there is much to be said for the Japanese system that demands, and rigorously enforces, high standards. Cars failing to meet those standards are either scrapped or exported to a Third World country in motoring terms!!
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"I think there is much to be said for the Japanese system that demands, and rigorously enforces, high standards. Cars failing to meet those standards are either scrapped or exported to a Third World country in motoring terms!!"
...that'll be us then;-)
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Cardew, have you ever had anyone point out what a dampener you can be? So the people here who advocate bangernomics are atypical in that they maintain their cars, yet you wish to deprive them of their chosen transport along with the "masses".
Bravo.
Ever thought about the huge amounts of resources and pollution that come from car manufacture? If people are willing and able to keep older cars going then good for them.
Frankly I'm bewildered.
No Dosh
mailto:Alan_moderator@honestjohn.co.uk
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"Frankly I'm bewildered."
Me too, ND, but then he is in the Land of the Free (TM) where consumption is king. I'm not surprised that Dubya wants to get to Mars - we're all going to need it when the home planet is covered in scrap... :-)
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No Dosh,
Well said, sir!
Cheers
Rob
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The industry spends billions in making cars safer and environmentally friendly for all road users and of course the motoring public foots the bill.
>>
As far as I am aware given the amount of energy required to manufacture a new car it is far more environmentally friendly to run older cars, especially if you are recycling by using parts from a scrap yard. Also with the plummeting value of 2nd hand cars you can pick up some serious metal with some serious safety features for next to nothing. Large Volvo or Vx Omega anyone?
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Well said Big Vern and No Dosh. Totally agree. I drive a 15 year old Pug 309D, that I paid £600 for (the most I've ever spent on a car), and converted it to run on veg oil. I do all my own servicing and get bits from a scrappy when needed.
It has never failed it's MOT and the guy at the MOT station said, 'you obviously take care of the car - it's in better nick than some 5 year old stuff I get in'. My emission levels are less than half of the limit for my vehicle class.
I feel totally safe in it - I actually believe things like ABS, air bags etc, actually lead to more accidents. Peaple are inclined to brake later and rely too heavily on technology, using it as a crutch for bad and dangerous driving.
The level of energy and resources required to design, test, manufacture and deliver a new car far outway the enviromental damage done by running an old car.
It's not the cars that need to made safer, but people. Those behind a wheel of a vehicle need to drive more curteously, safely and well within their limits - not the limits of the car.
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"The industry spends billions ... of course the motoring public foots the bill."
But it doesn't have to. The industry only bothers about environmental issues when they become a legal requirement (look how hard Detroit lobbied to have SUV's classed as trucks!) and its prime motivation is making money, hence the exhortations to buy new.
Those of us who can resist the blandishments of the glossy ads and finance lock-ins are both helping themselves and the planet, although possibly not the government's backers...
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it runs great as well
normally i would say buy a german second hand car, this is absolutely a1 first class
people throw £300 at the bookies in a week or an armfull of heroin.
my pal bought a y plate 1.6lx new shape mondeo, silver, at work the price was £3000 he cant look him in the eye its 5-6000 all day long.
a good magazine is "used car buyer" as well for this sort of thing
if you do your homework and wait, you will always get a decent deal in the end no matter how much you want to spend.
after all thats all dealers do isnt it!!!!!
(probaby get a load of second hand car dealers now saying they cant make ends meet etc)
regards
derek whittle.
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Even down in the westcountry, there is a massive glut of cheap good cars for sale.
A colleague managed to get hold of a MK 1 Astra for - FREE. It was taxed and MOTed for the next 6 months, and I think he just paid for the tax.
In addition I saw a Maestro 1,6 auto advertised for free with 6 months MOT, great if you need a car for a few months.
People who try to peddle unsafe cars for a few quid these days just waste their time and money and usually end up scrapping them, so I think that the overall reduction in used car prices at this end of the market is a good thing, not a bad one.
Hugo
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personally i think the trick is as later registration you can afford, german or jap though yet to own anything jap so couldnt say.
cant go wrong with a golf or polo in my opinion .
the corsa was a gambler but its turned into a good result
derek whittle
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Cardew said"The industry spends billions in making cars safer and environmentally friendly for all road users and of course the motoring public foots the bill."
Except if it's a SUV in the US which is mainly exempt from safety and fuel regs.. as it is classified as a light truck..:-)
Most US cars are as environmentally friendly as the Exxon Valdez with their fuel consumption.....
madf
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JBJ, Madf,
It should be self - evident to you, from the remarks my post, that I am British.("we have a system ---- MOT") So if you wish for an excuse to criticise the USA go ahead, but it is irrelevant in the context of this thread.
No Dosh,
Those with the time, expertise and social responsibility to maintain their cars in a safe condition are not a problem. I specifically said those in the Backroom, who tend to be enthusiasts, were atypical.
In the UK the MOT lays down minimal standards and even those standards are inadequately enforced. The German TUV for instance is far more rigorously enforced but there are plenty of ancient Mercs and VWs on the road.
I will be flying home next weekend in a Jumbo that could well be 20+ years old. However(hopefully) it will have been well maintained and safe. The same cannot be said for many of the bangers on the roads of UK.
C
PS
Never sure when you are in moderator mode!
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I know you are only temporarily resident in the US, Cardew, but I was assuming that your comments were understandably the result of your surroundings in the land of conspicuous consumption. If it's what you really think, I apologise!
I don't have the figures to hand, but I believe that the number of accidents attributable to mechanical failure in this country are remarkably low, suggesting that the MOT works quite well. I accept that it's not as rigorously enforced as it could be, but there's no arguing with the fact that extending the life of cars is sounder environmentally than building more new ones.
Still, it's just as well that enough people fret about being seen with last year's registration/model/colour to provide the trickle-down necessary for those of us with better things to spend our money on (or without that much money to begin with)... :-)
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I think the bottom line is that you can get ten times the car for your £ nowadays than you could say 10-15 years ago.
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Those with the time, expertise and social responsibility to maintain their cars in a safe condition are not a problem. I specifically said those in the Backroom, who tend to be enthusiasts, were atypical.
A point I acknowledged. The real concern I had was the whole issue of removing these cars from circulation. I accept that in every post there are a dozen interpretations, but in this case I got the clear impression that you were arguing for the disposal of older cars, even when well maintained. As I read things, you can't effecively legislate for the poorly maintained cars, so better to be rid of them all was how you came across.
As for the Mod mode thing, my apologies. I'm currently posting from 4 different PCs in 3 locations and, GPRS willing, a palmtop when out and about. This tends to mean hurried posts and I sometimes go into "auto" and click on the signature button.
Mind you, good to keep you all guessing.... After all, if you upset No Dosh the backroom regular, there is a reasonable chance that No Dosh the Moderator may take issue with the thread as well. I've even been known to moderate my own posts after reading them back :o)
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I CHOOSE to drive these vehicles,I prefer older cars.I am a fully qualified mechanic and MOT tester (and no,I do NOT do my own MOT's) My Dedra is a clean as your new car,whatever it may be,as it passes the same emissions test,it may well have newer tyres on it than your car,also newer brakes etc,also it is independently checked every year instead of after 3 years,many cars fail their first MOT you know.And the best ABS or ABC or whatever else does not make up for good driving and good tyres,as for cars getting safer,who would agree that this is in part because cars are getting bigger? Would you like to go head on with a Discovery/Cherokee/Shogun-whatever you drive,airbags or not....
The safest safety match in the world can still burn ya!
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Cardew said "I will be flying home next weekend in a Jumbo that could well be 20+ years old".
Not if you're flying BA it won't be. The oldest 747's were delivered in 1989/1990. They have the registrations G-BNLA .. BNLZ, then the sequence is G-CIVA .. CIVZ and finally G-BYGA .. GBYGE (total 57 planes). The most recent are only a couple of years old. BA picked the "CIV" sequence as it looks like the roman numeral for 400, and the plane type is 747-400, subtle eh? Each was named after a UK city until Bob Ailing waved his funky paintbrush around 7 years ago.
Unlike cars, you don't pay the CAA any extra for personal registrations.
Maintenance on planes is carried out on a calendar time, flight time and number of cycles (take off & landing) basis, depending on the component. Every flight it is checked by engineers and the pilots, various intermediate checks are carried out and every couple of years they have a pretty major check where even the floor is taken out.
I'm just about to fly home from Singapore. Four Rolls Royce RB211's are going to spin at around 10-14,000 rpm for 14 hours, burn about 175,000 litres of fuel and just a litre of oil. Oil consumption being just about the only "bangernomics" related part of this post!
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LOL and O/T, if it's NorthWest or Continental Airlines their planes seem a good bit older, but not as old as the Jumbo flight attendants (pun intended....)
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i remember when i used to go plane spottin when i was a kid some of the planes were old then
raf vc10s came into manchester the other day as a diversion form brize norton
im 33 when i was 16 they werent even flying in civil aviation then so how old are they now
why insure your hot hatch for 1800 quid when you could have a tidy car for 300 sitting right next to you in same the traffic jam. always amazes me that.
not finished off the rest of the t cutting yet but corsa is coming up mint
it looks as good as wifes vectra. (incidentally they get a right mauling in here but ours has been faultless)
derek whittle
if it aint broke dont drive it!!!!!!!!!!!
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I have older cars and try to run them til they drop.
The only thing that worries me is what happens in a crash.
I saw on one of the TV motoring programmes a while back this very issue addressed.
They used an older car and crashed it. As might be expected it did not do too well. Rust, not always visible, had weakened the overall stiffness of the shell so it did rather poorly overall.
Food for thought.
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So there are no environmental issues with building a new car then!
How much energy and resources does it take to build new compared with say - replacing the brake master cylinder on the banger?
I think there is some self justification going on here. Just because you may be caught in the trap of keeping up with the Jonses buying new every couple of years, jam packed with superfluous froth, it doesn't mean that we want to or need our egos massaged by doing it.
Remember, radios are in cars because they are so boring theses days....
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Very true. I've spoken about this very subject with someone who investigates accidents and he says that older metal has rusted in places that are relatively unseen, and when attending crash scenes he sees that the structures don't perform as they should. Many of the scenes that he attends have involved fatalities, and if there's one thing that is evident, it's best not to crash an older car!
On the other hand he reckons that whilst there is a safety difference between different new cars, overall it isn't hugely significant whether you crashed in a Fiesta or a Clio, i.e. cars of the same size have similar crash performance. Although whether you crashed in a Mondeo or a Fiesta is a very significant factor affecting the outcome. If that makes any sense!?
Anyway, his opinion, bangers are great but don't crash one as they are all weakened with age and tend not to perform as they should in an accident.
Blue
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IIRC, the roman numerals for 400 are "CD" (?)
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Briefly back to avaition:
A while ago there were some pictures in circulation of a cargo aircraft that had suffered bird strikes to two engines on the same wing. The rotors were badly damaged. The photos were shocking because this event had not happened in the flight before it landed. The blades were strapped to the stators to prevent windmilling, because that would have caused enough vibration to take the engines off their mounts.
No these cowboys took off with this new arrangement.
The point being, no matter how stringent the regs or test arrangement is there will always be someone with no brains to abuse it. Wish I could find the pictures again.
Old cars do make some sense if they are reliable. My old bamgers occasionally cost me a day or two holiday to sort somethings out. And (as I found out) they tend not to have laminated screens.
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They needn't cost you that day's holiday. Just scrap them (put them on ebay) and get another one off ebay for a tenner. But then you do lose the fun of tinkering with the car.
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i had an airline rep in the other week that had worked in west africa
he can tell you stories to send a shiver down your back
back to the bangernomics thing 113 to replace the cambelt and i rang the garage to see if it has been servicesd and there is a print out there with all the histiry on it
300 quid its a bargain isnt it
regards
derek whittle
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I think you're right - CIV should be 104 surely?
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Apologies to Cardew: I had not meant to be offensive.. or if I was I was not really trying:-)
My wife runs a 10 year old Peugeot 106.. by all reckoning it's a banger. Owned from new, garaged evry day except 10 days in Scotland:-) only 39500 miles.. Waste of time and money replacing it.. Just regular services and spray all welded seams with rustproofer every 2-3 years..
We live in a throwaway society where what is desireable 3 years ago is now second rate.. eg Ford Pumas in 2000 were fetching very good prices second hand and the rare racing ones were rare as hens teeth. Now 10 a penny...
Why bother.. I don't.. The energy input into making a new car is HUGE....
madf
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