I prefer old cars to new ones because they tend to have more character, and they're a lot easier and cheaper to repair, and more robust. Also I don't think that new cars today actually run any better than new cars did 20 years ago....
My own car is a 1994 Vauxhall Astra 1.7DTL. Is has no engine management, no ABS, no central locking, no electric windows or mirrors, no alarm or immobiliser, and no fancy bells and whistles that can and will go wrong, usually at great expense.
It's done 196,000 miles and still starts on the button and drives very quiet and smooth, and has no rust in it at all. Exactly what I want from a car.
Problem is, what do I replace it with when it does eventually die?...
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The only modern fitment I'd take seriously is ABS, but it's still not the idiot-proof solution to all braking situations, is it?
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I agree that keeping a car as simple as possible will avoid problems. I would certainly recommend finding another diesel that is NOT common rail and NOT a turbo.
A pre common rail diesel would be my choice as modern diesels are very complex to allow for instant starting by priming the pump as soon as the doors are unlocked and to meet the latest emmission regulations. This also means complex engine management systems - something else to go expensively wrong.
The turbo can give extra power but can be expensive to replace if anything goes wrong.
ABS is very usful as you seem to do a higher than average mileage, just for extra personal safety.
Central locking by a key is useful (not a remote - I have disabled mine).
Electric windows can also be nice in warm weather to improve ventilation and are generally faily reliable and if go wrong, not too expensive to fix. It is cheaper and I think better than aircon.
Electric mirrors are nice but can be expensive if they get damaged, so if you can exist with fixed mirrors then great.
Again I have disabled my car alarm as it is too sensative, but I have left the immobiliser.
So what meets the above requirements? I do not have a clue as you do not mention whether you are buying new or second hand (and at what age). For pre common rails diesels you will have to be looking for a car about 6 years old.
Hope this helps.
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>something else to go expensively wrong.
It's true modern diesels can go "expensively wrong" but they are far, far superior to the old IDI diesels in terms of power, fuel efficiency, and quietness. The HDIs, for example, have been in production for well over five years now in cars and commercial vehicles and must have covered many millions of miles; the number of "expensive failures" is small by comparison. Bad luck if you're the one to pick up the bill for a failure, but while it's possible it isn't likely. As they become ubiquitous prices are coming down too.
>The turbo can give extra power but can be expensive to replace if anything goes wrong.
So can a gearbox, or a driver's seat, or a carpet.
>Electric windows can also be nice in warm weather to improve ventilation and are generally faily reliable and if go wrong, not too expensive to fix. It is cheaper and I think better than aircon.
You are joking, right? You prefer to be deafened by warm air battering its way in through an open window right by your ear while you sweat into your seat? Give me cool feet, peace and quiet and the better concentration they bring any day. On my car fuel economy is better with the aircon on than it is with the window open.
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I agree entirely with the sentiment (I feel the same way about computer software, too) but of course, the supply of simple vehicles will dry up before long.
There is probably a window between about 4-6 years where even a modern car should be old enough to be cheap, but new enough to be reliable. Are there any durability stats out there?
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I have a friend of mine who owns an M-reg Ford Escort 1.6 Mistral from new. The reason she brought this model was that it had no electrics such as windows & mirrors due to hearing a friend of hers had an Escort 'Ghia' with lecky windows that failed due to some electrical problem! The only lecky item it has is the power steering pump (which hasnt failed yet!)& not forgetting the alarm which is now been disabled for a few years now!
The only problem it faces is the typical corrosion around the rear arches as been a Ford of course!!
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Its not what you drive, its how you drive it! :-)
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M-reg Ford Escort 1.6 Mistral from new... ...The only lecky item it has is the power steering pump...
That vintage of car surely won't have electric power steering, will it? I thought that was a pretty recent innovation.
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I also have a tendency to agree with you Railroad. I can fully understand why people would equally hate simple cars because they're 'boring' and find the prospect of having to wind down a window laughably simplistic, but hey, its each to their own.
As you may have read in my profile, I own a 1993 Polo. It has the smaller 1043cc engine driven through a 4 speed 'box. People often say they wish had a newer car, or will constantly ask "what car do you want next then?" or "don't you fancy a new car then?" The answer is no, No I don't want a new one, and if I was going to get a different car, it certainly wouldn't be a new one.
I also like to smile at the fact my car cost so little and yet does all the jobs that a more expensive car could have done, and also remains cheap to repair should it go wrong. Even if the gearbox dropped out tomorrow, I would repair it, cos its cheaper than a replacement car.
Even though it does have computer controlled injection, it rarely goes wrong and is simple to fix. People often laugh at the fact it had four speeds, but this doesn't bother me neither since its top ratio is well matched for the engines output, and was taller than the 5 speed boxes on the models which replaced it.
Also, just because its old doesn't means its crude. Engine and road noise are just as good and sometimes better than the more modern rivals. I could go on..
Have we reached a peak in car design maybe. Although cars are safer and a bit faster, they're sometimes just as noisy, economical/uneconomical and small as they cars they replaced.
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Being a technophobe and luddite, I'm inclined to prefer old myself. Neither of our cars have the dreaded electric windows, (though I fear that the day is coming when we may all be forced to have them) or air-con, or central locking. My Ford Ka, just 2 years old, doesn't even have ABS.
As for Railroad's question - 2 possible answers . . .
1) cars don't die - their owners just stop pumping money into them - so if you want to, you can run your Vauxhall for 50 years.
2) you replace it with a Honda or Toyota. OK, so it has all the bells and whistles and mod cons, but at least it will have Japanese build quality, so that you shouldn't need too many repairs.
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This goes back to the argument of what does the modern day (most anyway) consumer want?
They want a car that has as many toys as possible, they want to buy it as cheap as possible, certainly not list price. They want a 3 year warranty in case anything goes wrong they will be covered, but they do not want to pay the huge dealer rates for servicing.
IMHO, somewhere along the lines, the manufacturers need to make profit - it is the rule of business after all. If they cant make huge money on the actual sale, then they need to do it in aftersales by charging huge labour rates, and huge parts prices. Yes some parts will be covered by warranty but I would assume many consumables will not be and these are the items that you will see will be hugely overpriced compared to unbranded ones off the shelf at the local motor factors.
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Personally I think this attitude is both incorrect and self defeating. Let me explain why.
Firstly , howvere, if you buy a modern car which is known to be unreliable and badly built - Italian electrics? - or it's rare or has expensive spares or requires dealer only servicing all the time, then it will cost a fortune to run. SO never buy the first 2 years of a new Peugeot/Citroen model - see the C5.
If, however, you buy a car made in volume and well built, after a few years there will be lots of new and secondhand spares at reasonable prices (Xantia electric windows RRP £100 + for £30 new on ebay, Ford Fiesta spares etc).Or buy from a Motor Factor
Lots of independents will repair it or you DIY.
Even electric windows are easy to trouble shoot with a multimeter. And aircon will be reliable if used all the year round.
A modern car with seamsealers and part galvanised and wax injected bodywork does not rust much if at all compared to a 20 year old car.
And designs should make it much more fuel efficient and cheaper to run.
And of course they are safer. Would I want to be rearended by a lorry when driving a Peugeot 205? No thanks..
And even modern high pressure common rail diesels? Well if you follow the above guides on buying a car, you can buy new parts much cheaper than the overpriced dealers..Like Peugoet HDI fuel pumps 50% lower.Or the injectors. Or the entire common rail system.
Of course if you rely on a garage to do all your repairs,it's totally uneconomic..
madf
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I'm not convinced by the 'too many things to go wrong' arguments. Over the past 10 years I've run several high mileage (mainly turbo charged) semi-prestige cars (Saab, Volvo, Honda) all with fancy electrics, and the only thing that has failed was the seat heaters in one of the Saabs. I've had one turbo failure in the ten years which cost £500 to fix, about the cost of a complete set of tyres and I once ran out of aircon gas which was a £50 top-up. There's been plenty of mechanical problems, eg suspension bushes wearing out, new brakes needed, clutch hydralics, that you'll still get running a 'luddite' motorcar.
I'd wager that buying a nearly new Astra diesel and running it to 200k miles won't cost that much more than it's cost to run your old-school Astra.
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"A modern car with seamsealers and part galvanised and wax injected bodywork does not rust much if at all compared to a 20 year old car."
20 years is a pretty good innings, rusty or not. The question is, how many modern cars will be viable in 20 years? The bodywork may not have failed, but if an expensive-to-replace item like the Cat or an ABS pump has gone, it's scrap anyway. That's the point of this discussion.
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" if an expensive-to-replace item like the Cat or an ABS pump has gone, it's scrap anyway. That's the point of this discussion"
well yes: but I addressed it in my prior post. Buy the right car and parts will not be that expensive. A cat is NOT expensive if aftermarket. And ABS pumps will be available from scrap yards or cheap new stock.
As I said, it's amazing how cheaply new spares can be purchased for discontinued volume cars. Of course, if you are talking a CityRover, that's a different thing .. or any K series engined car..
madf
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"A cat is NOT expensive if aftermarket."
I'm pleased to hear that, but I thought they contained platinum?
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Buy something like an Octavia SDI base model if you can find one. No turbo to go wrong (my TDI has had 2 faults in 80K over 6 years, one common to all VW turbos at 60-65K, the other a nuisance only). The Octavia body is galvanised so should last for 15-20 years. Most parts are long-lasting - 1 wheel bearing and 1 track-rod end in 80K. Still on second set of tyres. Still on original exhaust and battery. Economical too. Watch out for ex-taxis!!!
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I'm not convinced either by the simple arguments. Modern cars are a damn sight cleaner and more fuel efficient than 20 years ago. The argument could be taken further so we might as well go back to living in mud huts!
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\"Nothing less than 8 cylinders will do\"
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Modern cars are a damn sight cleaner and more fuel efficient than 20 years ago.>>
Cleaner I agree with, but more fuel efficient? My 1986 Passat 1.8 petrol averaged just over 40mpg, the same as my father's '96 Passat and I can't imagine the new ones are beating that by more than 5-10%
Superminis have always done 42-48mpg since the 950 Fiesta was around in the 1970s too, the only difference is we're now getting that economy with much more comfort, if you like we're getting 1980 supermini economy with 1980 Jaguar toys on board - electric windows, power steering, aircon, 4 speaker stereo...
You could say that there are now more efficient diesels on the road doing 50mpg, and they just didn't exist 20 years ago. However there are a lot more heavy 4x4s around now (no rant intended!) doing 20mpg so it balances out.
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Yes,but cars are bigger and heavier than they were,engine sizes are larger so these gains are lost.
I drove a new Vectra the other day.I found when I turned to look out of the open side window I could rest my chin on the door,why is it so high?Preferred sitting in my 1989 Sierra estate,and my indicators work properly(£30 five years ago,).[the car,not the indicators].
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"...we might as well go back to living in mud huts!"
Nothing wrong with cob houses.
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I will never understand this 'less to go wrong' attitude. Basic stuff like electric windows dont 'go wrong' and in the unlikely event they do they can be fixed with a scrapyard and a couple of quid.
I like toys and do not plan to buy another car without most of them. Anyone who says a window is better than air conditioning is deluding themselves - air conditioning conditions, and then chills, incoming air. Opening a window allows hot smog from outside the car to come inside the car. The two are completely different and do not do the same thing.
All this talk about avoiding turbodiesels becuase there is less to go wrong - come on guys, think about it for a reason. Firstly, they dont go wrong all that often - the turbocharged on my 167,000 mile Xantia was in perfect working order when it was traded in, and secondly, if it does go wrong you dont HAVE to fix it and won't be any worse off than you would have been had you got the N/A model anyway. Same with aircon etc - if you really are that hard up that you resent fixing it - dont! You'll be no worse off than you would have been had you purposely sought out a vehicle without it.
Stop living in the past and get a nice car. I think I'd probably rather rely on a bus than buy an old Mk3 Astra with manual windows, nasty seats and no ABS. Nice, properly specified, well equipped cars can be had for peanuts. There really is no reason to keep buying poverty spec cars these days.
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Good point!
Blue
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The other day, I had the aircon on full blast, got out of the car, and my glasses misted up. You don't get cold like that with a window!
I'd pretty much agree with Michael on this one.
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Adam
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Today's family saloons are achieving performance levels approaching those of Ferraris 2 to 3 decades ago - except they're still managing to get 30+MPG. And they're far far cheaper in real terms.
That, my friends, is progress.
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"air conditioning conditions, and then chills, incoming air. Opening a window allows hot smog from outside the car to come inside the car. The two are completely different"
Still the same air, though. The 'conditioning' IS the chilling, so you just get cooler smog...
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And its tough to switch your windows to "recirculate".
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And its tough to switch your windows to "recirculate".
No it isn't. Just close them.
Oh, wait...
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My Ford Fiesta is faster , more comfortable (aircon and all) and of course far more economical than the Jaguar XJ6 I drove in the 1980s.
Of course if you want to drive a badly built rusty fuel consuming piece of rubbish , a mid 1980s Jaguar is ideal..:-)
madf
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