They then get ridiculed in the motoring press for not having the handling expected. I also think my Accord can do everything you suggest - except for the spare wheel that is.
As its number one on his hate list thats not a good start is it. It is, as it happens, my no1 bugbear. I had one with no spare, just a bottle of muck and a pump and a complete flat tyre, I told the leasing company to either have a new tyre on it within two hours or a hire car at the door.
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I agree with WP. I speak with a lot of pals with repair shops and breakdown services. It seems we all agree on the following
A Fiesta sized car with four doors
A simple overhead valve engine with a duplex timing chain.
Coil and points, but accessible
Simple Carb.
Easy clutch....like mk 2 Cavalier. Cable easy to fit at pedal.
No computers or electronics
Oil filter and plugs easy to change
A pensioners' delight !
Won't happen again though. Everything geared to those damned emissions now.
Ted
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Ted,
How about a Morris Minor?
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Ted's list epitomises all I loathe in cars..
They were carp when new .. and unreliable and a pia to maintain.
and expensive on fuel.
I have driven cars with fuel injection and electronic ignition since c 1985. Number of engine breakdowns? NIL.
The good old days were nothing of the sort.
Edited by madf on 09/02/2009 at 16:52
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Try Subaru and a Subaru dealer.
I have found they tick all those boxes.
The dealer is enthusiastic about the product know their stuff and actually do everything on the service schedule efficiently.
I have not trusted a garage for a long time but now restored. Certainly this one anyway.
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A simple overhead valve engine with a duplex timing chain. Coil and points but accessible Simple Carb. No computers or electronics
Oh yes i remember them. All churning away, refusing to start on cold damp mornings. The single biggest improvement in cars in the last 40 years has been the universal adoption of fuel injection and Electronic ignition.
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Electronic cars are fine until they go wrong. Catalysers are cheap nowadays but all the little breather valves and assorted sensors can be a bit of a nightmare for a tinkerer when the thing is getting old.
The sort of car Ted is talking about can be maintained by a savvy engine mechanic through thick and thin. I used to run Skoda Estelles which ignorant people are rude about but which never failed to start or went badly if kept in perfect tune. They responded well to enthusiastic, heavy-footed driving too. And the regular tuning process was enjoyable in itself. So I agree with Ted from a genuine budget motoring viewpoint, and from a real hands-on car freak viewpoint too...
Can't help agreeing with everyone else though that modern cars are a lot better (if less characterful): faster, more comfortable, more efficient, safer, longer-lasting in mileage terms. On the other hand the financial stakes are a bit higher too. It's a different era now, the only one a lot of people really know.
Hi there Ted...
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It's no big surprise that the trade wants points (Eeuch!) and carbs back - their workshops would be full to overflowing, and they wouldn't have to think or have much skill to earn their money - Bliss!
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Thanks for your support Lud...The Estelle had many good points ( no pun ) one of which was a clutch which was a doddle to do. Alright, the engine had to come out, but it was so easy after taking off the rear panel You could do virtually the whole job sat on a low chair. The thing about all that I mentioned was that they could be repaired at the roadside by a competant breakdown man...in most cases not ruining someones day.
I agree that cars are a lot better now, but not from a maintenance point of view. Not everone can afford the £75 per hour charged by ordinary , everyday make, dealers.
Ted
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>>but not from a maintenance point of view
Again, I can't agree.
For most jobs, cars have never been easier to work on.
Not only is the steel much better, and your spanner more likely to fit, but the design has improved no end - to the extent that in many cases, the maintenance is simply no longer required.
For a big service on a car in the 70's, the labour time allowance would be knocking on for 4 hours - a big service on a modern car will be more like 1.3 hours.
For example, sealed for life ball joints fail far less frequently than their greasable counterparts used to, and only trouble deviant owners of older cars like 15 year old W124s.
Even the hated electronics actually make the job easier - from a relatively cheap scan tool, live data and fault codes can be gleaned which help find the fault. Yes, there are times when dealer access is required, and I hope that some more standardisation of vehicle wide electrincs will happen.
Poke and hope was alive and well in the days of points and carbs too, mis-diagnosis was just as common, if not more so - poke and hope is not a new invention resulting from vehicle electronics.
The ECUs themselves are hugely reliable, and although people go on about them being something else to go wrong, most go to the scrappie never having been unplugged.
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I actually like computers but then I am better at ECU diagnoses as I am at a spanner. Since we have had fuel injection cars (we have not had a carb since the Lada in 97) cars have been so much more reliable. Coilpacks are much much more reliable than dizzy's (unless its a Renault).
We have never owned a car which had a fault on the fuel injection system, yes Lamda's have failed but on one of my Fiestas I had to bodge the wiring to the TPS but thats about it, it beats cleaning out carbs or spraying dizzy's with WD40 if it got slightly damp.
I agree with the simplicity of OVH engines, I've had three cars with Kent engines now and the head has never had to be removed, no worry about silly cambelts or even head gaskets.
I don't mind belt driven cars or 16 valve engines, cars like the Focus prove these can be very refined and reliable but my ex got some quotes from Renault dealers for a new cambelt, one of the quotes from a main dealer was £600 for the belt and water pump! She has now found a local indie who has quoted £240 for the job.
And even if an ECU fails in most cases it seems to be failing capacitors, any good electronics workshop can easily solder new ones, the actual ECU itself is very unlikely to fail because its solid state. In the past 14 years I have been fixing computers I have not once seen a blown processor.
The more solid state parts in a car the better, they just have to be affordable, easy to replace and simple. I think the big problem with French cars is they always like to be very high tech and this makes them complicated (A clio would have had EPS where the same price Ka you would be lucky to get ABS).
I think the way the motor trading is going is we will have fitters and diagnosers, the diagnosers being the old school mechanics but also hopefully well up on the electrical side of things, you can actually do degrees in now in automatic diagnostics. These courses are not really about how to replace parts or strip an engine down (although it must be covered) it is much more about the maths which make the engines work.
I think things are getting silly when Renault are quoting over £80 to replace when a lot of garages on a more simple car would probably not even charge labour for that job if it was a regular customer.
PS I would actually like a small car who's suspension actually lasts more than two years!
Edited by Rattle on 09/02/2009 at 18:54
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Two different eras NC.
Obviously everything you say is true. But the modern plug-in, throwaway systems, efficient and reliable though they are, can be costly when they crash, and will immobilise you in a desert the way the old steam-era technology won't if you are properly prepared.
Chalk and cheese. One is good for writing but tastes bad, the other good to eat but carp for writing.
Poke and hope... I love it. Often works too, with all these cheapo corroded small electrical contacts everywhere... Just remembering my VW 411 whose cobweb of little wires used to need tickling from time to time.
Look, I mean, who wouldn't have a 70 grand uberjalopy (or several) if they could afford it?
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>>and will immobilise you in a desert
For a bit of fun, I once had a bit of a play with a (customer's!) Carlton which had a Motronic engine management system.
I found that I could unplug most of the system and the car continued to run (albeit badly!). IIRC, the items I couldn't unplug and keep the car running were the crank angle sensor, the fuel pump & fuel pump relay, the coil, the injectors, and the ECU itself.
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A few months ago I found my mechanic puzzling over a Jaguar that would run quite normally with two of the plug leads disconnected. He never did get to the bottom of it. It didn't just idle, it ran.
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This thread makes it sound like older cars couldn't keep running and newer cars never breakdown.
I assure you both statements have grey areas. Simple cars will be here soon, to the detriment of the existing manufacturers, purely because they have been making cars more complicated not more reliable. If in doubt, look east?
As for modern cars being ultra reliable. Lets see? coil packs, timing belts, DMF's, sensors (of umpteen types) and I could go on. failure of any of those and the car will be immobile until properly repaired; no get you home measures available.
Then theres the discs that dont last, the non existent spare tyres, that all cost money and aggravation and money and time to repair.
Yes cars with points were a problem, but todays cars arent trouble free!
You pays your money and takes your choice. But from where I stand a lot of people want a simpler car! If the manufacturers were listening to their markets then they would be available!
Progress is often advancing backwards!
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.... This thread makes it sound like older cars couldn't keep running and newer cars never breakdown. I assure you both statements have grey areas. ... >>
We need detailed statistics to compare the changes from year to year. Even stats like the ones below are pretty useless without detail and assurance of standard methods of recording the data:
from www.noclaimsdiscount.co.uk/news/art_display.php?sh...1
The AA's top five call out reasons in 2008:
Battery 535,500
Tyres 331,000
Keys Locked in Car 80,500
Engine 79,500
Alternator 76,500
The RAC top 5 callout reasons for 2008:
Batteries 450,000
Tyres 300,000
Engine/Electrical Faults 250,000
Engine Mechanical Faults 175,000
Road Traffic Accidents 75,000
In 2008 The RAC attended 2.5 million call outs, whilst the AA fielded 5.6 million calls with 3.6million requiring assistance. Smaller breakdown providers like Green Flag attended less than 500,000. The industry as a whole answers over 20,000 call outs every day.
Let's add that up: there are around 35 million cars in Britain with over 7 million callouts for breakdown recovery services each year ... "
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But from where I stand a lot of people want a simpler car!
Well, not me. When I buy a new car I want the very latest in technology and gadgets.
Anyone who wants to halt (or reverse) progress is a fuddy-duddy dinosaur.
Edited by L'escargot on 10/02/2009 at 06:54
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