Sense of entitlement with modern cars.

[3xpendable]

Well reading this thread, it looks like I've just called you all a$$holes....!

I'll exit quietly....

[suffolkpete]

I think it's all to do with modern cars rarely needing servicing. Most moderns have service intervals of 12-20,000 miles rather than the 3,000 miles that was common when I were a lad. The trouble is that owners then think they don't need to do anything, washing , checking oil and tyre pressures etc. I believe there's a thriving industry replacing the small highly stressed two and three cylinder engines that seem the norm these days, because owners neglect the oil. A friend of my daughter turned up in her Micra one day and I noticed the tyres looked very soft. When I checked, the pressures were all about 18 psi instead of the 32 or so they should have been. She was about to embark on a 200 mile motorway journey in it. When you see a scruffy car, you can't help wondering what state of repair it's in. Before you all protest, I don't mean people on this forum, you're all mechanically savvy I always keep the modern clean, then Mr Plod won't be tempted to do an instant MoT by the side of the road.

[tractorman]

Well reading this thread, it looks like I've just called you all a$$holes....!

I'll exit quietly....

Don't worry - we'll get our own back!

I have to agree with Pete though - so many people I know never check tyre pressures and rarely open the bonnet. One teacher's wife got a new Fiesta (about eight or ten years ago) and blew the engine very quickly. The teacher had a go at the garage and was asked when he last checked the oil. His reply was something like "It's a new car, it doesn't need checking!". Apparently that model of Fiesta needed very regular checking until the engine got "run in"! What makes it worse is the he nearly did the same trick when it got a new engine!!

The snag with my modern is that it's dark blue and it only takes about half a mile to get covered on our roads. The last one was silver and you could leave it for a week or three without noticing any change. I hate filthy cars - perhaps my definition of dirty is someone else's idea of "fairly clean" as a friend said that he has never seen any of my cars dirty!

It has stopped raining! There's a chance of some Landy action!!

[UKJeeper]

My Volvo V40 is a £500 commuter/daily driver/workhorse. I do what's needed to keep it running, and that's about it. I have no attachment to it, unlike the other cars i own. If it wasn't for the 30mpg it gets, i'd bin it and go back to another Jeep Cherokee (still will, when i find another LPG converted one in decent shape and the right money)

As the other's above have mentioned, it's a tool. Nothing more.

[megadethmaniac]

my daily gets a clean inside and out once a year, if it needs it or not!

Needs it this year! Might even give it a polish?

Then again its a Hyundai Matrix and you know what they say, you can`t polish a poo

[JPB]

I couldn't remember what a High & dry Matrix looked like, so I went a' Googling. I rather like that. Does this qualify me for gardening leave? If so then the man from the other side of the Dyke was right and I'm going to wash my Golf somewhen soon . I may even take all of last summer's dead bugs off the screen. A part of me now feels that I should maybe wash the thing, if only so I can remember what colour it was before the thick layer of mud and tree sap made it look a sort of BMC Rose Taupe with a green vinyl roof.
I just checked inside the boot and apparently it's a red one.

The owner of this MK3 Cavalier-alike Opel Vectra A should maybe think about giving it a quick dicht too:



Now that's minging!

[tractorman]

Believe it or not, that isn't a heck of a lot worse than the current Golf looked when I first saw it! I think it must have been under a power cable or something - one side was white, the other dark blue - two ideal colours for someone who doesn't want to sell a car!

My heating friend showed up this afternoon (so no Landy work done today!). He said that the Scenic had a bottle of Elf oil in the boot when they bought it and, as it had been used, he went to Halfords to get some more. He was so confused about the oils - one was Ford, another Vauxhall etc and none for his Renault (wrong model or year) that he told his wife to go to the stealers and get some from them!

I suppose that blows one myth - someone with a new (and privately owned) daily who has checked the oil themselves!

I noticed next door's Ka today - I had forgotten it is a "10" reg - and they own it! However, they wash the thing almost every time it goes anywhere and polish it five or six times a year. Their other car is a 2003 C5 estate and that gets similar treatment!! I polished the current Golf - about two years ago. I bought it just after the May Day bank holiday and it wasn't as well valeted as they said it was, so I sorted it out! I might do it again sometime.

[megadethmaniac]

I`m not sure that polishing a car that often does the paint any good.

I seem to recall a conversation with a senior tech guy at a former employers (Motabillity) which was of the lines that it is actually detrimental.

[tractorman]

I'd agree with that - after all, polish contains abrasives that clean off the top layer of oxidised paint (it may be clay, but is still abrasive).

The neighbour isn't too pleased at the paint quality of the C5 - it almost looks as if the base coat is showing through in places and my comments about over-polishing weren't appreciated! However, he is a bit obsessive at times - he says he is running it into the ground as it's worth nothing and not worth selling on! An eleven year old car is too old!!??? I did point out that the last Golf would still be here if the insurance lot hadn't written it off - and I would have had no plans to sell it for a few years. It was a late 2002 car and had a few more miles on the clock too. He sold an "R" reg Xantia estate for peanuts when he bought the C5 about four years ago. His main reason for swapping was that the Xantia's suspension wasn't as stiff as it was and that he had to use a stick to hold the tailgate open (though the car had done about 140K and he'd changed the spheres a year or two earlier). The bloke that bought it is still using it and is well chuffed!

I used to polish the cars twice a year - just before winter and just after the MOT (usually in April/May for some reason - even the October 2002 -registered one!). I think I did the Passat three times a year when I first bought it, but soon gave up on that idea!

[Grumpy Northener]

My daily modern is now 18 months old and turned 68,000 miles as I drove home from the day job last night - my working day is some what unpredictable and tends to compromise of a 12 - 15 hour working day - the vehicle is 4 x 4 and is off road on a very regular basis - bearing mind the amount hours worked / miles travelled and what the vehicle is used for - am I really in a frame of mind to start cleaning it on a weekend ?? - The hell I am - it gets serviced quite regularly so it can wait until it goes to the dealers - that said quite a bit of my day gets spent driving it, it quite often becomes my mobile office along with ferrying clients about across site as they normally turn up in something that would strand itself on a firm grass verge let alone a soft riverbank.

Any cleaning time is firmly reserved for the classic fleet - even the wife runs her modern to the local handcar wash - she knows she has no chance of myself doing it for her.