Breaking down in an older car

[Shedking]

After years of running an old shed I've often laughed off the remarks of "I bet you spend more time pushing it than driving it"  or " I bet you spend more time underneath it than sat in it" guffaw guffaw 

Got me thinking though,  I can't remember the last time I actually saw an old car broken down at the side of the road or on the back of a rescue truck and I do a lot of driving. Seen newer stuff awaiting rescue, maybe it's because there's a lot of new metal on the roads these days. 

I've never found older cars any less reliable than new stuff and I've run both. I've found poorly maintained and neglected cars unreliable but for me reliability has never been linked to age, a bit like people really.

[sutty2006]

Older cars are easier to fix at the side of the road.

 

I recon 3 times in the manta. 
1. A50 uttoxeter roundabout cut out and wouldn’t start. Swift whack of the distributor with a billy bat brought it back to life and onwards travel resumed.

2. Cut out on biddulph moor, left it for half an hour and it restarted. Probably same dizzy issue but a new one was fitted soon after

3. Throttle cable snapped in Holland, repaired with a block connector and did 12 months service until the 16v engine was fitted. 
 

the more modern mondeo mk3 I had years ago lost drive on the M1. Clutch slave had failed. Got towed in. 
 

A lot of modern cars now are plug in/sensor related/garage worthy defects. Not side of the road bush fixes. 

[cobblers]

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 "

[steveo3002]

5 minutes 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 "

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

[cobblers]

Just now, steveo3002 said:

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

Nah it broke down cos it'd been stood since 2007 and recently got "fully restored" by some bloke in a grubby lockup and the only thing done to any of the drivetrain was to top the oil up, paint the entire engine in wheel silver and grease up the rusty brake pipes to get it through the MOT

[vaughant]

7 minutes 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 "

The truest statement ever 🤣🤣🤣🤣. 

Why, oh fucking why, do people take them on the motorway?

Use a fucking A or even a B road, cruise along, enjoy the view and admiring glances, stop when it starts getting warm or uncomfortable /needs some sort of repair rather than taking it on the M4, in peak summer traffic and breaking down right where the 3 lane goes into 2 causing 20 mile tailbacks as everyone slows down the view the incident. 

 

Every fucking Friday 

[Missy Charm]

My only 'proper' roadside breakdowns were for things unrelated to the age of the car, or things that could have happened to any car ancient or modern:

One was failure of an electric fuel pump, another a breakage of a plastic clutch cable retaining clevis on a Citroen Xantia (that's a very bad thing on one of those) and the third was total failure of a Ford Focus battery.  The last was bizarre: the battery went from perfectly fine to completely discharged whilst the car was parked for about four hours, and wouldn't hold any charge at all when the engine was jump-started.  Ended up being a low-loader job back to our local garage for the sake of a battery.  

[cobblers]

4 minutes ago, vaughant said:

The truest statement ever 🤣🤣🤣🤣. 

Why, oh fucking why, do people take them on the motorway?

Use a fucking A or even a B road, cruise along, enjoy the view and admiring glances, stop when it starts getting warm or uncomfortable /needs some sort of repair rather than taking it on the M4, in peak summer traffic and breaking down right where the 3 lane goes into 2 causing 20 mile tailbacks as everyone slows down the view the incident. 

 

Every fucking Friday 

Everyone knows the best and least stresstful way to gently ease an elderly vehicle back onto the road after being stood for some time is to ensure it is laden slightly beyond what is legal with your entire family and belongings, and then take it on a 300 mile motorway trip on the hottest and busiest day of the year. 

[captain_70s]

2 minutes ago, vaughant said:

Why, oh fucking why, do people take them on the motorway?

Because despite buying a vehicle with a terminal velocity of about 18mph the motorway is the "fastest" route, and is the way the satnav takes them. Me and @sdkrc passed one screaming it's way up a hill towing a trailer on the M6 and we passed it doing 57mph like it was standing still.

A VW camper only makes sense if the journey to the destination is as much as part of the holiday as the being there.

 

My cars tend to shit themselves in minor ways fairly frequently, but it's usually loose connections or stuff that can be bodged back into functionality until new parts arrive. A lot of issues are caused by the fact that I ignore problems because "the car still works", until the car doesn't work, like a moron. I wouldn't even know where to start with a modern...

[vaughant]

26 minutes ago, Shedking said:

After years of running an old shed I've often laughed off the remarks of "I bet you spend more time pushing it than driving it"  or " I bet you spend more time underneath it than sat in it" guffaw guffaw 

Got me thinking though,  I can't remember the last time I actually saw an old car broken down at the side of the road or on the back of a rescue truck and I do a lot of driving. Seen newer stuff awaiting rescue, maybe it's because there's a lot of new metal on the roads these days. 

I've never found older cars any less reliable than new stuff and I've run both. I've found poorly maintained and neglected cars unreliable but for me reliability has never been linked to age, a bit like people really.

As for older cars being more reliable I don't know but I think it's more down to modern car PCP rental types thinking servicing is something classic car owners do  because their car is "brand new" as they sit 34 months into a 36 month contract on the original tyres and oil 33000 miles later. 

I've had a few roadgoing repairs over the years and maybe one or two recoveries but overall I see no issues with using an older car at all, especially something thats been well looked after. 

I do lots of miles as well, if you had a 20 or 30 mile commute each day I can't see the point of paying £200/£250 a month for a new C1 when a ten to 12 Yrs old one will easily do the same job and cost pennies to run. 

The amount of people I knew who bought their kids a brand new car the second they passed their test was unreal because they wanted something "reliable". 

My boy got a 10yr old ka and never had a minutes trouble with it. 

 

[PrinceRupert]

I've seen a lot of cars on the side of the M25 in recent weeks. Mostly newer cars.

 

My 75 has never left me stranded.  Once the exhaust detached from the backbox but couls drive home. My TVR did last weekend, though ultimately it was a misreading sensor and I could have driven home...

[maxxo]

only ever had 1 breakdown and that was a snapped spring in a picasso

weirdly, neither the C5 or the XM have ever let me down

the only vehicle i've properly broken down in is a 69 plate sainsbury's delivery van, mercedes sprinter when the prop shaft failed

180k miles of being hammered though so perhaps unsurprising

don't see many cars broken down anymore, if i do, it's always JLR products

[sierraman]

I frequently see 5-10 year old BMW on the hard shoulder, but I’m assuming they’ve stopped for a rest as German cars are bulletproof so. 

[RoverFolkUs]

43 minutes ago, Missy Charm said:

the battery went from perfectly fine to completely discharged whilst the car was parked for about four hours, and wouldn't hold any charge at all when the engine was jump-started

That'll be the smart* charge system coming to play. It was probably trying to nuke an already dead battery, with a predictable result

[maxxo]

mind you, i bet the old XM could shit itself anytime in many exciting and very expensive ways

at the moment it seems perfectly happy with just having small and easily manageable fires

[Missy Charm]

8 minutes ago, RoverFolkUs said:

That'll be the smart* charge system coming to play. It was probably trying to nuke an already dead battery, with a predictable result

That's interesting, thank you:

1)  I had never heard of smart charging prior to you saying that.  Modern, or not so modern, cars, eh?  

2) The car had been driven from Colchester to Ipswich immediately prior to being parked, so the battery ought to have been fully charged.  This happened four or five years ago and the new battery is still going strong.

[Rocket88]

45 minutes ago, maxxo said:

don't see many cars broken down anymore, if i do, it's always JLR products

Ain’t that the truth……

[Shedking]

I've been running what I would term sheds,  below a grand to buy for the last 11 years and not had a breakdown.  I'm in no way having a dig at new cars it's just that I  don't think that the old adage that you are more likely to be left stranded in an old car to be necessarily true,  not in my experience or observations. 

[garethj]

I’ve owned loads of old VWs, they were incredibly reliable by the standards of the 1960s and can still be reliable today if you follow a few basic steps.

Or, you can put dress-up chrome on an engine that relies on black painted surfaces to radiate heat, not worry about a fault which makes it run a little lean or have low compression and act surprised when it stops.

I think we see fewer old cars broken down because there are hardly any in regular use.  Wherever I work, my car is the oldest in the car park by some margin.

[808 Estate]

My A series truck broke down twice (excluding a rear tyre blowout). One was an alternator seizing and snapping the belt. Managed to limp it off the A3 before it overheated. The other time was when the rear brakes started overheating and binding. Needed to stop and let them cool down a while before continuing. I suppose that wasnt technically a breakdown.

[RoverFolkUs]

2 hours ago, Missy Charm said:

1)  I had never heard of smart charging prior to you saying that.  Modern, or not so modern, cars, eh?  

Ford in particular have been at it for a while, at least 20 years. Other manufacturers have followed suit along the way, some before, some after.

They vary the alternator output between from 12v, upto 17/18v. As I'm sure you can imagine - pumping 18v into a dead battery that's at the end of its lifespan, rather than simply being discharged, is not going to work! 

Also; if the battery is stone dead, it can't supply 12v to the alternator for it to generate the charging voltage. It may have jumped ok, but then wouldn't charge if the battery really was that dead. Although this is less likely to be the case as you managed to continue the journey. 

Anyway, yes modern cars. As you were

[cpjitservices]

Sailed past quite a few moderns 2012 upwards on the hard shoulder today, 200 mile round trip. Many old cars about including a Kreg XJS keeping up with the traffic.

[cpjitservices]

Only tiome ive ever been recoverd is when the wifes Mondeo now in the hands of @sierraman, shat its Clutch salve cylinder naturally then lost clutch pedal. Key banging it and rev matching I managed to get it to S safe place for recovery.

 

Not much change out of 1100 quid for that clutch replacement.

[Mally]

4 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 "

Then there those who buy 1, ,2, 3 of similar products, to ensure they always, usually, have one working at any one time.

[HMC]

Maybe I look suicidal when I have an FTP in a car, but people are always so helpful, what do I need? Can I get you something? Good old English and Scottish public. 
 

Although maybe it’s sympathy based on lifestyle choices that seemingly there is a poor bastard “forced” to drive 20 year old cars?

[danthecapriman]

I’ve only ever had old cars, never even had anything with the new style 51/02 style number plates. In 22 years I’ve broken down 3 times.

1: Capri. Popped a heater hose. Pulled over and bodged it back together and drove home. No big deal.

2: Volvo 244. Front brake calliper seized up and boiled brake fluid. Had to get recovered.

3: Mercury. Original starter motor died at importers warehouse so got swapped for a small block mustang starter (same bolt pattern as big block but not manly enough!) worked for a while despite sounding awful, then blew itself to bits trying to start up at motorway services! Nothing I could do after that so recovery used.

I don’t think that’s bad going at all for that length of time or the ages of the cars I have!

[SH1TE]

Last breakdown 2022 in a 2016 35k van. 

Oil feed line blew due to manufacturing defect- too acute angle sliced through braided hose- recovery home

Prior errr emmm well windscreen wipers on low mileage van-home on own. 

And punctures, punctures and alternator faults_ home on own.

2021 E10 almost on fire 90 mins after mot, carb rebuild as melted gaskets- left at relatives- but otherwise a recovery situation 

Prior 10 years 🤔nope

[chaseracer]

6 hours ago, cobblers said:

Everyone knows the best and least stresstful way to gently ease an elderly vehicle back onto the road after being stood for some time is to ensure it is laden slightly beyond what is legal with your entire family and belongings, and then take it on a 300 mile motorway trip on the hottest and busiest day of the year. 

2500 miles round France, including the Ardeche gorges and several Alps, seemed to do the job!

[brownnova]

On Saturday I did 250 miles in a 25 year old Volvo… nae bother. Saw 4 broken down BMW 1-Series and an Alfa Giulia though… 

Today 200 miles in a 2CV, no bother. Some moderns struggling with heat.

However… had to have a couple of older cars recovered. The Saab and the MX5 both ended up being recovered. It just happens sometimes. 

[CreepingJesus]

I've had a few FTP's in cheap old cars that required recovery home: but in each instance, I used a local recovery service who are very reasonably priced, and the repairs were cheap and easy. 

One of my B5 Passats' oil pump failing in Halfords car park when I'd gone in for a pack of spade connectors to sort out its' electrical maladies (!), was one incidence. The 760's random snapped cam belt was another. The T-5's ignition failing in a multi storey car park yet another. Nothing I could do about those examples, so I accepted the ruined trips and called for help. Many other times, I've got simple old donkeys running again, with nothing more than hand tools and swearing/staring at it. And when all's said and done, if it's really fucked, the scrappy gets the next call.