Ten year old cars.

[Bobthebeard]

I bought a ten year old car in 1982 and it was a rusty mess. Seemingly anything over five years old back then just rusted for fun. Watching old tv shows made in the 80's shows cars that were only a few years old, yet rusty. Did they really rust so quickly?

[Junkman]

Yes.

[tooSavvy]

Technically..... is it correct that the use of 'electro coating' was introduced to ensure the car was 'well finished' - by automatic spray booths - rather than hand held guns, where you got the car fully painted but used twice [say] as much paint as absolutely the least you could use automatically.

 

Side effect was the whole expanse of steel was coated [to some extent] because it kept going (electrostatically) until the shell was NULL.v.

 

 

possibly.....

 

tooSavvy

[cms206]

I suspect they did; I had a 2001 Ford Mondeo which was rotten as a pear and was sacked off over the weighbridge at about 11 years old. Conversely the only cars I have now which are rotten are the Vauxhalls, upsetting in as much as I like Vauxhalls, but more upsetting in that my Montego is fuggin solid.

[Spiny Norman]

Yes.

My first car after I passed my test was an Audi 80.

Sounds impressive, doesn't it, but in late 1982, I bought a rusty, knackered one just like this on an N reg for the princely sum of £500 from our local quality used car emporium.

 

 

It had done about 90,000 miles and smoked like one of today's diseasels, and there were bits of painted Glasgow Herald in the front wings.
A lot of the cars I had early on were under 10 years old, and quite a few of them were well shagged both bodily and mechanically.
What am I saying? All but 4 out the 40 or so cars I've ever owned have been over 10 years old, the difference being that recently they've been cars from what I think of as the optimum period of car design, the mid/late 90s and have still been quite hale & hearty even at nearer 15 years old.

[Asimo]

Sixties cars rotted at an amazing rate. There was a terrible outcry when the MOT first included structural rust. Plenty of cars had rotten sills, strut tops etc at 3 years. Morris 1100s could rot at an olympic rate, espec. the inner wing "trumpets".

[Rusty Pelican]

Everything was more or less water soluble back then , Ford have carried on the tradition of rustiness with things like the KA , Everything else dies from computer rot instead now , mint body shells and good engines but unfixable , at least with rust you could wob it up , weld bean cans on it and fix holes with bits of mesh , try doing that to an ECU.

[eddyramrod]

Oh boy yes!  Rustproofing has come on in leaps and bounds in just the last 15 years or so.  I've seen off many cars at under ten years old, because they were so rotten I couldn't afford or justify the cost of having them welded.  Shame really, some of them were quite nice cars and every last one would now be considered a classic.

[Pillock]

There's been quite a lot of pressure to put anti corrosion warranties in the last 20 years, now pretty much every car has at least 15 years perforation.

 

There also less accident bodging going off, insurers will take it to a massive warehouse place charging a fortune because every panel is replaced, not wobbed up.

 

I suspect things like the Kia 7 year warranty will do the same for mechanical failure as the perforation warranties did for rusty 5 year old cars. Eventually. It'll take a while for other manufacturers to realise it's driving sales.

[Spiny Norman]

It's not just bodywork, although there have been massive improvements in rust resistance over the years, but mechanical components started getting a whole ot better designed & built from the 80s onwards.

I remember when I started driving it was quite unusual to see a car with 100k on the odo. Most cars didn't even have 6 figure clocks back then, but nowadays it's expected that even the cheapest tat will see 150k+ without too much bother. I can't remember the last time I drove a car with less than 100k on it, must be years.

[brickwall]

• There's an Austin 14 sitting in a paddock beside a house in the village. My dad says it's been dumped there since they moved in in the 60's. It doesn't really look that bad and it's rusty all over, but the panels are sound

 

• A stolen mini was dumped along the Old Railway Track circa 1982/3. I pass it everyday walking the dog and all that's left is are some small bits of metal no bigger that a soup can.

[CortinaDave]

All my first cars were around the ten year mark and were terminally rotten. I had an '87 Cavalier Mk2 as my first car in 1996 and it was properly rough underneath... ran like a dream but the MoT welding bill was frightening.

 

Ditto many of the sierras I had. I bought a 1991 H reg 2.0 GLX in tasman blue in 1999 and although the car looked pristine the carpets were soaking from the huge holes in the floorpans.

 

Cortinas are horrific rotters. my GXL used to need welding every MOT - the MK4 S seems to have held up much better thanks to the original owner spending money on Ziebart.

 

 

By comparison for all its other woes there was not a spec of rust or even so much as a break in the underseal on my 02 plate Saab 93, nor is there on my ten year old ZT.

 

But as has been said, at least with rust you could easily bodge it up and keep driving.

[Micrashed]

 

 

• A stolen mini was dumped along the Old Railway Track circa 1982/3. I pass it everyday walking the dog and all that's left is are some small bits of metal no bigger that a soup can.

 

Sweep it up and eBay it - some "scene" nutter will pay you a fortune (probably)

[dollywobbler]

Sixties 2CVs resist rust much better than Eighties ones. Similarly, Minis never seemed to rot as badly as they did after 1990. 

 

Also, my 15-year old car has PLENTY of rust. See also Ford Ka and Focus.

[HillmanImp]

ALL OLD CARS R RUBISH! EXCEPT VOXHALS!

[Mr Livered]

Yes. As has been said, cars rusted quicker and managed fewer miles before the engine gave up.

 

My first car in 1995 was a D reg mk 2 Fiesta. It was considered to be a bit of an old banger with loads of miles on the clock: 80,000. Just recently I realised that it's comparable to my Mazda, which is also ten years or so old with 80,000 miles on it. The difference is that the Mazda doesn't seem old or knackered at all (even to a non-shiter). What was a good innings for a car in the nineties is just the beginning nowadays.

 

The only threat to the ever-increasing longevity of modern cars has got to be the proliferation of electrickery that is beyond the diy'er or small garage to sort out. In ten years time they'll probably be scrapping cars because the handbrake has failed, and only a main dealer can replace the handbrake ecu at a cost of £250+VAT plus two hours labour at similarly extortionate rates.

[gary_davidson]

my wifes 13 year old astra is still solid, it won't be rust that kills it..

[NorfolkNWeigh]

The management's CLK cab had rear arches done 3 years ago just before it's 10th birthday, in the spring I'll be getting the fronts done.

My Disco had a boot floor before it was 10 years old and had patches on it every MOT since (.

So apart from Land Rovers and early 2000's Mercs modern cars don't rot. Saying that the 07 Frrelander 2 we've got is much more rust free than 05/06 X5s we were looking at. In fact my 25 year 316 has better paintwork than a lot of 7/8 year old BMWs.

 

 

Edited to say WTF is that internet smiley thing doing there? I typed an 8,to show it's now 8 years older.

[chaseracer]

It's not just bodywork, although there have been massive improvements in rust resistance over the years, but mechanical components started getting a whole ot better designed & built from the 80s onwards.

I remember when I started driving it was quite unusual to see a car with 100k on the odo. Most cars didn't even have 6 figure clocks back then, but nowadays it's expected that even the cheapest tat will see 150k+ without too much bother. I can't remember the last time I drove a car with less than 100k on it, must be years.

 

I have three cars.  For the first time in evah, all of them have scored a century+ on the odometer: the Blingo's on 102K, the Dyane's (still!) on 124 and the Mercedes is closing rapidly on 179...

[Mr Livered]

Norfolk: a B followed by a ) makes a cool face smiley!

[Mr Livered]

Thinking more about the 100k+ miles thing: when we were kids we used to laugh at old snotters, if we thought that the mileage figure might be "second time around the clock" because cars usually only had five figures on the odometer. It basically meant they were fucked.

 

Must admit, when I picked up the Renault 5 the other day I thought the mileage (97,000 plus a bit because the speedo hasn't worked for an unknown length of time) was a lot. If it had been a 1998 rather than a 1988 car I wouldn't have thought twice about it.

[srad34]

A couple of years back, Mrs srad had a 2000 'W' Mercedes slk, great engine but absolute shite body.

What made it worse was that it had holed on the front wings (on the bumper join), both rear arch lips and boot handle, no where else at all, typical!

 

I drove a '99 C180 for about 3 months, absolute chod, rust on every panel, bloody '90's paint quality was awful.....  

[warren t claim]

 

they'll probably be scrapping cars because the handbrake has failed, and only a main dealer can replace the handbrake ecu at a cost of £250+VAT plus two hours labour at similarly extortionate rates.

Never owned an Alfasud have you?

[cort16]

My mate works as a painter in a big body shop and they've got a 54 plate m3 in getting a complete new boot floor including suspension towers under warranty as it had rotted and split .

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

The only threat to the ever-increasing longevity of modern cars has got to be the proliferation of electrickery that is beyond the diy'er or small garage to sort out. In ten years time they'll probably be scrapping cars because the handbrake has failed, and only a main dealer can replace the handbrake ecu at a cost of £250+VAT plus two hours labour at similarly extortionate rates.

 

If only they were taking ten years to break!

 

Renault Forum

 

 

I have a 08 grand scenic that was just recently put in for a service and MOT with my local garage, i received a call telling me the electronic hand brake had seized, rather than replace the part i was informed the whole lot has to be replaced at a price of £823 excluding fitting and activation by a renault garage

 

VW Passat

 

I have an 2007 Passat which on Sat displayed a 'Parking brake failure' on the electronic handbrake - basically it seemed to disengage but then wouldnt work again and was beeping and flashing warning lights in the dash. After turning off the car and leaving it for approx 10 mins I started up again and no more warnings and brake working as expected again.

 

So I brought it to the garage this morning just to check it out and got a shock 

 

Firstly the charge to diagnose is €100 - seems a little high (was expecting maybe €50-€60) considering as far as I know it basically involves plugging it into a diagnostic computer and seeing what the system reads back.

 

Main shock however came with the results - apparently parking brake ECU needs to be replaced and also the 2 caliper motors as they are all showing faults...total cost for repair - €1560 !! Obviously they are showing faults as I saw it on Sat but the idea that only solution is to replace them all seems a bit drastic.

 

Toyota Avensis

 

 

I have an early 2009 Avensis 2.0 diesel tourer as a company car, the mileage is now over 60k miles.

Last weekend as I drove it off my drive, I got a warning "Parking Brake System Fault" I took the car to my local Toyots dealer, all credit to them, they put it straight into their workshop and within 30 minutes told me that it needed a new actuator and they had reset the ECU. This saturday, the new actuator had arrived and my local Toyota dealer fitted it, When the job was finished, I enquired about the cost of the repair (the car is a lease car) and was told the actuator was £675 plus 2 to 2.1/2 hours labour plus VAT, approximately £1,000.

 

Just three random results off Google there, there's thousands of them. 

[HMC]

Depressing, but it certainly reinforces our view of the world!

[dollywobbler]

Thinking more about the 100k+ miles thing: when we were kids we used to laugh at old snotters, if we thought that the mileage figure might be "second time around the clock" because cars usually only had five figures on the odometer. It basically meant they were fucked.

 

Must admit, when I picked up the Renault 5 the other day I thought the mileage (97,000 plus a bit because the speedo hasn't worked for an unknown length of time) was a lot. If it had been a 1998 rather than a 1988 car I wouldn't have thought twice about it.

 

I remember on Series III Land Rovers, the recommendation was to rebuild a petrol at 80,000 miles, and the diesels at just 60,000! Sidevalve Fords are about the same apparently. Yet my 2CV's original engine clocked up 160,000 miles with no major issues. I was going to treat it to new piston rings to cure a bit of oil burning, but then accidentally stripped it for bits for the spare engine that I dropped in temporarily* while I did that. The M28 engine was developed in the late 1960s, so I find that longevity incredible, especially for a small engine. The Sirion burns a bit of oil and could probably do with new rings at just 70,000 miles! 

[Squire_Dawson]

Certainly old cars used to rot. I remember in the 1990s seeing dozens of rusty cars in a single car park. Modern cars just do not rust. My uncle used to tell me that there were a few old cars dumped down the lane at the back of our house (presumably when scrap prices were so low it was better to dump a knackered car). He remembered those cars from his childhood in the late Sixties/early Seventies. Even in the early 1990s when I was growing up, there wasn't a trace of these cars - not even an engine block or wheel.

 

The only reason our cherished motors are still going is down to luck or a doting owner who performed preventive maintenance, and we know what that involves.

[Anglevan]

it used to be a pleasure to see old snotters with tide mark rust protection, missed match panels and tape substituting metal as wheel arches and lower doors. Even for the cars that are known rotters (the KA) seam to disappear off the roads rather than being patched up..

Back in the day I bought a 9 year old Viva HC (V reg) and at first MOT in my care having to fit a new sill to it - still have the machine mart welder that used to replace it with - the bloody welder (which still works and has welded many a snotter) outlasted the chuffing Viva !!!

[Justin Case]

Then cars rotted at any early age and the oily bits didn't last very long , but they were repairable. They initially last longer now but aren't repairable when they throw their toys out of the pram.

 

We are probably worse off now