Safe Speed Forums

Wot he said!

That's the "bottom line" really. I think there are those who have a somewhat "rose-tinted" view of the motoring of yesteryear! Just googling round a bit, I found that the average age of a UK vehicle at scrappage is now 14.25 years. I couldn't find similar figures for (say) 10 years ago though. I am pretty certain, however, that cars these days live longer than their older counterparts and certainly do more miles before they die! As it happens, a mate of mine had a Rover P6 when he was a student. The arse fell out of it at about 12 years old.

The problem is that the age of a vehicle at scrapping isn't that good an indicator of longevity because there are lots of other factors involved. As JT said, we've never had it so good in terms of new car prices. As new car prices come down, people need less incentive to keep their old nail going for as long - they just dump a perfectly repairable car and get another one. I actually believe that the potential lifespan has gone up even more than the 14.25 years might suggest!

10 years ago, nobody in their right mind would have bought a 10 year old Escort with (say) 100k on the clock. Nowadays, such a vehicle would almost certainly still have useful life left in it!

Dusty, I love old Jags. Go down to the scrapper and get yourself one of every "black box" you can find for your dad's model. It shouldn't cost you much and it's SO much quicker and easier to swap boxes than it is to try and weld the arse back into a 1970s or 80s Jag!

!0 years ago, or even ten minutes ago, no one in their right minds would have bought a NEW Escort

Seriously now, I think that the increased longevity of modern cars is more down to better corrosion protection than anything else and so not really germane to this argument. (In the past it was common to scrap a car because, for example, the jack went through the sill when trying to change a wheel bearing). Modern oils are the real reason why modern engines have lives well in excess of 100K.

Whilst I have no doubt that modern cars are far more reliable than those of rose-tinted spectacle days I don't think that the improvement since the millennium has been very significant and I think, mainly from anecdotal evidence of my car mechanic friends, that the peak of reliability has passed.

I think that car designers are still, at heart, rude mechanicals who have not got the same deep understanding of electrical systems that they have of engines [sorry about the grammar]. Properly designed eectrical systems should be much more reliable than mechanical ones and should be cheap to replace.

I understand that it is impossible to build an engine to meet modern emission standards without electronic assistance and I have no problem with that. What bothers me is when simple but vital systems, such as lighting, are dependant on an expensive electronic package. It is all very nice to have a warning that a brake light has failed; but not at the expense of having to spend four figure sum to regain the basic function when the warning system fails (A real situation relating to a friend's Rangey)

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

No, it's everything. Better design, better materials, better lubricants, better corrosion protection, (cough) more electronics!

My first car was a Vauxhall Viva. I could work on virtually everything about it myself. Which was just as well, as over the 2 years / 15,000 miles of ownership it needed extensive bodywork repairs, a full engine rebuild, frequent tinkering with the carb / ignition system, brakes, suspension, exhaust, and yes, electrics. It had an awful 3 bearing crank engine which used to do about 35mpg, 0-60 in about 3 weeks and was flat out at 75mph. Despite many hundreds of man hours being spent on it all I was really doing was prolonging its terminal illness, and in the end I scrapped it at about 65,000 miles. The pristine examples you see now at shows and rallies aren't typical - they have usually had thousands of hours spent on them and do about 1000 miles a year, spending the rest of the time in a dry garage.

No. Give me a modern car every time. Quoting a Range Rover needing expensive electrical work is not typical, it is the worst of all worlds. It is a complex luxury car with a dreadful reputation for build quality and reliability. It's harsh I know, but I'd regard it as a sort of throwback to earlier times and not to be bracketed as a typical modern car.

More comparable to my Viva example might be a Vauxhall Corsa. Simple, cheap, reliable, economical and with relatively simple modern electrics, solid state where possible and in truth far more dependable than the electrics that came out of the same stable 30 years ago.

And even if we do go for the high end luxury / complexity option - say a Beemer or a Range Rover - you can still maintain most of it relatively cheaply if you ignore all the complaints and just use your nous when something goes wrong. If an ecu goes pop you can work this out for yourself with a laptop and a bit of research, and typically get it fixed by posting it to a specialist who will charge about £100. Or you can go round the scrappies and get a replacement.

Ironically, most of the work my 155,000 miles BMW has needed has been suspension parts and the like, as bushes and ball joints have worn out. Of course they never did that 30 years ago did they?

Nor do I think we've passed some critical point in development. Car design will continue to be led by the desires of the market. If money is tight and everone wants cheap simple and reliable, then cars will go that way far better than ever before. Only while there is a desire for cars with all the bells and whistles will manufacturers continue to make them. And if repair costs at franchised dealers are prohibitive as they get older then a network of efficient independent experts will spring up, and of course some of them will be clueless and / or rip you off. Was it ever thus?

No, just like 30 years ago if you've any sense you don't go to certain rip-off chains when your brakes wear out, you choose a decent reputable independent, ideally by personal recommendation, and you get value for money like you've never had before.

T'is True!

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CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

Pointless change.



Flimsy plastic.



Oil and grease?



Hm...



I wondered at the time who bought those...



Yes, that's the problem. If we ran the NHS by the market, they'd spend the whole budget on cosmetic surgery - like they do with cars. The makers need a "nudge" to set them straight.

I think that more or less sums up your whole thought processes BW. Best put that computer back in the box then, and do us all a favour...


plastic > flimsy rusty metal


Yep. On my car 155,000 miles without the head off says so!


Yep. I' ve spent enough of my youth dicking about in the side of the road with contact breakers to know the value of "set and forget" solid state electronics.

Do you make stuff so's it is easy to repair, or do you make it so's it doesn't go wrong? Your choice...


You had a 2CV right?


Ah. The thought police in action once more. We should all buy old fashioned unreliable cars because you think it's a good idea, right?

_________________
CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

OK, I'm now going to be a bit schizophrenic and partially agree with dcb and Abercrombie!

I think there has been a downturn in reliability of electronics since the millennium. Most manufacturers started rolling out there "CAN" electrical systems around then and, like any new technology, there have been "teething troubles". The idea is to reduce the copper content of the vehicles (among other things) to get weight and cost out. There was also a line of thought that suggested fewer connections could lead to greater reliability. There is a central controller which sends and recieves data along the "CAN bus". In its simplest form, there is a big "ring main" round the car which everything is connected to. Every "thing" has a reciever on it and every switch has a transmitter. When you switch something on, the transmitter in the switch sends a signal to the CAN controller and the controller passes it to the receiver on the device - which then starts drawing it's power from the "ring main". There's a dramatic reduction in the amount of wire in a car as a result. You also get lots of "whistles and bells" virtually for nothing. For example, the intermittent wiper delay on my car changes proportionally to the speed. When the wipers are on and I engage reverse, the rear wiper flicks for me. The stereo gets louder as the car goes faster (so imperceptibly that yu don't know it's workng until you switch that feature off!)...and so on.

There are all sorts of smart-arsed things that I'm sure Abercrombie wouldn't like - but they don't actually introduce any more complexity. The complexity is already there for other reasons!

I have to grudgingly agree that the quality could be better. If they made all the "domestic" electronics in the car to the same standard as the aeronautical industry, I'm sure we wouldn't be having this discussion. On the other hand, if that happened, the cars would get more expensive! Hell, if they even made the "domestic" electronics to the same standard as their own ABS electronics, it would be a big improvement!

Another factor in the "percieved" lack of reliability is probably the motor trade itself (including "proper" franchised dealers). Mechanics need to know a LOT more stuff these days than they did 30 years ago. You still get them going into a CAN system with their big test lamp looking for "juice" to the suspect component and then wonder why they blow the tracks off the little circuit boards in the controller! Then you, the customer, get told "it's your ECU mate"! (accompanied by the customary sucking of air through teeth). I think mechanics / service technicians / call them what you will, probably need to be educated to the level that some of the engineers would have been in days gone by!

FInally, while I agree that lubricant technology is a big part of engine longevity, I think there are other factors too. machinig tolerances have improved enormously, to the point that engines don't really need "running-in" any more. This means that the pistons and rings seal better in the bores so less crap gets blown past the rings into the crankcase to dirty the oil. Fuel is much more repcisely metered (for emissions purposes) so there's much less of the unburned stuff diluting your engine oil!

OH, and while I'm being schizophrenic, I DETEST the fact that modern cars are held together with crappy plastic "christmas tree clips" that break when you try to take something apart. They're just not designed to come apart these days. I think the manufacturers tend to delude themselves as to their reliability and assume that once built, nothing will ever need to be dismantled for the rest of the car's life!

We, the public, are also partly to blame. When did any of us last pay the asking price for a new car?

I'm not proposing to scrap good things, just the crap. The makers are not lovely people who are always helpful, OK?



Both please!



The Americans spent thier R&D money on "cosmetic surgery", so we know where it leads in the end. We should protect the makers form their own greed by changing the market. Else they'll turn into dinosaurs, like GM and Ford. In fact, they already have, IMO. But maybe it's not too late for our factories, time will tell.

What I am asking for is difficult for the makers, as it requires them to
dispense with planned obsolescence. They will never do that unless they are
forced.

I am asking the makers to consider long term maintenance of their vehicles
far into the future. We should expect cars to last 20 or 30 years easily.
That should not be exceptional. They should be robust and cheap to maintain,
and access should be easy.

But to get there, we have to make sure that we all expect the makers to
play it fair. Soft-soap just encourages them to continue to rip off consumers.

In short, we have to make "durability" a central goal of design.

our what ?
we still have factories ? !

Not for much longer, if things are allowed to go on as they are. If we make cheap, high quality, simple and durable
cars, they will sell. If we repeat the mistakes of the past, and continue to make cosmetically-engineered lemons,
customers will keep their older, better cars running instead.

yep, modern car are rubbish. My rubbish 1998 model, with rubbish ECU and rubbish remote central locking, crappy eleccy mirrors, awfull air conditioning and lousy leccy mirrors is so boring. Want to start it? Just turn the key and the original battery sends electricity to the original starter motor. An instant after this has happened the 10 year old 91k miles engine starts and settles down to a barely audible hum. That crappy modern engine has used an appaling 800 ml of oil since I bought it in 2002, I mean, what's that all about? It gets bounced off the rev limiter from time to time too. There is weeds growing under the car because the damn thing doesn't leak oil all over the drive, so now I have to spend money on petrol to mow them, not like the good old days.

It gets worse. In the summer when it is hot, cool, dry air appears forth from my vents from the original gas that it left the factory with. It's sh*t, it really is. I mean, in the old days I would have just wound my manual windows down, not like now with my electric windows that I don't hardly use. Whats the point in having electric windows on cars if you don't get to use them?

The damn paint still shine, so I can't spend time polishing it either, nor is there any rust so I can't spend time filling it with body filler either. Jeeze what is a guy supposed to do with his time when there isn't any problems with the car? All I have to do is send it away once a year for a service and MOT, where's the fun in that?

Hardly. They have got more complex.
My m/cycle has electronics everywhere.
Fuel injection, electronic ignition, cat.....abs, electrohydraulic brake servo assist.....the lights are not switched on, the switch just tells the ecu that the lights are needed ON.
Made in 1995, practically the same electronics (VEonics ?) are used in 2009 'bikes.
Reliable ?
Yes.
I wouldn't drive another bike, especially one with no abs.
Fast ?
MMMMMM....so-so...tops out at 147....
Accelerate ?
MMMMMM.....0-60 in 3.2 .....
Yes, I do remember the magneto on my bsa shorting every time it got wet.
And the oil leaks....

Anyway, obsolescence is not so much planned, as legislated for.
Soon, vehicles will not be able to reach 20 years of age. It is that way in Japan now....the EU will follow.
Within 5 years new cars will not be ABLE to be serviced at home, and there is talk of having totally sealed engines that can NEVER be serviced. They will reach a set limit and just not go after that...

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

I think that says it all, actually.

I think it might be truer to say that if we make cheap, high quality, simple and durable cars they will sell TO PEOPLE WHO WANT THAT SORT OF CAR. Not everyone is after what you're looking for! In fact, if you were in any way a significant market sector (never mind a majority!) there would be a manufacturer making what you want. Like anyone selling anything, they just want your money.

I'm still stumbling over the cheap / high quality bit. How exactly does that happen in real life?

Remember the old adage when quoting for a job. You offer the customer three options: cheap, fast, good, but they can only have any two, ie a good job cheap (but it won't be fast), or a good job fast (but it won't be cheap), or a cheap job fast (but it won't be good).

As Mole says, people don't want simple, spartan cars. They want stylish ones with all the toys, and despite a bit of moaning they are ultimately prepared to pay the increased maintenance costs that this entails. French cars are a brilliant example of this. Everyone knows they are mechanically perverse and fragile, yet people buy them because they perceive them as stylish.

_________________
CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

Ah, that is why people buy French cars. I often wondered. 2CVs excepted. They really did meet the definition of good engineering.

_________________
When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Yes, and stylish as well!

No need to worry. As an engineer, I was often asked about this. It's a 3 (or more) way trade-off.

(a bit like yours, cheap/fast/good)

There is an unnecessary mystique about low cost and high quality, as if you can't have both at
the same time. But things are more complicated than that. Let's go over the thinking
behind this myth.

Anybody can provide high quality, but it costs a lot. And anyone can make it cheap, but it's crap.
But those aren't the only attributes. Don't forget style, performance, cosmetic features, efficiency,
quantity, size, flexibility, etc. etc.

You can waste a lot of time classifying all that stuff, but it's easier to understand if we
classify the desirable attributes of a car into LOW COST, HIGH QUALITY and EVERYTHING ELSE.
We want all that, of course, but you can only have two of them. Some examples might help.

You can have HIGH QUALITY and EVERYTHING ELSE, but it won't be LOW COST.
You can have LOW COST and EVERYTHING ELSE, but don't expect .
You can have LOW COST and HIGH QUALITY, but don't expect much of it!

Basically, I'm asking for higher quality at lower cost, which is fine by me - I'm trying to
simplify my life, and I don't need any crap. Like I said, you can waste a lot of time classifying
all that stuff, and they interrelate, but it's the principle I'm on about. Less is more.

I understand that what you want is a higher percentage of the cost of a vehicle to be spent on better materials and workmanship, and less spent on adding fancy features.

Clearly this is perfectly feasible, it's just it would very much be a niche market and only a small volume manufacturer would be able to keep busy producing something like that. And because small volume manufacturers don't enjoy all the efficiencies of scale of larger ones the cost would be disproportionately high.

And a high volume manufacturer wouldn't market something like that because they know that it is not what most people want. If they took all the bells and whistles off their cars but kept the price up in order to provide unseen better quality, that only became apparent 10 years down the track then they'd be out of business in a matter of weeks!

_________________
CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

Yes. I want them to be durable.



That's why I advise people to demand durability. When people spurn trinkets, and embrace quality, things improve.



Indeed, and it is your fault for valuing trash above quality. I advise you all to think differently, and value
quality engineering above the cosmetic engineering. You know it makes sense.

PS: nothing personal in all that. It's an age old debate. The trouble is, humanity is interconnected, and I can't
access a decent vehicle because I'm being pulled into the mire with the rest of you. If you asked for better stuff,
I'd (ultimately) get better 2nd hand stuff!

PPS: Sorry to go on but there's another reason. Humanity is interconnected, but it behoves all of us to
maintain a degree of independence. I can't allow myself to be in the thrall of a scheming car maker.
They must gives us access to the whole ball of wax, and make them easier to keep on the road,
long term.