Toyota, with their recalls, BMW, Ford and many others are getting bad press and comments from many. How about some positives for a change? My old CLK has done 40k for me in 2.5 years and is approaching 120k. It's had normal servicing from an indie and apart from discs and pads has been good as gold. Its seems cars are like Caesar with the bad remembered and the good forgotten.
Looking back over 35 years motoring there has not been too much to complain about. A Mirafiori rusted away but was great to drive, a Viva blew an engine but it had done mega miles and a wheel came off a Datsun, apart from that cars have been pretty good. A Volvo 240 had an engine go too but that swmbo had come home saying this light had been lit on the dash all day but she thought it was nothing.......................
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How about saying things like the fact that (mainly) cars don't rust the way they used to. When I started driving in the 70s the roads were full of rust-buckets which were only 5/6 years old. Front wings, wheel arches, sills, were guaranteed to have the brown speckly stuff on them. Equivalent-age cars today are still as good as when they were new.
And as has been mentioned in numerous other posts, cars are more reliable. The dawn chorus of endlessly-churning starter motors is a thing of the past. Electronic ignition is a massive improvement over the old points system.
And as for the recall thing..... I think a lot of that is the litigation culture which blights the world. Manufacturers are being ultra-safe because they know some money-grabbing lawyers will be on the lookout for any opportunity to sue. The American mentality of "I put my dog in the microwave because there isn't a warning telling me not to" is the driving force behind most of it.
Maybe in the 1970s British Leyland would've recalled Allegros every week because of the various faults and weaknesses with them. But they just kept churning them out and, to a degree, got away with it.
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There was a thread along these lines a few months back. My record is even less tarnished than yours. I have been driving since 1962, never heavily, but usually ~10K miles a year, in a sequence of (don't laugh) Minis, 1100s, Maxis and Peugeot 205s and 306s, with an odd Triumph, Cavalier and Prairie thrown in. None of them committed any serious offence, though one or two of the early ones suffered a bit of tinworm - I recall an 1100 estate with a very incomplete rear wheel arch.
The earliest 1100 had an electric fuel pump which had to be tweaked regularly, and its oil seals made stops for oil necessary as often as fuel, but that was in 1960s America and it cost nothing much. The diesel 205 broke a clutch cable, and its stop-solenoid failed. Apart from very rare punctures, nowt else that sticks in my memory - but maybe that is failing ... No warranty repairs, head gaskets, electrical gremlins. Very boring and reliable.
Edited by Andrew-T on 16/02/2010 at 11:18
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There was a thread along these lines a few months back.
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=82227&...f
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I haven't had a single breakdown in any car since 1997. I was driving a 10 year old 100k mile Citroën BX when the clutch release arm snapped. With hindsight I could have tried double de-clutching to get home, but I was young and inexperienced, so just called the breakdown service out instead.
Since then I've driven about 200,000 miles in various different cars (ranging from 10k to 100k miles) from the 80s, 90s and 00s and not had one leave me stuck at the side of the road once.
That's got to be pretty good, I reckon.
Edit: I did forget about an old Mondeo that left me stuck at home when the immobiliser failed, a common fault on that model year, and easily by-passed.
Edited by TheOilBurner on 16/02/2010 at 11:28
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The nearest I've had to a breakdown in over 150,000 miles is a broken wiper assembly in the pouring rain... a minor fault in the grand scheme of things (repaired for £30) but because of the weather I had to be towed home.
Other than that, nothing that stops the car getting me to where I want to go. "Faults" have almost without exception been either the odd dashboard light, a funny noise or an MOT flag.
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Only one breakdown I can remember in 30-plus years of driving.
Water pump bearings on a Cortina estate on Christmas Day.
It would have got me to where I was going, but the play in the bearings allowed the fan blades to shift enough to slice through the top hose.
Relayed to my Christmas lunch and fitted new pump and hose the day after Boxing Day.
A breakdown, but a bit of an adventure as well.
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The last car to leave me at the side of the road, and in fact the only one to do so in the past 13 years was one of the latest, lowest mileage cars I've owned. A 4 year old, 60,000 mile Renault Grand Scenic. Cost a grand to get fixed as well. As I stood waiting for recovery, with SWMBO, two kids under 3 wrapped in blankets, and the family hound in tow, watching it sitting there, undriveable, in a growing puddle of hydraulic fluid, I found myself actually wishing for one of the huge artics barrelling round the roundabout to smash it out of existence. It also crossed my mind more than fleetingly to set the thing alight to keep warm. Thankfully, with hindsight, neither happened.
I've run numerous bangers with starship mileages and been unbelievably lucky with reliability. The last to let me down before the Renault was a 130,000 mile mk2 Cavalier back in around 1997, with a fuel pump relay failure. Before that, a mk1 Sierra in 1993 ish with nearly 200,000 miles on the clock and a failed ignition coil. My first car, an £80 Mini 850 with terminal rust and a number of "issues", never failed to start, and never left me stranded.
Edited by DP on 16/02/2010 at 16:50
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Fortunately in 30 years of car ownership/driving i have only stuck at the roadside twice, the first time was when the water pump started leaking on my HC Viva and sprayed the HT leads with hot coolant which bought it to a standstill and the 2nd time the rotor arm broke in to 2 pieces on a Citroen BX. Had to call Green Flag out on 2 more occaisions once to undo the wheel bolts on the Megane, but that was outside a hotel and the other time was to jump start the same car outside home, so overall i have been very lucky especially given some of the wrecks i owned when i was younger !
Edited by andyp on 16/02/2010 at 20:07
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My 5 year old 1.8 British built (I had to get that in) Almera has been a diamond of a car since I have owned it - better than the Mrk 1 1600 Zetec Focus I had before in fact.
I must admit I didn't know it was British built when I bought it though, I went for it because it was a Nissan.
I would normally have changed the car by now, but why should I change it just for the sake of it :)
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