Modern rubbish?

[Mitsuru]

One thing I and others have menthioned to dad is that as all the Control moduals on
the range rovers and discoveries have them in one place in the rear quaterpanel. So
a bang there could wreck the whole car and make it only worth scrap value for the
parts!

Which is another thing to think on, as cars a broken into not to steal the car
outright, but for the parts. A car recently in the local paper was broken into on the
owners drive less then 10 feet from where she was sleeping and they nicked the
bonnet!

An old rule of thumb that does spring to mind is

"If you overly complicate things there is more to go wrong!"

So as cars don't show the gauges of it's components like they used to such as oil
pressure, battery charge vacuum etc, is it any wonder that if a modern has a
problem they don't tell you the way a person can understand.

Some may turn their nose up at these decked out or modded cars but the owners
(some of them anyway)do something that we would approve of, they fit gauges for
the oil pressure volts and air/fuel mix, etc. In a words drawing on older cars for that
knowledge to know when something is wrong or about to go wrong, and not relaying
on the ecu to solve all problems.

The days of a dealer or some garages having a proper mechanic to diagnose a
problem are going as most just plug in a machine and do as it says without knowing
if it is the problem or not!

[hobby]

There's pros and cons to both, but if you asked the majority of those of us who had to drive the cars they produced back in the 60s and 70s on a daily basis the majority would want the modern "rubbish" rather than the much more unreliable stuff that was around 50 years ago... I've no doubt that there are many on here who would disagree, though!

I love tinkering with an old car but I still prefer the "modern" for the built in reliability and comfort. I can't remember the last time I even had to top up the oil on my moderns, but it was a weekly thing when I started driving! I accept that moderns are far more complicated than older cars, but that has benefits as well, reliability for one... As for scrapping the car when things go wrong, there's nothing new in that (cars have always had built in obsolescence) the only difference now is that the majority of moderns will go on for mega mileages compared with older cars and with even less looking after...

I'm sounding like I prefer moderns but its not that, just simply horses for courses, I prefer the modern for my daily driving for reasons previously stated but I'm happy tinkering with an old one as a hobby, I just wouldn't want to go back to having to use one daily, I have other hobbies as well so wouldn't want the car to take over...

[Wicksy]

Have to agree with Hobby - case in point, doing a 4 K trip through Fance and Spain in a couple of weeks and would not even consider it in a classic.
I am getting on a bit and value the absolute reliability, the ability to cruise at continental motorway speeds with climate control and relative economy.
The car, just a humdrum Focus Estate Auto, my classic, a Princess 2 . The classic is in ace condition but I think the odds on it coming home on a truck are high and the comfortand drivability and rconomy just can't compete

[Mitsuru]

I have to say I watched "Watchdog" last week and they were on about
Fix It Again Tomorrow, Sorry I mean Fiats and the power steering faults.
Then that reminded me of Fords Focus (plus other st the time )
instrument cluster faults which both companies made the car owners
pay for the replacements. And that is within a couple of years of the
cars manufacture.

Oh and watch out you guys who drive short or slow speeds in these little
diesel compacts, the exhaust problem which requires you to take it on a
dual carriage way and give the thing a blast to burn off the soot once a
week! Also this too was on Watchdog, and the dealers were raking it in
for parts and servicing.
False economy in some cases.

[Martin Evans]

My V8 has done a long tour around Scotland and during the 1970s, my parents and I did a long tour of Scotland (Including Skye and John O Groats) in a Volvo 245. Neither broke down and both coped perfectly well with the trips. As a youngster, during the 1960s and 70s, my parents' cars were always reliable. My father had a bit of trouble with the automatic choke on a Golf (VW automatic chokes could be a pain), whilst his Ford Escort was a very fragile car. My first car, a 1974 Mini, was utterly reliable. I think we are tending to class all old cars as being akin to London to Brighton stuff.

I suppose the general public tend to regard old cars as being unreliable because of their own experiences with them. They forget that the cars were clapped out when they bought them and got worse because they failed to maintain them.

I have a feeling that some aftermarket parts may not be what they should be and that the suppliers are relying on the end user (ie The classic owner) not doing many miles. This maybe so but is hardly the fault of the car.

[hobby]

I'm sure there were exceptions, but I don't think it is just the general public's perspective, there's enough evidence out there such as the stats on warranty claims to prove that cars these days are much more reliable than they were... The Acclaim was the first BL/BMC car which actually got a reputation for reliability, a novelty for British cars in those days!

[JPB]

you guys who drive short or slow speeds in these little
diesel compacts, the exhaust problem which requires you to take it on a
dual carriage way and give the thing a blast to burn off the soot once a
week!

Utter BS from the Beeb! Systems - found on most if not all modern Diesels by now - which contain DPFs are only even detectable by a small, ECU-triggered increase in idle speed every few hundred to every few thousand miles depending on pattern of use, the soot builds up in there regardless Indeed, after a North to South, non-stop motorway blast of 550 miles at a steady 70mph , the buildup would be far more obvious from that smell coming from the boot than it would ever be in a whole year of town-only driving. Getting out of the modern after a run of that length (quite common) makes you sure that you've parked up next to someone whose tyres are burning, such is the smell created by the process, but driving at a certain speed for a certain length of time - as a suggestion for a cure where no problem existed in the first place - is just another typical example of both dealers and Watchdog talking pure sh1te rather than explaining to their customers how the DPF purges itself (and how - with practice and a suitable Android app - the driver can choose where it does it. )

Sorry, I was forgetting that your petrol V6 only emits sweet perfume and the breath of unicorns.

.....The Acclaim was the first BL/BMC car which actually got a reputation for reliability, a novelty for British cars in those days!

Two words to you. No, not those:
Morris Minor. No more complex than an average pair of scissors, consequently any repair other than the replacement of their MMUs could be achieved by the side of the road and even then, weren't required that often outside of a service. So reliable by default.
Dolomite: Let Saab do the R&D work then, once it works, we'll use our engine in one of our own cars! Yeah, umm, only covered around 250,000 total miles between the two of those in a very short time for the sub total in each case, so the fact that they never used oil, lost coolant, broke down or otherwise failed to complete a journey wouldn't count then.
But when a modern car fails, it tends not to do so in a way that can be remedied by the side, so it becomes a recovery job or it doesn't break down at all, no happy compromise that would get you home but no great leap forward either.
Still, if the claim had come from someone running, say, a Mercedes-Benz Diesel of the late '60s, it would have had some credibility. Modern cars more reliable indeed. Oh boy, that's a laughy one.

[Martin Evans]

Speaking of Morris Minors, I once had to call the breakdown when the coil failed. I had just left the M4 and it just died. I was sure it was a low tension fault and passed this on during the call.

When the recovery man arrived, he told me that he had smiled when he got the call because based on what I had passed on during my phonecall, he knew he would get the car going (Which made a nice change from the usual recovery). Within a minute, he diagnosed the coil. We went to Halfords, bought a new coil and off I went

[JPB]

Exactly, now try that with a version-specific non-discrete component for a modern. Best case scenario, an Hour to peel the ECU and de-pot/replace the IC in question, worst case, you get someone who doesn't know how and would sooner sell you a new unit. Neither will happen in a minute or five by the roadside.
I love my small Diesel modern and yes, it's a huge amount of fun and potentially pretty reliable (bought in July, already taken the mileage from 14 to 12,257) but if something does go wrong, it won't be getting fixed by the side, even a flat tyre can't be dealt with that way if the onboard compressor can't keep up with the leak.

A case of swings & roundabouts perhaps? In the extremely unlikely event that - as another example - a MK2 Granada (Peugeot 2.5D and not an ECU or DPF in sight) breaks down, the option of having Ford bring a spare one to use within an Hour is probably a long shot.

[tractorman]

Not 100% with you on DPFs John, though you're largely right! One of our neighbours has a newish Focus that has just been back to the main dealer with DPF problems. Our carer was sick of the DPF light coming on on her Focus, so sold it and has a petrol Fiesta now! My Vectra-owning neighbour has a Citroen C8 that has problems with it too. He managed to get his sorted for £60 on mate's rates and was bidding on some Peugeot/Citroen tool for the next time it happens (he says it's getting bad again). The local garage had a Peugeot outside today with the same problem, they are going to try a fuel additive to cure it - at £20 a bottle! The Citroen has a special additive in a tank as the DPF isn't close enough to the engine for the system to work properly.

Annoyingly, the main problem that led to the government insisting that they are fitted was sulphur in diesel - now we have ULS diesel, the dangerous emissions have been much reduced!

That's all stuff I have heard since Friday, when I discovered that the new Golf has a DPF! Of course, read the forums etc and there are tales of how DPFs cause fires and all sorts of problems (the engine eventually goes into limp mode and can only be cleared by a garage), but we all know about forums exaggerating a problem (eg DMF - I was told I was mad not to fit a new flywheel a couple of years ago, but I never had a problem after a new friction plate was fitted).

Reliablity

It's very easy to read statistics in a way that proves your argument (three kinds of untruths: lies, damned lies and statistics!) - new cars less reliable? I'm not so sure about that - the garage where we lived had waiting lists and a lot more mechanics in the 70's than it did when they gave up the agency in the early 90's. I suspect lack of maintenance is probably the cause of most problems. My brother in law couldn't understand why I bought a Montego (in 1989) as he saw a lot of broken down ones when he was driving his wagon. However, the local garage told me that the main problem was that people were fitting wrong oil filters (without a non-return valve). Mind you, that was about the only thing reliable about that car!!

My late father spent many hours under his cars trying to keep them going (and three were Minors). The back wheel cylinders used to cause us a few problems! While I would never say VWs were particularly reliable, I've driven about 250K miles in them in the last 20 years and the last one was by far the most reliable - even with a bucket load of electronics - though it's the first I've put a clutch in (and I only drove it 30K miles in the five years I owned it).

I reckon the main problem with any vehicle is the owner. If they don't maintain the car and do the weekly (daily or whatever) checks, the car will be unreliable. I saw a repeat of Fifth Gear the other week that had Tom Ford (I think) going around a supermarket car park offering to check engine oil levels. It was amazing just how many people didn't bother checking - and how low the levels were in some cars! People took more care with their vehicles forty years ago; perhaps because they were relatively expensive to buy and repair, but perhaps they were still an aspirational item - "I must be better off, I can now afford a car"!

And yes, my current daily driver is pretty reliable - starts first time and only leaves a small pool of oil on the drive. That's a 39 1/2 year old David Brown tractor (I will get new seals on the fore loader sometime - the engine doesn't leak a lot of oil!!)