Breaking down in an older car

[dave j]

Last month I did a 1750 mile trip to Belgium and Germany in my 1973 VW camper with no issues, other than spending a ton of money on petrol and losing a wiper blade in a thunderstorm!

 

Last week my 'modern' broke down. I say modern but it's a 15 year old Octavia. The cable between the battery and starter broke so an easy fix once diagnosed 

 

[MikeR]

TBH , they dont make cars that like  to be knocked around now anymore .....  dont worry it involves a Volvo

 

[PhilA]

8 hours ago, steveo3002 said:

and it probably broke because the hipsters were trying to do 80mph in it 

Still remember doing RTTS back in maybe 2005

I'm plodding along at 50 down the A303 and a group of long haired folk in a dark orange late 60's Beetle went past me like I was standing still.

30 miles later I burbled past them with a cheery wave because they were stopped in a layby with grey smoke coming out of the vent below the rear window.

"But Fred said you can drive it like it's on the Autobahn all day long flat out"

 

Mhm. It's also not new any more

[TrabbieRonnie]

I've had a few ftp's this last few years...  Seems to me however, that the old stuff at least gives you a bit more warning, and/or retains at least some function once broken.  

Two of them were 'teething issues' too, there will always be something when putting an old car back into regular use after time off the road.

Trabi blew an (ancient looking) coil halfway to work, turned for home and got there on the single remaining one... 300cc's of pure power!  

Audi Coupe blew the power steering/brake booster pump seals.  Was getting cocky as it'd been going well (I got it with this as a known issue, but had only changed the easy to get to ones), and the red arrow-style trail of thick white smoke it left at 90mph was very dramatic!  Limped to a stop, put new o-rings in again, topped her up and carried on home more sedately than before. 

The price of these pumps is truly outrageous btw, but it literally cost me a quid for the oil seal it actually needed, I pressed out the shaft and put it back together on the bench at work.  Pump internals were absolutely spotless after 200k too...

Jeep was the most recent, and tried a few things before realising that the fuel pump was leaking...  Now, at last getting round to sorting it, but again, she limped home under her own power in the end.

I have recently purchased a £400 RX8 however, so may yet see the back of a recovery truck!

[Rust Collector]

I get that we are talking about much older stuff here, but I need to mention something that annoys me and it's related to car age/reliability perceptions. Ever since we announced that we have a baby on the way, my Mum regularly drops in the suggestion 'why don't you scrap all your old cars and use the money to get a nice, reliable modern car?'

It could potentially be seen as a sensible suggestion, however:

• My partner's car is a 2008 Clio, and as we all know 2008 is so modern that it's practically the future. It's sensible, moderately practical and very boring. And most importantly, it has been reliable. It has been in the family from 3 years old (owned most of the time by my Mum!) and in all that time it has had 1 major failure, which was a snapped cam belt. It is mechanically simple enough that it's very cheap and easy to look after at home.
• If I weighed my shite collection in, at let's say £300 a car, I'd have about £4,000 to play with without getting rid of the Insight/raiding savings. I'd say that the 4 grand area is smack bang in the middle of the danger zone for second hand family motors. Old enough to have been totally fucked by the last owners, new enough to lose my arse on when it goes bang.
• The Honda I have been running as a daily for ages has so far not FTP'd despite regular mega journeys. I'd trust it to drive anywhere in, and that's not just an empty expression as it has taken us safely all over the continent. All it's ever wanted for is servicing and regular wear and tear bits like drop links.

So my mother's suggestion of 'bin the stuff you love and buy something you don't like that will likely make your life difficult' somewhat winds me up.

I have had lots of breakdowns in my other old stuff. Most of the time I've limped them home or fixed at the roadside. I've definitely not had any more breakdowns on average than my colleagues at work who drive moderns of the 5-10 year old range. I reckon I've probably spent less money than them though, and had more fun. 

I do need* a bigger, economical family car, and I am currently looking for one. I won't spend more than 2 grand though, and it will probably be something interesting (to me at least) from the late 90's that is pre-broken. Because this is definitely the most sensible option 😅 

[jakebullet]

Older stuff really is so much easier to bodge. When I had my capri it coasted to halt near a handy layby, and I sussed the fuel pump relay was fucked by burning my hand on it. WCPGW by plugging in the heated window relay? Brum!

Mind my modern* C1 has an odb bluetooth reader in the console & the app on my phone just in case a ctrl-alt-delete will get it going if it stops.

[maxxo]

not at work now so can add to it my take on the whole thing

cost cutting and complex technology plays a part, as does the general lack of maintenance i see these days

i'd bet, a lot of these pretty new cars you see broken down (excluding JLR) are likely on their original oil, never been maintained etc

there will be some bad eggs out there obviously, i don't think moderns are unreliable, quite the opposite now i'd say.....

saying that i've never really seen a korean or japanese car or any age broken down on the hard shoulder

 

from an ownership standpoint in my case, somehow, and i don't quite know how

for the initial 3 months of ownership my most reliable car i've ever had

and this is the truth

i can't believe it either

is a 1993 citroen XM!

[warch]

My 58 year old Landrover has done about 250 motorway miles last week and urban standstill and pretty harsh off road conditions for the remaining 60, whilst fully loaded with tools most of the time. It didn’t seem to mind the 30 degree heat overmuch and the only issue I had was a faulty rear flexi  hose and then the ancient (possibly 60s era) brake master cylinder showing signs of deterioration which I’m changing from the comfort of my driveway. 
 

The same vehicle has been all over the country on many occasions and was my regular mode of transport whilst living in West Wales, Oxford, Hereford and Bristol. 
 

The only real issue I’ve had to date was a faulty electronic ignition module which completely failed and for which the only recourse was a replacement module. 

 

 

 

[Bren]

19 hours ago, cobblers said:

Every single bank holiday:

 

"Oh no daisy has let us down the holiday is ruined kids are crying now I can't believe it we're so unlucky we paid £15000 for it 3 months ago it has only done 17 miles in the last 5 years "

At least it wasn't on fire.

[cobblers]

6 minutes ago, Bren said:

At least it wasn't on fire.

yet

[AxWomble]

I’ve only ever driven old tat - Seicento. Micra K12, AX 1.0, 106 1.5D, Ducato 2.8jtd.
 

No breakdowns in the last 35,000 miles across all these cars combined. Plenty of odd noises and bum-clenching when I know I won’t be able to sort it out for another few days though. Never anything terminal though, just worn out suspension bits in the main. The van has developed a click from the offside front over the last few days - I know the bushes are completely shagged on that side but I’ll probably end up doing trackrod ends etc as well while I’m under there.
 

If you’re happy to accept these kind of running repairs then old car ownership is probably less trouble than a modern that goes pop, strands you and relieves you of £1000 in parts and labour. I can be fairly certain that each repair on my old stuff won’t cost more than £100 in bits and a sweaty afternoon on the driveway! 

[AxWomble]

Edit - just remembered the time that the wipers on dad’s Micra just stopped halfway up the screen during a cloudburst on a contra-flowed bit of the M62. Managed to use the force to navigate off the next junction and then spent an agonising 15 mins fiddling round under the scuttle panel tying the wiper linkage back together with cable ties - the little ball joints had popped off, TADTS. I think the repair lasted 3 months till I could find a rocking-horse poo wiper linkage for less than £50….

[garethj]

29 minutes ago, cobblers said:

yet

Generally fires on aircooled VWs are from where the fuel pipe goes through the engine sheet metal.  Of course the factory fitted a good quality rubber grommet to stop this, but when some twat mechanic fixes the car they usually leave it in the “probably wasn’t necessary” pile of parts 🙄

My 2005 car appears brand new because it does 50 miles a day, minimum and it’s just taken me down to the coast in Wales (hi @Skizzer). Obviously it hasn’t put a foot wrong, other than some people saying the car is 17 years old.  Surely some mistake?

[Conan]

Well I think a huge part of why some older cars seem to be more reliable in 2022, not only that the owners are likely gonna be people who cares, but also because if it's survives this long it's very likely to have been a good example out of eleventy billion made.

Car QC can be visualised by a steep bell curve. Some example are better made than the manufacturer expected, some are worse. Every single car ever made got a specific measurement of time manufacturer expected them to survive. So if they're problematic from day one it wouldn't likely survive past manufacturer's expectation, on the other hand if it were to survive for even longer than expected it gotta be a properly good one.

Especially those who have owned many examples of a single model would see it this way as well I believe. Once I have been around enough old cars I start to feel like some specific car out there are just made so well that it's no wonder why they last longer, even models with reputation of being haphazardly made can have a better example than expected.

[sierraman]

I think breaking down was to be expected years ago. I always remember if we went to the coast we’d pull over at Goole to ‘let the engine cool down’

[fatharris]

Lot less of these sorts of cars about and most of the bad ones have been weeded out one would hope.

I'm not commenting on my breakdown history or the track records of my fleet as I'm not in the mood to tempt fate.

[SiC]

Yeah old cars are definitely more reliable. I've only had 4 sudden and unexpected FTPs in 2800 miles and 5 years of ownership.

🤔

[riek]

There's two types of people driving older cars

The ones that are doing so because they are on the bones of their arse, would prefer something newer but can't afford it. They also generally can't really afford to look after it. These will break down a lot, due to a combination of neglect and age of components

The ones that are doing so because they like it. These are usually well maintained using the hundreds a month that might otherwise go on a lease and *should* not break down any more often than something much newer

[sierraman]

Maybe I fall into somewhere between those two categories, I could afford something newer but not substantially better. I service it and it’s mechanically bob on but equally I don’t go mad, refreshing suspension, servicing it every 8 minutes or painting the heads of the screws black. But when it’s fucked and it makes more sense to replace it then it goes. Generally speaking I wouldn’t buy a car from me, there will be something wrong with it otherwise I wouldn’t get rid of it. There have been exceptions, my old mans car I was tasked with getting shut of was a solid old thing, in hindsight I should have kept it. 

[AnnoyingPentium]

I've never had a breakdown where I was in deep shit, except with the Toyota Auris which shat itself constantly.

The Fabia has three times decided to misfire. First was a change of coil pack and an EML, I was about a mile from the house so got a lift into Ayr to get a coil pack for it. Second time was misfiring under load with no EML, swapped other two coil packs and it was back to normal. Last time was March/April time where it randomly misfired and brought the engine light on again. I limped it through Polnessan outside Patna (mostly freewheeling since it's downhill), pulled into a lay-by, and restarted. No issues that have left me a little stuck since, touch wood.

[barrett]

I once counted five Triumph Stags broken down in the space of one week (all unconnected). In fact, I'm not sure I've ever seen a Triumph Stag on the road that wasn't broken.

[cobblers]

1 hour ago, barrett said:

I once counted five Triumph Stags broken down in the space of one week (all unconnected). In fact, I'm not sure I've ever seen a Triumph Stag on the road that wasn't broken.

Same here, genuinely never seen one in an working state.

My mate bought one and couldn't get it to start despite being a time served mechanic and actually working on them when they were "current".

He called me up as a fresh pair of eyes and I found some bodged wiring etc and I got it started.

As soon as he put it in gear, transmission fluid squirted out of all sorts of orifices and there was no drive. He got a 2nd hand replacement gearbox, put it on and drove it down the road only for the engine to lose oil pressure after about 5 miles and seize completely, presumably because the engine oil was so full of petrol from him spending 3 months trying and failing to get it started

[davocano]

I spotted a broken down Tesla Model 3 earlier this year and it wasn't on fire for some reason.