For those interested in old cars.

[Dunsignalling]

8 minutes ago, alastairq said:

The trouble with cars that 'never go wrong' is the natural, human tendency towards complacency, over the 'reliable' modern.

 

Folk take their moderns for granted.

Some may think, ''and rightly so?''

 

Which leads us to the constant stream of 'breakdowns', and the need for having breakdown service membership [for 'peace of mind?'], noticeable on the motorways and major routes throughout the country?

 

Witness the numbers of ''new[er]'' vehicles out there with lights missing/out? As an obvious visual example?

 

At least, when an old vehicle needs regular attention on the part of the driver, such so-called ''trivia'' as a brake light out, [for example] get's spotted quickly enough. Whether anything is done about it is up to the driver, but I suspect, for the vast majority of modern vehicle drivers, such trivia will go unnoticed?

 

As an aside, from the last stats from my local constabulary, whose roads policing units help conduct many roadside vehicle checks, something like 85% of vehicles deemed 'unroadworthy were, in fact, less than 10 years old.

Bear in mind, 'roadworthiness' can stretch from having a lawfully required bulb out, to worn tyres, to other more serious matters.

As much as having serious rot in one's sills!  

I wouldn't venture on to a motorway without breakdown/recovery membership, whatever the age of my car.

 

In the event of a simple puncture, any idea of changing a wheel on the hard shoulder (assuming I could get to it, and there was one) would fill me with terror.

 

Incidentally, if my Yeti has a bulb out, it tells me.....

 

John

[alastairq]

2 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

Incidentally, if my Yeti has a bulb out, it tells me.....

 One presumes the system that tells one there's a bulb out, is actually functioning properly in the first instance?

[boxbrownie]

12 hours ago, MrWolf said:

 

Interesting excercise in reducto ad absurdum. 

 

The motor vehicle had developed a lot more in the first half of the twentieth century than model trains.

By 1950 even, clockwork and tinplate was old hat. The advances in motor vehicles between 1920 and 1970 were far greater. Since then, we've been tweaking the design and adding bells and whistles.

This might be a model railway forum, but last time I looked, this thread was titled: For those interested in OLD cars. Rather than: For those who want to talk about how much "better" old cars are?

Perhaps we could start a thread called:

The total stranger who buttonholes you whilst you're filling up  your 56 year old car with petrol and gives you an unsolicited lecture on what a rustbucket they were and how bad the handling was? 

 

Reductio ad absurdum……of course…..it is RMWeb after all.

 

 

[boxbrownie]

13 hours ago, alastairq said:

Really?

Do tell.... 

I have boxes of 1980’s Bachmann Locos that don’t have lights, can’t be easily DCC’ed and still run very well indeed, and are quite acceptably detailed (for the time) and are far better than the old clockwork Hornby set I used to have that could be driven off the rails with very little coercion and had tin edges which several times took bits of little fingers, fun yes, but do I want them again?  Nahh….

[boxbrownie]

10 hours ago, MrWolf said:

How old is old? I suppose that depends on whether or not you can afford a new one.I've always imagined an old car to be something that your main dealer wouldn't want as a trade in against a brand new car,

That includes just about anything more than six or seven years old then…….and a lot less if you rule out that fact that they would never see his forecourt and go straight to auction 

[alastairq]

On the above function thing, when I worked for my income, my employer acquired many hundreds of brand spanking new, up-to-the-minute, MAN waggins.

These all came with a system that informed the driver when a light had failed. This brought into question, the necessity for drivers to, by mandate, check their lights before,during & after use?  I mean, why bother if the waggin will tell the driver if a light is out?

I personally became involved in the issue [as an employer-acknowledged SME at the time...their idea, not mine!] when i discovered that, whilst the system could easily detect a bulb failure....it could not detect if a bulb was actually missing completely..ie, had fallen out of the bulb holder into the bottom of the lens.

Turned out that MAN's system did a self-test light check on starting up first thing......so if a bulb was actually absent, the system presumed that was normal, so ignored it.

Experience has told me often Manufacturers don't really know quite as much as folk would presume them to know?  After all, it isn't the 'manufacturer' one is dealing with, but one or two individuals within the manufacturer's system.

 

I recall the letter my department received from Land Rover concerning reports we had made regarding reliability of certain Defender components......with the response from Land Rover [in LR's name, somebody was writing it]....that in lR's opinion, we were using the Defenders off road 'too much'...and they weren't intended for such intense off-road usage..On the LR-headed response, LR Defenders were, in their opinion, only meant for 'occasional' off road usage!!

Edited November 30, 2021 by alastairq

[boxbrownie]

19 minutes ago, alastairq said:

 

 

Discussion with said expert [ I presume, there?]...elicited the information that washing machine control panels were mostly manufactured by one factory in Italy. They supplied all the major brands.

The boards were all rather similar in design...obviously with features to suit the individual brand manufacturer....but the main difference between, say, a Miele or a Boshh, and  a Beko or a Zanussi [for example] was in the quality of the individual electronics components the board maker specified.

Your “expert” was almost correct….as most unfortunately often are  .

 

My BiL was a “repair man” for a dealer of electrical goods on Guernsey for a number of years and he always said if you buy anything, buy Miele as they manufacturer every part them selves and to this day still have washing machine drums that can be dismantled so every single part can be repaired, other makes are literary use and dispose. 
 

Problem is for that kind of machine you pay very much more for, and the general unwashed…..nah…..A Currys’ special deal ZanuHoovIndeBosch will do at a quarter of the price.

[boxbrownie]

27 minutes ago, alastairq said:

 

Which fact left me to wonder what the actual differences were between a vehicle ECU for a Peugeot [of today] and the same component in a new BMW, for example?

 

Is there a factory somewhere churning out ECUs for new vehicles for all sorts of vehicle brands?

If so, I wonder what the differences are in component specs between a board made for BMW ]for example] and a similar board made for , say, Peugeot?

No, there isn’t……there are suppliers of said components (when we were testing them there were about five reliable suppliers worldwide, now there are many more of course) who design and make an ECU/whatever but each manufacturer will specify the life cycle and component durability as to operating conditions and the supplier will make to this spec, the ECU/whatever will be tested to destruction (or better, it keeps going) back at the manufacturers main testing facility, obviously some manufacturers have more stringent procedures than others.

[Fat Controller]

35 minutes ago, alastairq said:

Not too long ago I had a 'repair' issue with my 14 year old Zanussi washing machine.

It's control board needed some new capacitors....[supplied and soldered in for a mere 15 pension-quids by a local radio repair person.]

 

Discussion with said expert [ I presume, there?]...elicited the information that washing machine control panels were mostly manufactured by one factory in Italy. They supplied all the major brands.

The boards were all rather similar in design...obviously with features to suit the individual brand manufacturer....but the main difference between, say, a Miele or a Boshh, and  a Beko or a Zanussi [for example] was in the quality of the individual electronics components the board maker specified.

 

Which fact left me to wonder what the actual differences were between a vehicle ECU for a Peugeot [of today] and the same component in a new BMW, for example?

 

Is there a factory somewhere churning out ECUs for new vehicles for all sorts of vehicle brands?

If so, I wonder what the differences are in component specs between a board made for BMW ]for example] and a similar board made for , say, Peugeot?

Not just component spec, but also the amount of testing/ quality  control that's specified. 

[boxbrownie]

31 minutes ago, alastairq said:

 

I personally became involved in the issue [as an employer-acknowledged SME at the time...their idea, not mine!] when i discovered that, whilst the system could easily detect a bulb failure....it could not detect if a bulb was actually missing completely..ie, had fallen out of the bulb holder into the bottom of the lens.

Turned out that MAN's system did a self-test light check on starting up first thing......so if a bulb was actually absent, the system presumed that was normal, so ignored it.

That is a really 5hit system, I know for a fact most bulb outage check systems (on modern passenger vehicles) continuously monitor the bulbs, certainly if a “bulb falls out of its holder” the systems will show a failure as they monitor the continuous resistance of the bulb, its a bit different with LED components now but the systems still work continuously.

MAN must have left that bit to Rheinmetall…silly boys 

[APOLLO]

Wot's an ECU ?

 

Brit15

[Kickstart]

15 hours ago, boxbrownie said:

All true, but as this is a model rail forum, would we be happy with a clockwork Hornby set now? Perfectly reliable, and/or easy peasy to repair………but……..

 

Probably not, but also I wouldn't be happy if the model loco would only work with spare parts pre coded to that particular example of that model.

 

2 hours ago, Hobby said:

 

It does cost a lot if it goes wrong I've never said otherwise, but the key point is that it rarely does go wrong, since the introduction of computers into cars (probably the definition of a "modern", early/mid 80-s when they reached common family cars?) I haven't had one fail due to the electrics. The vast majority of modern cars go on and on, way beyond what we were used to back in the 70s when i started driving, also the engines, assuming correct servicing, also last much longer, cars with 150k plus mileages are commonplace, they were very rare indeed back in my younger days , and even then would have had at least one, probably two, rebuilds.

 

Unfortunately while an individual component might fail rarely, there are a lot of items that can fail expensively so the chances for the vehicle add up. Probably back then easier to grab an engine and swap it in, than do the same for an ECU now (let alone seat control modules, body control modules, clocks, etc - some of which are delicate electronics then mounted in a low position at risk of water from a blocked sunroof drain or the like)

 

Not claiming either is better, just that relatively easily things could be a LOT better now.

 

All the best

 

Katy

[MrWolf]

A car may well be "old" at five years, having had three owners and done 80000 miles, but it doesn't make for something interesting in the classic car magazines.

I lost interest in buying Practical Classics mag when it began to be written by just out of journalism college types who were running a 1996 Legacy they bought for £50 or similar.

It used to interest me when they had much older cars and showed how to repair them properly, rather than just quietly move it on when something major, ie welding, was required.

Of the other, older cars featured, the endless stream of Triumph Stag / MGB / Ford Escort bored me to death too. At the other end of the scale, the coffee table glossies filled with Healey 3000s, Astons, XK120s and fifties Maseratis, whilst interesting and I have driven / worked on quite a number of such things, I couldn't really relate to because short of a lottery win, I wouldn't be owning any of them.

I've owned quite a number of cars made in the last forty years and driven any number of the hot versions of ordinary cars.  Off the top of my head, Astra GTE, Rover 214Sli, Citroen BX and Visa, Toyota Tercel, Peugeot 309, Ford Escort, Austin Metro and Maestro, VW Golf and Polo, Fiat, Alfa, the list goes on...

They just don't interest me, however quicker than their pedestrian cousins. 

They're all just too similar now that the format is basically the same, to me they're just transport, no grin factor whatsoever. They're of no more interest to me than the white goods being discussed. 

I enjoy riding my bikes and occasionally driving the memsahib's Triumph Herald. Probably because you have to keep your wits about you and put some effort into driving. Also, I like the way such things look, they don't look like someone gave a ten year old a basic outline of a vehicle and told them to design some fancy lights and doorhandles.

[MrWolf]

15 minutes ago, APOLLO said:

Wot's an ECU ?

 

Brit15

 

It's why you don't see 1989 Rovers anymore.

[alastairq]

39 minutes ago, boxbrownie said:

Problem is for that kind of machine you pay very much more for, and the general unwashed…..nah…..A Currys’ special deal ZanuHoovIndeBosch will do at a quarter of the price.

  Sadly for the capitalist world......my Indesit [got the make wrong further back...this one replaced the Zanussi I had previously]  machine is currently still working...it might leak a bit now & then, and the lights sometimes flash rapidly & continuously, but I find turning the mains power off, then on again, often cures that issue [capacitors again]

Purchased in...2008?  OK, so it's never had a family wash to deal with..just me & mine....the carcass has one or two huge rust scabs on it, but no worse than my Daihatsu 4Trak!  

Anyway, it was the cheapest 'basic' front loading wash machine I could buy, at the time.

 

Like my electric kettles? I bought two from Tesco, over a decade ago now...[well over!]  One stayed in it's box as i didn't expect the other to last very long..they were only around 6 or 7 quid!

I went over to the 2nd one last year, after the first one refused to swtich itself on any more!

 

By the above standards, i would expect a Miele or Bosch washing machine to last me 30 or 40 years before needing replacement?  MAybe even longer?

Would any of the fancy 30 quid electric kettles available today last  30 or so years?

 

I think not....somehow.

 

For me it's the same with cars....?

 

My 'daily' Suzuki GV with its 2 litre petrol engine, an 02 model, purchased for 500 quid some years ago now....is still going strong. Yup, it really requires some welding done, all hidden behind plastic side shields, as many modern cars have....yet it passes its MoT with not a lot doing aside from brake pads or tyres or stuff.  It's had a new radiator, and a battery....in its time...yet it starts, stops, gets me there and back again...could do better in snow if I forked out for some winter tyres...which, on my very limited income, I don't see the point of? [Last tyre I bought, for this years MoT, cost me 40 quid....chinese so-called ditch finders....not ever found a ditch yet!!]

My point being, why on earth would I fork out 15 or 30 grand for a 'new' car, to simply do the same job as the 500 quid one?

Even my cheapo favourite, the Dacia Sandero, has grown in price from 6 grand to 10 grand in a couple of years!!

Interestingly, they offer a dual fuel Sandero...and my nearest, and local, petrol spot sells LPG!! I wonder whether it's 'worth' spending a bit more and getting dual fuel?  Especially when petrol engines finally get barred in new cars, I'll be over 80 years old anyway, so may not care???

 

 

[boxbrownie]

21 minutes ago, APOLLO said:

Wot's an ECU ?

 

Brit15

It’s the DCC chip in Locos 

[boxbrownie]

1 minute ago, alastairq said:

 

 

Like my electric kettles? I bought two from Tesco, over a decade ago now...[well over!]  One stayed in it's box as i didn't expect the other to last very long..they were only around 6 or 7 quid!

I went over to the 2nd one last year, after the first one refused to swtich itself on any more!

 

By the above standards, i would expect a Miele or Bosch washing machine to last me 30 or 40 years before needing replacement?  MAybe even longer?

Would any of the fancy 30 quid electric kettles available today last  30 or so years?

 

I think not....somehow.

 

 

We had an ASDA basics electric kettle which lasted about 20 years, that was £6 well spent.

 

Do not mix Bosch and Miele together in the reliability and quality class, Bosch are made on the same line as several other machines nowadays, they have the name but…….

 

Oddly when we were looking for a house seven years ago down here in Cornwall we went and saw a nice big bungalow at Braunton Sands on looking in the weird (it’s was an old bungalow and had stayed that way!) conservatory/utility/green house “room” there sat a Miele washing machine, an old Miele machine, in fact the owner said they had bought it when they moved in 1978…….it was half way through a wash cycle while we were there!

 

We didn’t buy the place, the “fourth” bedroom was actually the hallway to the lounge! 

[MJI]

I find there are two reasons for all the ECU coding and they are for two completely different reasons.

 

Security, this is to stop a thief swapping an ECU to get round an immobiliser, so usually a few ECUs are coded to each other. I have come across this a few times. Code readers, allowing ECUs to pair, and being careful enable swaps.

 

Money, this is to stop the owner swapping a good ECU to replace a failed ECU, this is to sell more spares.

 

Happy with top but not bottom.

[Hobby]

35 minutes ago, Kickstart said:

Unfortunately while an individual component might fail rarely, there are a lot of items that can fail expensively so the chances for the vehicle add up. Probably back then easier to grab an engine and swap it in, than do the same for an ECU now (let alone seat control modules, body control modules, clocks, etc - some of which are delicate electronics then mounted in a low position at risk of water from a blocked sunroof drain or the like)

 

I keep saying Katy that i don't disagree with you that things can go wrong, but my experience over the last 25 years (since the cars I am buying started to include electrics) is that they don't. Other people may have different experiences but that's mine. 

 

And I'd rather have a reliable modern car as my daily than one I have to keep fettling to ensure it runs ok and will start when i want it to. Other people like Alastair (and you?) prefer the opposite, such is life, we just have different expectations, that's all. You can plug your "easy to fix" (as if an engine change even in an old car is easy!) as much as you want but you won't change my opinion, perhaps best left at that?

[APOLLO]

No way would I put serious money in a "Classic car" stuffed with ECU's etc etc. Down the years, when electrical gremlins kick in many will be electrically unrepairable. Rover test book for example, difficult to find someone with one to diagnose your Rover so I read, one reason modern Rovers are disappearing so fast.

 

Yes some marques will survive, the exotica, but far too many will just electronically die.

 

True classic cars to me are the ones with no electronics, no ECU's etc. Pre 80's mostly. I'll buy a "Modern Classic" for a grand or two max, run it a couple of years or so & chuck it if / when it goes ZAP.

 

Brit15

 

 

[spamcan61]

2 hours ago, alastairq said:

 One presumes the system that tells one there's a bulb out, is actually functioning properly in the first instance?

A fundamental principle of fault finding I've applied to everything from Telecoms systems to dishwashers... never trust the fault indicator absolutely until proven.

SWMBO's old Zafiras had bulb monitoring which worked reliably, but did have an odd quirk in that when one brake light bulb went I had to repalce the pair, from the same packet/box, or the system kept nagging about the 'fault'. 

 

[Jol Wilkinson]

Alistairq said

 

"My point being, why on earth would I fork out 15 or 30 grand for a 'new' car, to simply do the same job as the 500 quid one?"

 

You (and some others on this thread) probably  aren't typical of most of todays new and nearly new car buyer. While some choices are made on pragmatic reasons (number of seats, size, economy, etc.),  many choose on the basis that  a particular car meets their aspirations. For some that may be a Japanese car on the belief that they are reliable, some choose Korean on reliability/price, others choose on the belief that a particulate brand confers a "status"  on them (usually the German or British prestige brands).

 

Years ago I heard it said that "If you want to see how a person wishes to be perceived, look at their car, To see what they are actually like, look inside their house". I think there may be some truth in that.

 

It's probably similar with "classic cars" . Those with plenty of money will buy E Types, Ferraris , Porsches, etc. because they are prestige models. Those with less cash will have the more ever day cars of their younger years. That is skewed by availability, the more common models not having survived so well through lack of interest. I have a 73 MGB roadster, but would have liked a Cortina MK2 GT such as I owned in my mid 20s. Sadly they are like hens teeth and consequently much more expensive.

 

 

[Dunsignalling]

1 hour ago, APOLLO said:

 

True classic cars to me are the ones with no electronics, no ECU's etc. Pre 80's mostly. I'll buy a "Modern Classic" for a grand or two max, run it a couple of years or so & chuck it if / when it goes ZAP.

 

Brit15

 

 

And with carburettors.....

Edited November 30, 2021 by Dunsignalling

[Kickstart]

58 minutes ago, Hobby said:

 

I keep saying Katy that i don't disagree with you that things can go wrong, but my experience over the last 25 years (since the cars I am buying started to include electrics) is that they don't. Other people may have different experiences but that's mine. 

 

 

Not an ECU, but a Triumph motorcycle we had a few years back went though several cdi units. When car hunting, instrument clusters having been changed (and not on the sly to hide the mileage) were not that uncommon  - and I expect hideously expensive out of warranty.

 

All the best

 

Katy

[Kickstart]

4 minutes ago, spamcan61 said:

A fundamental principle of fault finding I've applied to everything from Telecoms systems to dishwashers... never trust the fault indicator absolutely until proven.

SWMBO's old Zafiras had bulb monitoring which worked reliably, but did have an odd quirk in that when one brake light bulb went I had to repalce the pair, from the same packet/box, or the system kept nagging about the 'fault'. 

 

 

Think some of these systems work by comparing the resistance through the circuits. And 2 different makes of bulb can have enough difference in resistance to confuse things (does make me wonder whether the bulb warning system would ignore both bulbs being out!).

 

When we had the BMW 3 series, I expected this to be the problem when the bulb warning light came on for the tail lights when they were working. Turned out instead to be a rather under specced and crunchy earth wire to one of the tail lights (terminal in the connector had melted). Bypassed the connector for the earth (which someone had already had to do on the other side) and the problem was resolved. My guess is that the max current is over that for the connector when everything is on (eg, someone sitting with the lights on, brakes on, fog lights on and indicator on).

 

All the best

 

Katy