Privilege!!!! a great article about shiting

[John F]

NorfolkNWeigh, on 11 Feb 2015 - 1:05 PM, said:NorfolkNWeigh, on 11 Feb 2015 - 1:05 PM, said:

Good point about 'privilege' the Cololnial cast offs probably don't have the class connotations towards that word that we do, perhaps plain good luck or fortune would be a more British way of describing those that are able to exercise free choice in their method of spunking whatever cash they have available on cars.

 

I'd say it's more than 'good luck', it is rather essentially what quite a few others have already said - a certain type of person LIKES tinkering with stuff, and so is predisposed towards automotive DIY.

 

A beneficial side-effect of this is that they're more likely to make informed choices when buying a car (or deliberately buy the worst ones possible just for the challenge... cough*Maserati*cough...), and can save shedloads in the garage bills that would otherwise be incurred from running a modern, reliable* car in the process. In this respect, I like to view my interest in old cars as a (largely) self-funding hobby.

[Joey spud]

There's a bird near here who has a trendy boyfriend with one of those fucking ridiculous hipster beards, about 25 ish. He was attempting to change a wheel on her Fiesta and making a balls of it. My mate was laughing and offered to help.  She refused this because her strapping 5"9 lumberjack style hunk was of course far tougher than a 6"3 ex Paratrooper who could probably get the wheel nuts off with his teeth. 

 

I have over the years been to out countless flat tyres where the driver says it company policy that i dont change the wheel or they say i would have done it but there's no jack or wheel brace and i spy the missing item slid under a seat.

 

Some i go out to have made an effort and jacked up in the wrong place and bent the sill or got the jack out but failed to work out how to drop the spare out of its carrier.

 

The best ones are drivers moaning that the wheel brace is too small to fit the bolts and you show them that it fits just fine if you remove the shiney plastic nut covers. (audi/vw owners i am thinking of you).

I remember one guy saying i am not mechanically minded after one under sized wheel brace faux pas.

 

Maybe its just modern life now days and we are programmed to send for a man if anything goes wrong.

 

I think if you have a petrol jap car of around year 2000 vintage as a main daily then your arse is covered and can then have as much old chod as your driveway or wife will allow.

[messerschmitt owner]

surely at the end of the day, the fact that we can tinker with shite is because it's a path we've chosen. Others choose to go to the pub and get sloshed, some spend their money on new cars, some on the bus, some on clothes and holidays

 

Frankly, we all made choices, sometimes helped along the way by parents or relatives, and we chose the hard way - learning about something rather than letting someone else do it for us.

 

I can't understand the attitude of the yoof of today who would rather throw it away or pay someone else to fix it, even if fixing it is really simple.

 

Toolkits? - we all know you can get the tools to do most jobs for £100 from Halfords, with a lifetime warranty!

 

Skill? - comes with practice, sometimes fucking it up along the way ...

 

imagination? - you either have it or you don't

 

money? - you're saving it everywhere by not being on the finance treadmill. Even if you can't do the job yourself, the work is invariably cheaper in an old school garage as the cars are simpler and easier to work on.

 

privilege? - no it isn't a fucking privilege - it's come from being arsed to learn how to do something.

[UltraWomble]

 I can very well see why a youngster might get a new or nearly new Skoda Citigo or Toyota Aygo or whatever for a few hundred quid a month or less - for a fixed fee they will be able to basically forget about everything other than getting in and driving. 

Bollocks to that, my lad has a Kettle series 25 to keep him from spending all his time and money on girls.

[Bren]

The article was'nt bad really.

 

A lot of people confuse necessity with lifestyle.

 

They really think that they need that brand new audi A 1 on a pcp when a £1500 fiesta will do the job just as well.

 

I enjoy spannering as a hobby - the says of me fucking about with a car all evening in order to get to work the next day are long gone (maybe not with a diesel vectra), however this is purely a choice I could afford to make. Not everybody can afford to do so.

 

I do repairs on our cars and for a few others, I have enjoyed restoring my SD1 as well. However, I am no longer prepared to spend all weekend on a clutch replacement / stubborn front wheel bearing etc. as I work shifts and get two weekends off in five.

 

I have said my next car will be thirsty and impractical - I am 43 in july and the vectra has been my most extravagant purchase ( I really am one of life's winners) it is time to push the boat out and buy something that I WANT as opposed to NEED.

 

I await your comments.

[messerschmitt owner]

it is time to push the boat out and buy something that I WANT as opposed to NEED.

 

I await your comments.

I have always needed a car - but I have always bought what I wanted (to do the job I require of a vehicle) - hence Citroens and Mercedes when a Ford or Vauxhall could have done the same job.

[cort1977]

In think that the author is using privilege in a slightly different way to how it is used in the UK.   He is saying 'because of all these factors including the knowledge and skills I have acquired I am in a privileged position'.   In the UK maybe it has more of a class connotation and privilege can also mean 'posh' hence many people will say 'I'm not privileged, I worked hard for what I have'.  

 

I thought this was a good article and made a good job of summarizing why you need some money to mess about with cheap cars without it affecting your life.   The bullet pointed section in particular pointed out the difference between fixing cars for fun and needing to fix it to get to work.

 

I am in a similar situation to the author of the piece, I live in the US, reasonable income, some mechanical skills and can run several cars and I am well aware that in the US at least that makes me very fortunate and yes privileged.   Being poor in the US is a lot harder than being poor in Europe, if you have no health insurance you can find it very hard to get treatment unless you are an emergency case i.e. collapsing.   Also, you really need a car in a lot of the US, there is just no alternative for a lot of areas.

[John F]

Can't say I'm particularly bothered about how things are in the US, tbh.

[cort16]

The question is, is owning a Laguna Privilege an actual privilege?

 

[dollywobbler]

The thing is, I can't say my life is filled with constant tinkering, nor littered with horrendous breakdown tales. The 2CV has failed to proceed ONCE in something like 80,000 miles. The only time I've used breakdown services in the past twelve or so years was when the 2CV got thumped in an accident (cracked the gearbox casing, so going nowhere), Mrs DW threw a Morris Minor into a ditch, and when that red BX blew a main hydraulic pipe (and even then I got home, I just had to get it recovered to a garage). Oh, and when the Citroen H van's windscreen exploded in Germany. 

 

Granted, I do tend to have more than one car, so there's always another one to jump in, and I have been working from home for the past four years, but I have still had to rely on old cars for some pretty mammoth journeys - like our first Winter in Wales when the 2CV was forced to transport us to Devon and Sussex after the BX froze its heater matrix (extreme weather, not a ropey old car). 

 

Am I lucky to be able to drive older cars? Perhaps. But then I'm lucky to be able to live at all. 

[John F]

 

dollywobbler, on 11 Feb 2015 - 5:18 PM, said:dollywobbler, on 11 Feb 2015 - 5:18 PM, said:

The thing is, I can't say my life is filled with constant tinkering, nor littered with horrendous breakdown tales. The 2CV has failed to proceed ONCE in something like 80,000 miles. The only time I've used breakdown services in the past twelve or so years was when the 2CV got thumped in an accident (cracked the gearbox casing, so going nowhere), Mrs DW threw a Morris Minor into a ditch, and when that red BX blew a main hydraulic pipe (and even then I got home, I just had to get it recovered to a garage). Oh, and when the Citroen H van's windscreen exploded in Germany. 

 

Granted, I do tend to have more than one car, so there's always another one to jump in, and I have been working from home for the past four years, but I have still had to rely on old cars for some pretty mammoth journeys - like our first Winter in Wales when the 2CV was forced to transport us to Devon and Sussex after the BX froze its heater matrix (extreme weather, not a ropey old car). 

 

Am I lucky to be able to drive older cars? Perhaps. But then I'm lucky to be able to live at all. 

 

Yep. My 21-year old Calibra has only once failed to get me home in 9 years of ownership, and that was something I'd done wrong (clamped a piece of rubber fuel hose in a clip that was meant for metal pipe). Likewise my 18-year old Disco 300 TDi, which has just completed a 2,000 mile journey to the Alps and back without any problems.

 

Old car ownership is all-too-frequently compared to financial Russian roulette by people that simply don't know any better. Or 'idiots', as I like to call them.

[messerschmitt owner]

twice my white XM was on the back of a transporter - first time, snapped clutch cable in Weymouth, second dead injector - neither repairable without access to either part or garage

 

the blue and green XMs (all three) never once visited the back of a transporter, not did they break down in my ownership.

 

My smart failed to proceed on a couple of occasions - both less than three years old.

 

Older cars driven my mechanically sympathetic owners tend to be reliable or fixable at the side of the road. Even cars driven by non mechanics can be fixed at the side of the road - normally by the nice man from the AA or RAC.*

 

Many of my cars go to the garage for an MoT with no advisories, yet cars three years old can be dangerous death traps due to a lack of maintenance.

 

I'm looking at new cars just now and seeing things with 125,000 miles with four stamps in the book - that's a service every 30,000+ miles!!!!

 

 

*Other breakdown services are available.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I don't have many 'fail to proceeds' either, because I know generally how to react to a new knocking noise or rumble or warning light or whatever happens, before it develops into a fail to proceed, and i get it sorted. As I'm sure you do John. But as for your discovery making it to the all and back, that's flippin great, but don't forget you had to weld a whole new arse end into it a few moths back. You're lucky to have the skills, tools and knowledge to sort that, most people don't and if they had to drive old Discoverys for some reason, they would soon be bankrupted by bills. You're fortunate! So am I!!!

[Lacquer Peel]

I have over the years been to out countless flat tyres where the driver says it company policy that i dont change the wheel

 

That's true of the company I work for. I'd rather someone with decent tools come out and replace a wheel than try to jack a 3 ton van at the side of a rural road with a useless and unstable scissor jack.

 

I feel quite privileged to run a car the modern equivalent of which costs £30k+ new, for next to nothing.

[scruff]

I can see where Mr Bollocks is coming from.

 

I don't do a lot of tinkering but certainly in the case of the Land rover there is nothing on it I will not tackle myself often on my own. Yes this has come from experience but I consider myself lucky to be able to do it and not have to pay someone else. I don't have to drive a 63 year old farm truck every day but I can because I know how it works and how to mend it if it stops. That's a kind of privilege.  

 

Like many others on here I know a few "normals" with cars on tick and very little in their lives that they are really passionate about. 9 times out of 10 they don't know one end of a spanner from the other - I am no mechanic but I get by. I feel sorry for people I've met who genuinely fancy something old but are terrified of it kersploding, not knowing how to keep it going, or upsetting their missus, or ruining their drive, or whatever so they will never do it.

 

I've done all the running on a zero budget and breaking down constantly and it's shit. Having a few quid behind you makes it an awful lot easier to run and sort out old snot and you are sticking one up to all the boring plebs with it. 

[SambaS]

I certainly didn't feel privileged changing the bottom suspension arm on the Samba Cab the other week for Jack. A job I said in 2013 I would never ever attempt again. Privilege to me would have been paying some other poor sod to do it instead.

 

I was privileged to meet Cyanide Steve who came and welded the Monza for me though!

 

And I was privileged to have been able to save up to galavant round Europe in the Polonez last year.

 

Also privileged to have had my welding corse paid for.

 

I drank so much on Saturday instill feel rough today, its also made me very bad at spelling.

[Split_Pin]

I can absolutely relate to big chunks of that article. Very interesting.

[Lord Sterling]

Hmmm, interesting reading. I can see where the author is coming from but I don't think I quite agree...

 

Running shite cars isn't for everyone, it depends entirely on how you view it, everyone's circumstances/budget differ. Some here have newer "White goods" vehicles for daily duties, others, like myself rely on them as daily transport. Yes it is a privilege to be able to repair or bodge broken down shite at the side of the road on the way to/from work/daily duties, but how many people who run shite really know how to do this/are ready formthe inevitable? Not that many, even the most seasoned shiter can be caught out, but then that's why some of us on yere hold break down service cards. I'm sure they must offer the same thing in the US?

 

I don't agree on agree on the part about newer cars not giving "surprises" for the $300/$400 per month, new can and do break down and warranties can be worth sod-all if it doesn't cover the part that needs changing so you can get stung. I have seen it on this very website as well as others.

 

I don't personally do a lot of tinkering, if at all these days. Generally I'll get a car mechanically sorted when I've got the money which funnily enough always happens to be just after I've bought it. That way it decreases the risk of breakdowns. I'd imagine if someone made the decision to buy older clard as a daily runner, they won't simply spend all of thier car budget in one go. Keep a bit to aside for servicing and just in case.

 

Basically, you can't really round up a life decision up in one word. It all depends on many many aspects of that individuals life such as; the car they have chosen, thier knowledge or not of basic maintenance/repairs, if they know anyone in the motor repairs trade or not, whether they hold a breakdown service card and much much more. All of these little things can save you much time and money and these things aren't always 'privileges' just simple decisions/situations that have happened that can fall into being preventative measure when you decide to run something that is deemed much riskier.

 

Yes, buying/running a shite car will be a very difficult task for a certain market of people who know nothing about cars and dig themselves into debt just to have the latest toy/fashion accessory, but others who possess common sense will be able to at least plan ahead. That isn't a privilege, it's just plain common sense.

[brickwall]

I could walk into a dealer and buy, say, an Astra there and then. Is it better than a 25 year old Range Rover? Of course not. My main investment has not been money, but time. I don't use it as a daily because of fuel and LPG and stuff so the whole thing has turned out very well. I soldier on with the tools I have and this does fine for the Volvo and the RR.

 

You do not need to be rich at all, you just need to know when it's time to give up on a certain car and purchase another.

[Bren]

The question is, is owning a Laguna Privilege an actual privilege?

 

 

No - it's epic fail. Even a diesel vectra is desirable compared to one of these bastards.

[r.welfare]

The fella the author of the TTAC article refers to has an interesting website (link is in the article) where he buys old and/or knackered high end stuff, sorts it out and sells it on, usually making a profit.

 

I suppose it is the online written equivalent of Edd China on Wheeler Dealers, i.e. he makes it look very easy but interesting nonetheless - he's got stones for taking a punt on a non running S Class for instance, guessing (via Google) what the fault was to get it running again.

[Bren]

My mother in law has an 89 granada on an F suffix.

 

Owned since 1991, it was my late father in law's pride and joy. When he passed she could'nt part with it and she is still driving it at 76.

 

She freely admits that only for my efforts it would have gone a long time ago - I have serviced it and done many other repairs including some welding to the sills - it has a few battle scars but still looks presentable and has a nice sounding V6 to boot.

 

It has had tyres, an exhaust (the original lasted over 15 years - oe spec items are hard to beat) and the front oil seal in the auto box needed a specialist repair - like fook was I dropping that on my driveway.

 

The car cost £6 k in '91 as the mileage was high, I think it's fair to assume she has had her money's worth.

 

By the way, anybody know where I can get a couple of bumpers? Not the colour coded items, just the plain grey items as both are holed.

[New POD]

Due to the financial aspects of my early adult life, as a manufacturing engineer, with stay at home wife, 2 young kids and a mortgage rate of 15.5%, I was FORCED to learn how to run cars on a shoe string, and was privileged enough to work with people who had skills and advice and tools, and occasionally time to give or lend, to help a fellow poverty stricken fool.  

 

The cars that I chose to run, were usually bought based on perception of ease of maintenance and perceived reliability. That reality was often different than pre purchase perception just meant that I learn to fix stuff. And getting my hands dirty, meant that my practical skills as a manufacturing engineer improved.  For instance, when I was working as a Production Manager, and the maintenance department was unable to fix a bottleneck machine, I was able to take my suit off, borrow some overalls and diagnose the issue and get it sorted, whilst Tie Wrap Terry passed me tools and muttered.

 

Given that I am in a completely different financial place now, doesn't mean I trust many people to service or maintain my small fleet. If I had more time, and a larger garage, I'd have more projects.  The only thing that's changed is that if my car broke down at the weekend, I'd have 2 others to use on Monday morning. 

Plus I don't worry about buying tools anymore.

[dollywobbler]

Look, we're shite enthusiasts here. Bollox is right. We do maintenance ourselves even without realising it - diagnosis is an important tool in the shiter's toolkit, almost more important than zip ties. Almost. 

 

It's the yawning chasm between shite and new that bothers me. Yes, I'm sure things are different in America but if shite still fetches strong money, that suggests that there are a LOT of people relying on it for daily use. People who probably aren't shite-lovers. People who probably don't feel privileged. It's the same story here. I'm sure there are thousands of people for whom there is certainly no privilege in having to drive older cars, and lots more people somewhere between the world of shite and brand new, who get clobbered for finance AND get walloped by big bills every now and then. 

[Mr Lobster]

 

 

It's the yawning chasm between shite and new that bothers me.  

 

I reckon that as others have said the way to do it is either buy something relatively straightforward and new or buy as good as possible at sub £1000. People financing themselves up to buy something three or four years old will only ever end badly.

[Uncle Jimmy]

Yes, things are very different in the States. The word 'privilege' is used differently there. Whilst I don't have a country estate and a housing portfolio I am privileged in the sense that I have enough spare money and more importantly time to spend tinkering with old cars. I was also brought up by a father who was a product of the mechanical age, himself a car fanatic.

I was lucky to also work with several men born before WW2 who had the same mindset and were happy to pass their skills on.

Having said that, I spent most of my 20s and 30s learning all those skills and at the end of it I am still single and have no children, so it's a trade off really.

[catsinthewelder]

I've had a bit of a think and I can sum up my thoughts about the article quite simply. If you've got the money for a finance deal on a new car you're not really that skint.  The problem is that too many people are irresponsible with their money and insist on spending every last penny each month 'because you can't take it with you' so arn't ready for any kind of unexpected expense.

 

As an example my Cherry cost £400 with a short test and six months tax.  I knew it needed a patch for the test which I welded in myself but could probably have paid £60 for someone else to do it,  add £40 for the MOT and we reach a nice simple £500.

 

I've just had a nose on the Nissan website and saw a Micra for £109 a month,  not a bad price and temptingly affordable but thats with a £2500 deposit.  I ran the figures through with £500 down and it came back as £172 pcm.

 

Now take our sub prime chap with two jobs,  he can scrape together £500 to put down on a car.  If he takes the £500 snotter rather than the pcp he's got a theoretical £172 a month to put in the savings in event of it going tits up.  That's realistically going to sort out his knackered radiator the first month or after 3 buy him another snotter if the first one dies.  I'm not suggesting that he should buy a 28 year old car but theres plenty of 10-15 year old Corsa's/Micra's/Fiesta's in decent nick for the same money.

 

I'm not taking issue with people buying new cars,  just considering it strange that someone could take the view that it's a privilege to be in a position to run an older one. 

[Inspector Morose]

Maybe not privalidged per se but we are in a privalidged position to have lead the lives, had the parents or had the nous to be able to tinker with stuff when we had we chance.

It's sad to see that nowadays, folks have not the opportunity to be able to learn on the job, so to speak, and fix their cheap snotter first cars when they break with the assistance of their parent or whatever. Firstly stupid insurance has put paid to the idea of a cheap old snotter for a first car. Anything that is insurance friendly (without trawling the through obscure stuff) will be fairly modern and throwaway. Secondly, their parents who probably have started their motoring career with old crap stuff, have now progressed onto a modern family car on finance, possibly a company car so there is no need to lay a spanner on it - skills leaned will have been lost.

We are privalidged to be in a position to carry on the old tradition of keeping things alive by the use of repair. It's a practice not seen in the industry in the large anymore. Skills are being lost in the same way that road steam engine repair and running skills were lost after the widespread introduction of diesel engines in the 1930s. We are privalidged to have those skills and carry on the tradition of repair.

[drum]

Shiter type A: runs shite out of necessity as he is skint.

 

Shiter type B: runs shite out of choice.

 

All of type B were once type A but now have more money. When they were type A they picked up the skills, tools etc to run shite on a tight budget.

 

Non-shiters can't deal with the thought of a car that might be unreliable so they would rather fork out the £170 pcm than have the perceived worry of a car that might not work. They also like the status of a new car. They don't want to and probably couldn't run shite on a tight budget.

 

Maybe wherewithal is a better word than privilege.

Type B have the wherewithal to run shite. Non-shiters don't. That's how I interpret the article.

[HH-R]

I'm tight, I'd drive something miserable to get cheaper insurance and pay less on fuel. How trendy the badge or style is is irrelevant.

 

Had a car on finance once, never again, had no money at the time because I'd just started working and got rinsed for it! I buy outright what I can afford at the time after that, which is usually some shite.

 

My current car has cost about £500 in repairs, a terrible track record compared to what has gone before it (not including tyres and servicing which needs to be done on everything), but I've had it 18 months now so I'm still quids in over what I'd have spent on a car loan. Wouldn't mind the cost so much if it had actually fixed any of the faults it had.

 

Never had a breakdown in any of the shite I've had, the cheapy Rovers and Nissans, until I started buying modern Fiats. I'm keen to get stuff fixed and keep an eye and ear out for noises/knocking/overheating/oil use etc. Had to abandon a long journey because the wipers packed up (and it was raining hard) in my first Panda, and the one I have now doesn't start when it fancies. No EML, no warning, no pattern, just turns over and over and over. Think it's up to about 17 breakdowns now... I've lost count. Practically every electrical item is broken, but I'm past caring. It's getting run into the ground and then scrapped.

 

I've had a look at Dacias, Hyundais etc on the attention grabbing deals where they're just over a hundred quid a month, but the annual mileage limits are usually pretty stingy.