Are Old Cars Really Unreliable?

[cort16]

aaaand I'm stuck down the town as the key won't start the car.

[HillmanImp]

You can't get away from the fact modern cars will do the miles a lot better. At 100k in a 1977 Cortina you'd certainly be on the 2nd/3rd clutch, top end overhaul due again for the second time. Likely a few carb rebuild chucked in as well. Sills would be hanging off, seats would be falling apart, carpet threadbare...

 

Equivalent 100k Focus might have the small possibility of incurring a big uneconomic to repair fault but pound for pound you'd have spent less getting to 100k. I'd be willing to bet it would do 200k before you were in the territory of stuff like serious gearbox wear etc. How many cars require engine rebuilds these days due to wear and tear?

 

I think looking at 70s cars compared to modern cars is a bit chalk and cheese. However a 1980s car to moderns is fair IMO. Car manufacturing leapt forwards dramatically in the 1980s.

 

About 7 years ago I got shot of my 2003 Megane Scenic and bought a 1986 Aldi 100 of incredible poverty spec. There really wasn't a great deal between them. An equivalent 70's car would have been horrendous as a daily in comparison.

 

I am sticking my neck out but I think anyone who has owned a Cortina and a Sierra recently would be able to vouch that there is a huge difference between the two but probably no that much between the Sierra and the Mondeo. 

[beko1987]

Well, if you compare old snotters with 70k moderns, the old snotters surprisingly do fall short, don't they?

How about comparing a 70k old car with a 70k new car?

Adjusted for purchasing power, this would have bought you a 560SEL way back when.

I don't think that would give you any grief in regards to comfort and reliability.

I've always subscribed to this school of thought, a £80/90k car for £600 will still have the running costs of an £80/90k car.

 

Probably why I get on so well with zx's, they were only £12/14k cars, so I could afford to run it. I've got to the heady heights of a £30k car now, yet to spend on it though...

[forddeliveryboy]

A car from before the mass-electronics age was a masterpiece of Man's ability to engineer thousands of mechanical parts to work in harmony and propel you down the road in comfort. Many more were cheap piles of shit designed to tempt people's wallets out in showrooms.

 

The beauty of buying something nearing the bottom of the depreciation curve (on top of saving thousands/not having to go on a bike everywhere) is that millions of others have tested every known model over billions of miles, so you have a pretty good idea of what's any good. Second hand spares are available for pennies. Styles which all look dangerously similar when new are filtered by the brain over years and you grow increasingly discerning - time-defeating shapes emerge as clearly as do those which are the equivalent of yesterday's newspaper.  

 

It's true to say most modern cars do the job well, whereas those from the 1980s were much more of a lottery. It was well into the 90s before the mass makers caught onto the idea of a stiff bodyshell, doors which didn't sag on their hinges, good suspension geometry, front drive and a wheel at each corner for good roadholding, as one maker had in the early 1930s. The leap from the Escort to the Focus was amazing, like travelling through time.

 

If you'd bought a Saab 99 with fuel injection in the mid-70s and were still using it today, with servicing and rust-proofing as necessary, you'd be scratching your head reading this thread. The idea that 20th century cars wore their engines out quickly, had feeble heating in winter and poor cooling in summer, which didn't corner well, struggled to start in November and so on is surely restricted to those who grew up in the 70 and 80s with British Leyland and Ford?

[cort16]

The early sierras are very cortina ish the later ones are a bit more modern feeling. The MK1 mondeo probably drives pretty much exactly the same as the current one.

[strangeangel]

I don't do an awful lot of miles in cars, consequently I never buy modern ones as I regard them as a colossal waste of money. I try to look after the cars I do buy, and I haven't had an FTP that required recovery since a certain Renault Master's sump sprang a really big leak about 10 years ago.

 

Are new cars better? Mostly, yes.

 

Would I rather have a new Audi A1 than my 205? Definitely not.

[willswitchengage]

If you look at cars from a FMECA perspective then reliability of individual parts has improved dramatically, however their sheer complexity means that as has the number of possible failure mechanisms - a great number of them 'critical'. I.e. whereas engineers can now create engines from fancy alloys to higher tolerances with better QC that they could thirty years ago, then number of parts in an car's system has increased enormously, therefore increasing the number of points of failure. Obviously a number of critical systems will also be emerging technologies; whereas for instance the IC engine has a hundred years of maturity, an EGR valve or DMF does not.

 

Really you need a simple old design produced in a modern factory and with 21st century materials science and engineering optimisation.

 

Obviously also changing attitudes of affordability, consumer acceptance and regulations have changed the requirements on product designers that mean quality and durability are no longer paramount, but that's a debate for another day.

[cros]

I was sitting in a latest style Mondeo talking to the proud owner and he offered me a drive. He'd just described how it can park itself and take over if you nod off, so there really didn't seem much point; I felt as disinterested as if Ann Widdecombe offered to show me her topbollocks.

It was a different story with one of these though- I jumped at the chance when one needed shifting a few miles and would forgive it any amount of unreliability if I had the good fortune to own one, especially the v12.

 

PS, best thing I've ever driven.

[forddeliveryboy]

If you look at cars from a FMECA perspective then reliability of individual parts has improved dramatically, however their sheer complexity

 

It also means that if they wish, rather than engineering on the side of caution, manufacturers can make things down to a lower quality than ever before and get away with it, for just long enough for it not to affect new sales.

 

I've had an inlet valve fail on a 130k Focus, abandoned the idea of Peugeots when it turned out their back axles lasted well provided you didn't work them hard and wouldn't consider modern VAG because it seems they've learned how to use fmeca on a Ford scale.

[DVee8]

My 7 year old X-Trail needs a turbo,a pair of rear brake backing plates,a pair if handbrake cables and a balljoint.The backing plates are dealer only parts.

The turbo is £1300 from ECP,£1000 trade. I will be looking at recon tomorrow.

I'm looking at around £2000 of repairs on a £6-7000 car.

 

PX it may be.

[STUNO]

I drive a 1994 car as a daily. It has never had a FTP. BUT the oil rings just about fell out of the cylinders one day. a set of new rings stopped the smoke clouds and it now uses no oil. I thought the head gasket was blown as it was using a lot of water and blowing bubbles into the overflow bottle which would overflow when the engine got hot. I decided that a new rad. cap was a cheap try it and see repair. It was just a faulty cap and has not used any water for a long time. still starts instantly every day, even though the battery is getting tired. In short worth every penny and not depreciating.

[23rdian]

I tell you what are rubbish-er. Modern springs. Chinese steelz

[cort16]

turbos,dmf's and dbf's seem to be these death of a lot of modern cars. There doesn't seem to be a lot of getting away from it though.

[Negative Creep]

Life expectancy doesn't seem to have changed much since the 80's, just the reason that they visit the bridge of doom

[djimbob]

turbos,dmf's and dbf's seem to be these death of a lot of modern cars. There doesn't seem to be a lot of getting away from it though.

 

The drive to lower emissions and weight loss for better MPG figures seems to render the modern diesel a proper minefield, and the italian tune up a necessity on a weekly basis, so thousands of these cars powered by satan's fuel are commuting themselves into a huge maintenance bill.

 

Don't ask how I know this

[Snipes]

One of the young lads at work as one of those insurance telemetry boxes and he is prohibited from revving the motor. Probably a sensible thing in regards to his driving but staying below 2000rpm literally all the time can't be doing the motor any good. It's already 8 years old and he's committed to a 5 year payment plan. I quietly think he's going to have trouble with it in a couple of years time (not to mention he's paing £2500 insurance and already has a 50/50 fault claim in his first year....

[xkjagnz]

Well I once had OMGHGF on my Wolseley 16/60 on the M4 just before Severn Bridge, cracked the head too, Had a spare gasket and head in the boot (like you do!) and was all fixed in 40 mins or so with one spanner (IIRC 1/2 inch AF). Try doing that on my Passat with it's W8!!

[Bren]

Well I once had OMGHGF on my Wolseley 16/60 on the M4 just before Severn Bridge, cracked the head too, Had a spare gasket and head in the boot (like you do!) and was all fixed in 40 mins or so with one spanner (IIRC 1/2 inch AF). Try doing that on my Passat with it's W8!!

Most cars dont even have a spare wheel.

 

Tights and gaffer tape in the boot are a thing of the past - unless you're a gimp.

[paulplom]

Our 2010 leon 1.9tdi has been nothing but trouble since we bought it. In the 5 months we've had it it's had a gearbox, dual mass, clutch, recon turbo, turbo, various boost hoses and has to go back in because 3 of the doors won't unlock from the remote. It's had about 4 grand in 4 months. Thank fuck we unintentionally had a 6 months warranty! My 306 cabby has had a £15 crank sensor in the same amount of time. The leon has 60k and full history btw.

[sierraman]

And therein is another falacy about low miles fsh etc

[cms206]

I replaced my last brand new car (2010 Mondeo 1.8TDCi) at 18 months old with the Council Estate and despite being the most shagged Volvo on the entire planet it has needed only a back box and front discs & pads and has never once put a foot out of line. The Mondeo spent more time in the dealer's workshop than it did on my driveway. Current daily duties are undertaken by a 1996 Volvo 850 2.5S which cost me £175 to buy. Admittedly I have had to do the radiator (96 quid including vat) but it's now done 6k miles since the end of July and (touch wood) it hasn't put a foot wrong. I did 6k in WilsonSquared's 270k-mile 2.1TD 406 estate from February to July and it never put a foot wrong either.

 

In fact the last time I actually used my RAC cover was when I got ballsy about three years ago and tried to drive a breaker back from Kilmarnock and it locked it's brakes on the M77.

 

Definite sweet spot from about 1985-2000. I shall motor in that era for as long as possible.

 

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

[rantingYoof]

My sister is shortly going to be pursuing a second hand car, and the question 'why not diesel?' was posed. Fair question, given the 13-14k annual mileage.

 

My response: it'll be a ten year old diesel for around two grand. However, you will need a budget of four grand to take into account the various diesel-things it'll inevitably need doing, regardless of whether it's been a meticulously maintained pride and joy or an abused workhorse.

 

After a recent thread on here, I'm pushing a 1.8 Focus hard, although the fanboy cannot help but sneak 1.8 S40s into the mix too.

 

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

[Bren]

The last time I put a rad in a car it was our xantia 10 years ago.

 

The last exhaust I bought was a flexi for a galant we had 10 years ago.

 

Starter motor? SD1 vitesse in 1997. Ditto fuel pump.

 

Alternator? New bearings in the one fitted to the senator I had from 1995 - 97.

 

Stuff fitted to cars is pretty good - what kills them is the uneconomical cost of finding random electrical faults, then when found the prohibitive cost of replacement parts.

 

A £300 clutch replacement is now an £800 job due to the DMF. If you have a 12 year old 150k car you may think a £300 repair is worthwhile but not an £800 one. Result? The bridge. Because £800 is a lot to shell out if it shits itself again a week later with something else.

 

All cars have in built obsolescence- it used to be rot. Now the trojan horses are expensive mechanical and electrical issues.

 

I am taking the vectra for it's MOT at lunchtime - I can handle shocks springs etc as a failure. But something like a DPF will be expensive....

[dollywobbler]

All this chat, but the answer to the original question 'Are Old Cars Really Unreliable?' is simply 'No.'

[Cheggers]

All this chat, but the answer to the original question 'Are Old Cars Really Unreliable?' is simply 'No.'

 

Since when did we ever find the quick and simple way to answer a question

[sierraman]

£2000 on a diesel makes no sense. £1000 does. At a grand if it blows up you just go and get another. At £2000 you start spending money because you feel like you have to.

[Pete-M]

All this chat, but the answer to the original question 'Are Old Cars Really Unreliable?' is simply 'No.'

Are they less reliable than new ones? Yes.

[garbaldy]

I've had over 200 cars some old some modern and can safely say it's only the one that has made me walk and it was a modern, it was a seat Toledo and was the only modern to leave me stranded not once but twice,

 

The second was the Merc although that didn't make me walk instead it made me sleep in it, at least it made it home under its own steam eventually.

 

 

I've had a handful of breakdowns in old cars but always managed to bodge them enough to get home,

 

To be honest that's a pretty good reliability rate if you ask me and is the reason I don't have breakdown cover these days, ten years with the rac and one call out when the Passat wouldn't release it's park brake.

[dollywobbler]

Are they less reliable than new ones? Yes.

 

That wasn't the question.

[For Fiats Sake]

I'm not sure my Fiats count as "old".  I do worry more about the 2009 breaking down than the 1990 ones as the modern will cost money to fix.

 

I feel safer on the motorway in the modern but less amused, but like the aircon.  Personally I've had just as many breakdowns in modern cars, mainly due to battery failure, as FTP's in the chod, a head gasket failure and an unidentified cut out. So that's two all. 

 

You pays yer money and makes your choice, variety in shite is the spice of life though.