Modern classics?

[Scully]

Talking to a mate yesterday who owns a scrap business. It seems to me that when I worked with him in the early to mid 80’s there were many restorable cars around which with care would still be running today. It also seems to me that cars don’t appear to have the longevity they had when I was younger ( he had what appeared to be a perfectly good 09 plated Ford on his wagon which he said was a scrapper ) and with the exception of the obvious circuit board free vehicles of yesteryear I wondered if, because of circuit board technology and the average blokes inability to physically rectify those problems with spanner’s at home, whether there would be many cars made today which would still be around and running in 40 years time. All this is assuming of course the fuel is still available, the government haven’t enforced their demise or the lunatic greens haven’t succeeded in having such vehicles banned. 

[rimfire4969]

If you look under the bonnet of any modern car and it is so difficult for the average man or woman to work on. So I would expect the only cars worth keeping are the fast or expensive ones. M3, RS4 RS etc. But only minor tinkering by the owner anything else done by speciality garages. 

Edited December 22, 2017 by rimfire4969

[Westward]

Some years ago I was running a Mazda ZXi. A brilliant car which had all the toys and a fabulous 2 litre V6 up front. The first time I looked under the bonnet I couldn't believe how full up and complex it all was. Even though the engine had been designed in the late 80s it still needed a total of 26 sensors feeding in to the ECU to run properly. Later on at 108K I changed the timing belt myself to save money; it took 12 hours spread over 3 days and due to the tiny amount of clearance I had to use every one of my 5 different size socket sets at some point. A year or so later I sold it for minimal money because it was unrealistic to keep it as a backup or potential classic simply due to the fact it had become uneconomical to fix if anything should go wrong.

[Lord O War]

My farther in law scrapped an automatic merc a class that was in mint condition, I think he got £200 for it. What was wrong you ask, the auto box decided it it no longer had a fist gear and the cost of fixing it was either stupid money or involved a repair that "may" work. He didn't have the car very long and never really got on with it.

It seems with most cars these days it it the electronics or some fancy gubbins that ends up sending cars to the scrapper, rust doesn't seem to be the problem anymore.

[washerboy]

I had a mk1 focus on a T plate, it had only done 51k and was immaculate.The turbo management system went and it was more to fix then the car was worth.Common fault I have since found out  

[Davyo]

Dad has a 3ltr Senator,the gear box decided to down change on it' own.Vauxhall admitted defeat and it never got fixed as was out of warranty and it as said before, it was a 50/50 repair costing hundreds or a new box.However that was no guarantee that it work.Whats the point of building cars that can' be fixed.Done thing any of the new cars will make classics as you simply cant tinker with them.

Edited December 22, 2017 by Davyo
error

[Jaymo]

15 minutes ago, Davyo said:

Dad has a 3ltr Senator,the gear box decided to down change on it' own.Vauxhall admitted defeat and it never got fixed as was out of warranty and it as said before, it was a 50/50 repair costing hundreds or a new box.However that was no guarantee that it work.Whats the point of building cars that can' be fixed.Done thing any of the new cars will make classics as you simply cant tinker with them.

Aaah, that digital dash with the torque curve Rev counter- used to drive my fathers one along our drive.

it was 200m long and the challenge for my Brother and I was to see max speed that we could obtain before having to chicken out and stop before we ploughed into the garage.

First 30m was tarmac uphill then transitioned to shingle so back end used to swing nicely

[johnnytheboy]

10 hours ago, Scully said:

Talking to a mate yesterday who owns a scrap business. It seems to me that when I worked with him in the early to mid 80’s there were many restorable cars around which with care would still be running today. It also seems to me that cars don’t appear to have the longevity they had when I was younger ( he had what appeared to be a perfectly good 09 plated Ford on his wagon which he said was a scrapper ) and with the exception of the obvious circuit board free vehicles of yesteryear I wondered if, because of circuit board technology and the average blokes inability to physically rectify those problems with spanner’s at home, whether there would be many cars made today which would still be around and running in 40 years time. All this is assuming of course the fuel is still available, the government haven’t enforced their demise or the lunatic greens haven’t succeeded in having such vehicles banned. 

I think this is the thing, old timer at home trying to rectify a circuit board with a spanner  

 

the technology moves on so does the understanding of the “home” mechanic 

[Albert 888]

Throw away nation, home mechanics of this age give up when they have changed all the parts the computer told them to. 

[Hendrix's rifle]

7 hours ago, Albert 888 said:

Throw away nation, home mechanics of this age give up when they have changed all the parts the computer told them to. 

Your not wrong there!! There are times I want to charge stupid money when someone has 'repaired' it only to make it worse! Sensors are a bad one as they usually get cheap ones off eBay and throw the old units away so you can' test anything without getting dodgy readings

[Wb123]

On 22/12/2017 at 21:18, Davyo said:

Whats the point of building cars that can' be fixed.

Profit. Each car scrapped means another sold. Those of us who work on our own cars will also be much more open to buying used rather than paying a huge premium for a new car with a warranty so selling something as easy to work on won't attract many sales if any. Making things fixable both increases the cost of production and reduces sales, therefore it's not going to fly. 

 

Even with the cars and motorbikes i have owned that I have done a lot of work on, the manufacturer has not gained anything as I almost exclusively use pattern parts.

 

Unless fixabillity becomes incentivised in the same way as low emissions (which is pushed in part because it drives people to replace cars with newer ones increasing sales and supporting manufacturing) this will keep getting worse. 

[Pistol p]

I like the situation that has arisen from the "it ain't werf nuffin guv" or the " I won't get my hands dirty" era we are in. Buy them up, break them down and sell the parts for profit. For example, 2001 Ford Focus mot failure, £50. Broken for parts and scrap £575. Half a day and a halfords socket set. 

[Medic1281]

4 minutes ago, Pistol p said:

I like the situation that has arisen from the "it ain't werf nuffin guv" or the " I won't get my hands dirty" era we are in. Buy them up, break them down and sell the parts for profit. For example, 2001 Ford Focus mot failure, £50. Broken for parts and scrap £575. Half a day and a halfords socket set. 

Yep, and double it again if you want to export parts. Was talking to a bloke the other day that exports Honda Civic engines for more than he buys the complete car! 

[HDAV]

Scrap men don’t make money offering good prices for cars I had an Astra was offered £240 scrap told the chap to do one as the gearbox was worth £800 minimum... “bring it down we’ll see what we can do” part ex’d it for £400 a couple of years later gearboC was still ok but turbo was starting to go so wanted rid could have broken for more but I didn’t have space or inclination to do so.

 

id kept it running with some used parts and expensive trips to the garage it was a 55 plate and only done 120k in the end but no one wanted it.

still see plenty of older motors around but when it comes to selling no one wants them.....

Edited December 25, 2017 by HDAV

[Gordon R]

The bodywork lasts far longer on modern cars. I can't imagine car spares shops selling much filler and fibreglass nowadays.

All the running gear, brakes etc. is easy enough to fix, but it is the sensors that cause the problems. I have a decent code reader, but it just narrows it down to a maybe one of three sensors. Even the mega diagnostics jobs at garages don't always narrow it down to just one. If the sensors are cheap enough - not a problem, otherwise it can get expensive

[crossy 666]

I have a number of cars I have stashed away in a unit I rent but realistically buy the time they might be worth anything all I might get back is some of the money I have laid out in rent 

[Mungler]

51 minutes ago, crossy 666 said:

I have a number of cars I have stashed away in a unit I rent but realistically buy the time they might be worth anything all I might get back is some of the money I have laid out in rent 

Exactly - whenever I see a classic car, I never think ‘I bet that bloke’s man a few quid on that’, I think ‘blimey that must have bled him dry’.

As you say, just storing an old car costs - rent, insurance and annual maintenance. Throw in tax, MoT and maybe a tracker subscription and it doesn’t take long to get expensive.

 

 

 

 

[Twistedsanity]

All.cars are fixable and the problem is that we no longer train mechanics or engineers who understand the intricacies of the cars but just have a nation of "fitters" who's abilities are restricted to swapping over parts when a Computer tells them to, if the Computer is wrong then they are at a Complete loss as to what they should do so either swap random parts at the customers expense or write the vehicle off completely 

[dead eye alan]

2 hours ago, Twistedsanity said:

All.cars are fixable and the problem is that we no longer train mechanics or engineers who understand the intricacies of the cars but just have a nation of "fitters" who's abilities are restricted to swapping over parts when a Computer tells them to, if the Computer is wrong then they are at a Complete loss as to what they should do so either swap random parts at the customers expense or write the vehicle off completely 

 

  A lot of the problemes are not always electrical, some are mechanical faults that the computer does not recognise. Such as blocked EGR valves, or air leaks, or vacuum leaks, or worn timing chains all of which the computer will tell you that sensors are out of parameters.