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I have been a mechanic for a long time started back in 62 and have seen a lot of things change some good BUT mostly BAD
Stopped by a friends shop the other day. He had a 2010 Mazda sedan with a V6 with blown head gaskets
with 24,000 miles and the factory said it was NOT under warranty Well I found out that the engine was a Ford 3,0 V6
I am retired so I am Not in to it as much as I once was so I did not know that Mazda came with fords engines
Now I will say there is NO way to get the heads off with the engine in the car ALso there is NO way to replace the water pump with out removing the engine Ended up removing the whole engine trans cradle and lifting the car up on the lift
Found the heads are warped because of a water pump failure
I just hate to think of some poor tech on flat rate doing this job He would get totally F%^^% on this job I am told this is the same engine thats in the ford edge My point is if you would have told me that you have to remove an engine just to replace a water pump I would have thought you were NUTs And to the engineer that designed that engine he should be FRIED
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v511/stingray66/IMG_0731_zpsdba5d63c.jpg?t=1358284133
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v511/stingray66/IMG_0730_zpsfa852d35.jpg?t=1358284211
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I under stand the computers stuff JUST HATE THEM WITH A Passion Been turning wenches since 1963 seen a lot of crap in my days BUT todays cars got to be the worst they ever built Todays cars are NOT as reliable Back in the day if a car did not start you just played with the points and that was it today if they dont start you need a tow truck anything with a timing belt is NOT any good i stay away from them give me the old timing chain any day and as far as fuel injection goes a carburetor works hands down better My 04 grand cherokee with a 4.0 inline six with fuel injection gets 10 mpg in the city (HELL my old 440 sixpack got that) Now take an older 4.0 with a carburetor and they get 18/22 in the city all day long
I am so glad I am retired now I go out of my way to tell anyone thinking about going into the field to run away from it
I was one of the fools that drank the cool aid and went with the ASE cert I had an ASE master tech and I can honestly say it was the big joke AS good part of the answers on that test is all WORNG I passed that dumb test by giving them the answers they wanted BUT out on the street that test did not hold water.I have a 170 Mercedes Benz (SLK), which is 13 years old. I thought about replacing it with the new version. Probably as my friends have new cars. So off I went to a local Mercedes dealer. I parked outside next to a new one. Mr sales guy came out asking can I help? what they really means is… can I take away $98169.50 of your cash. Anyway, as he ran through the features of the New SLK… it’s got a new Eco 2L engine that is 165 horsepower madam and can get you to 60MPH in under 7.5 seconds! I look at my old Manual SLK and thought wait a minute, my old car has 370 horsepower and gets to 60 around the 4.5 seconds. No sale! :ohmy: More the new car has an automatic gearbox. Which equals slow take off and is according to the reviews: easily broken.
Are the latest cars better? It seems not!
Well, you can pretty much get SLK 55 AMG with 415 bhp. and 0 – 60 in 4.5, so it is not all just ECO this and safe that nowadays. And it’s not $120K but “only” $65K (don’t know why you mentioned USD since you seem to be in Scotland), your car 13 years ago was probably more expensive and this new car in 13 years would probably cost nothing as there will be only few who can fix it then 🙂
i’m a tech and have to say i used to be the same way and used to like old cars until i bought a 1984 Subaru brat and that thing was a POS i grew to hate carburetors and all the vacuum controlled BS i would work on that car almost every weekend trying to polish that turd and i grew and grew to hate the older cars. so instead of hating computers and the electronics i have been learning all about how they work and getting better at diagnosing them and i like working on these newer computer controlled systems than carburetors. as for mechanical engine failures like focus valve seats for 3.0 v6 engines and valve problems and other things like that im not the engineer who designed the engine but unfortunately as we all know every engine ever made has had a weakness. I watched Horatios drive which was a documentary about first person to drive a car across the country and if you watch all the trouble he went through (he spent at least 50 to one hundred thousand dollars in todays money just to keep his car running) today’s cars are one hundred times better than what Horatio drove. Cars used to be a rich peoples toy and now have dropped in cost vastly compared to what they used to cost and thanks to the assembly line almost anyone can afford to own and operate one today. complain about car problems all you want newer cars are still better and will continue to get better and better than older cars.
I will take a Carburetor over fuel injection any day
You have to know the mechanics fuel injection
Waste more fuel than a carburetor back in the 60s
If a car whould not start you could get it going
With out a tow truck today forget about cam sensor
Crank sensor fuel pump in the gas tank(one of the stupidest things) ever
Done and you need a tow turck hell replace a water pump
On 383 in a 1/2 hour or less GM 283 Chrysler 383 ford 289
They lasted forever can’t say that about todays crap
One thing I know for sure for me I will NERVER p buy
A new car today you can’t even gets ture 4×4 any moreIn response to stingray66. I would have to disagree with you on that. i couldn’t find a video of a 09 chevy vs chrysler any where but stunt busters took a 62 cadillac vs a 2002 seville head on 50 mph and the dummy in the 62 cadillac was compressed between the steering wheel and face through the windshield because the drivers seat was forced foreward because of the weak and poorly constructed frame. the seville interior was intact air bags would have gone off and the driver would have survived if not walked away with minor injuries. personally i would pick the 02 seville if i was going to be in a crash. what one would you pick?
Ron Ananian was talking about this subject one day on his show. He read from the 1957 Chevy maintenance schedule, it was insane as compared to todays maintenance schedules.
You had darn near a page of maintenance to do before 10,000 miles. The first service was due at 250 miles than 500 miles than 1000 miles than oil changes every 2,000 miles. You had to re torque all the bolts including the head bolts and a valve adjustment at 5,000 miles. ugh.
Add to that, manual brakes which sucked, manual steering which sucked more and automatic transmission with only 3 gears. On top of all that was awful handling, my old Ford Ranger (the full size one F-100) handled like crap, took 40 acres to turn around and sucked gas like no tomorow.
To me old cars are art, they are something to be restored and loved and remembered as a snapshot of American history. But, as a daily driver? No thanks.
Hate to tell you but me give me the 62 hands down I read about how they cut up and took
Parts of the frame out to do that test
Years ago my wife was hit by a durnk diver the cops was was behind
This drunk driver and told me they clock him at 65 when he hit my wife
My wife was driving my old 1970 Monte Carlo That old big boat saved
My wife’s life and not only that I drove it home fixed it and drove it many more years
So don’t even try to tell me that newer cars are safer I HATE today’s cray carsI agree… CAFE Kills… Smaller and lighter cars don’t survive as well…. Second and third order effects of trying to make automobiles get better gas mileage through lighter weight
“A National Research Council report found that the standards implemented in the 1970s and 1980s “probably resulted in an additional 1,300 to 2,600 traffic fatalities in 1993.[12] A Harvard Center for Risk Analysis study found that CAFE standards led to “2,200 to 3,900 additional fatalities to motorists per year.[52] The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s 2007 data show a correlation of about 250-500 fatalities per year per MPG.”
That being said, I still believe cars today are mechanically better than old cars… I remember when if you got over 100k miles on your car it was a big deal… Now everyone expects them to last 200k+ (especially for Hondas and Toyotas)….
JMHO
-Karl
[quote=”ToyotaKarl” post=77591]I agree… CAFE Kills… Smaller and lighter cars don’t survive as well…. Second and third order effects of trying to make automobiles get better gas mileage through lighter weight
“A National Research Council report found that the standards implemented in the 1970s and 1980s “probably resulted in an additional 1,300 to 2,600 traffic fatalities in 1993.[12] A Harvard Center for Risk Analysis study found that CAFE standards led to “2,200 to 3,900 additional fatalities to motorists per year.[52] The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s 2007 data show a correlation of about 250-500 fatalities per year per MPG.”
That being said, I still believe cars today are mechanically better than old cars… I remember when if you got over 100k miles on your car it was a big deal… Now everyone expects them to last 200k+ (especially for Hondas and Toyotas)….
JMHO
-Karl[/quote]
I saw that study and I highly disagree with it 150%.
I have served for 10 years in this county as a volunteer rescue squad worker. I have cut open more cars than any other volunteer in this area and can say with dead seriousness, Airbags and seatbelts WORK
Sorry old non safety windows, steering columns that DO impale and metal dashboards KILL
I will call BS on anyone that tries to claim that old cars were safer, there are not.
Yeah the new cars are safer in collisions with new cars but get in a 57′ Cadillac El Dorado then hit a Nissan Leaf with it and see who is safer. For me it is older vehicles hands down, they last longer and are easier to fix. I would like to see in a hundred years if anything made from the mid eighties and on would still be around. Back in the day Auto makers designed and styled cool cars, They also used a material called metal that wouldn’t break if leaned on or hit in the cold winter.
The problem is that many time the ’57 Eldorado would survive just fine, but the occupants did not.
The point of crumple zones and designed fail construction is to sacrifice the vehicle to absorb the force of impact and not direct it to the occupants.
I highly disagree with it 500%. New cars DO NOT HAVE METAL BUMPERS they have plastic crap they call bumpers
AND I CALL ANYONE BS saying newer cars are safer IF it were not for the heavy steal in that old car I am 100% sure my wife would have never have survived The government wants you to think they are safer BUT I have not drank the cool aid
and will stand by my statement that todays cars just are not as good as the older ones They are much easier to work on and WILL LAST LONGER than todays cars Back in the early 80s I ran a fleet of over 300 ford vans with the 300 inline six and I got way over 200 thousand hard miles and they still ran Today you can not get a new car with a motor like that What gets me mad as hell we once had great cars BUT the manufactures lost money on them because they were too good They want you to buy a new car every four- five years back in the day you NEVER saw blend door problems head gasket problems or my pet peeve timing belts They are the worst That 300 inline six had timing gears and in my 40 years as a tech NEVER had one of these go bad ever Todays cars are all about the money Just look how much it cost a today car if some one just backed in to it back in the day there was no damage but once again its all about MONEY NOT safetySorry Sting, the evidence shows you are incorrect.
Like I tell anyone else, show me the evidence, show me the proof, cause right now almost all studies show the exact opposite.
BTW bumpers are still made of metal, they just are no longer at the very front of the vehicle. Crash test data shows again and again that rigid solid frames do NOT absorb impact forces, instead that force is directed internally and the passengers are forced to absorb the impact.
That “Its a government conspiracy” is a crap argument, it is one of the reasons I steer clear of most automotive forums because the degenerate into a political argument “The liberalz are destroying the world” BS that I have no time or desire to hash out.
EVERYTHING changes, it’s life, sure there are aspects of new vehicles I don’t like. I hate how I have to remove a dashboard and discharge the A/C system to change a heater core or replace those crappy blend doors. But, getting mad about it won’t change a thing.
The real factor in crashes these days is the problem that driving is considered a secondary thing, people watching screens and texting and screwing around with things that can wait till you get where you are going causes far more accidents and deaths than anything the vehicle can be blamed for. Anytime I see a vehicle driving erratically or dangerously there is almost always a phone propped in front of the driver.
Edit: BTW I am going to bow out of political discussions as I personally feel they have no place on this forum and will taint the general feel of the forum, which is welcome and open to all. I would rather not contribute to these threads than run the risk of them degenerating into a all out flame war.
See ya’ll on the repair side. 🙂
I guess we will have to disagree about this I know for a fact if my wife was in these new type cars today and got hit as she did years ago she would have been killed That old big boat saved her Thats why I will NEVER buy a newer car. Say what you will BUT I know they are NOT safe As far as newer cars a better mechanically You will never convince me they are any better when you have to take a whole car apart just too get to the water pump well thats just why there is a shortage of techs
I am Now in the hunt for a 57 chrysler with a 392 hemi NOW THATS A CAR
so I will agree that we will disagree
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