Ya, I may have been a little agitated at the time, after reading all the different points of view on this thread, and seeing things from both sides,,, but it’s comments like this that people make that shows just how ignorant, or maybe more like stubborn some people can be. I believe that the majority of people these days are brainwashed into thinking that ‘todays’ cars are BETTER than yesteryears,,, (old vs new). I am also glad to know there are some people who do know better (Edison, MrMoparCHP, Marion, Patrick66…).
Now any of you can take this as face value,,, or take it as a grain of salt (for that’s what this really is) or, don’t take it at all. But I am a Mechanical Engineer with a long history of studying cars as a hobby. I have been a prototype designer in the automotive industry, and have also done military truck design including the framework of ‘new’ (brand new) heavy expanded mobility tactical trucks. I have heard it all; from corporate Engineers and CEO’s to back-woods hillbilly mechanics, about the pro’s & con’s of just about anything ‘modern’ to everything ‘old’. What every one of you is missing, is that “NEW” does not instantly mean “modern” OR in other words, the pieces of crap cars that they are manufacturing TODAY by all the BIG NAME auto makers.
EVERYTHING was ‘nice’ when it was “NEW”. When you buy a new car today, yes, it seems…….”nice”. Did everyone forget that the ‘old cars’ were “nice” when they were new? Sure, every new car BETTER feel nice; nice ride, handle nice, with no noises squeaks or rattles,,, no rust (besides being all cheap plastic these days). When things get old, it’s only natural that there is going to be something needing work, maintenance, or repair, sometimes even replaced. Same with “old cars” – you can NOT say that old cars are not as good because they need things, or aren’t as good as the newer ones because they don’t have modern crap like USB ports, cameras to see where you’re backing up instead of turning your body and looking back, or having 8 or more computers making constant changes instead of getting under the hood with a feeler gage once in a while to adjust the dwell yourself, or adjust the timing when you want to race someone (and again to put it back when you want to take a long road trip). If anyone here really wants to know what “modern technology” REALLY is, read on, otherwise stop reading right now.
Modern technology in auto manufacturing is this: “How can we make it more expensive to fix? How can we make it very hard for the owner to work on it? How can we make it so the parts can not be maintained but would rather have to be entirely replaced? How can we get more money for the parts that need to be replaced? How can we make sure that they do not last TOO long, but rather get people to have to buy another NEW car? How can we make certain items so hard to get to, that the cost of repairing it would be so high that it’s not even worth fixing (…so they would rather go buy another new car). How can we stop people from checking their own transmission fluid (so by the time it has a problem, it’s too late to save it)? How can we make it so complicated, or have to have special tools, that the owner would rather take it to the dealer to work on?
Todays cars HAVE changed since they found out that cars could last over a million miles; no lie – there are records of American cars and trucks getting that many miles. My cousin has a ’97 dodge caravan with over 400,000 miles on the clock and still runs strong. The auto manufactures want you to keep buying new cars, but if they last too long, people won’t buy as many, simple as that. Believe me, I know that there are teams of engineers dedicated to answering the questions I listed above in just about every auto company, and they get paid big bucks to come up with these ideas; let’s take the dip stick away so people would have to bring their ‘new’ Challengers into the dealer to get the fluid checked; lets install a plastic gear that rides on the shaft of the transmission to tell the computer to ‘run’ that is engineered to last only about ten years, so that after that time, it becomes brittle and breaks so that the computer detects it, and goes into ‘emergency mode’ and will only give the driver 1[SUP]st[/SUP] gear (enough to get off the freeway or at least be able to drive it to the dealer very slowly) and also lets put that little plastic gear deep inside the trans so that the transmission would have to be pulled out in order to disassemble the entire assembly to replace this $5 part, making the total charges of labor so ridiculously high, that it exceeds the blue book value; let’s also change the bearing assemblies to ball bearings so they wear out faster, and let us also press-fit these ball bearings together so that they cannot be repacked by anyone, but rather would have to be let go until they need to be replaced, and while we’re at it, we can design it so that the ENTIRE HUB has to be replaced when the bearings wear out, that way we can make MUCH MORE money selling hub assemblies for $80 to $120, instead of like the old cars, where if, Heaven forbids, someone failed to maintain their car by repacking the “old fashion” roller bearings (that can last more than 100,000,000 miles!) every few years, that actually only cost less than $10! We can also make suspensions so damn complicated and overly sophisticated that they actually work against itself and eventually wear out, and we can remove the grease zerks from the ball joints also so that no one can grease them and be assured they will wear out faster, and have to be replaced much sooner; And that’s not even the start of it! These engineers have started to design the suspensions so that the components are working at severe angles or cantilevered so bad to create more moment (torque) onto the friction bond ball bearings, bushings, and ball joints to make them all wear harder and faster yet. The age of making a product last as long as possible is gone!
People, they have thousands of tricks to make anything ‘new’ feel great to drive, reliable (up to a pre-determined amount of time; usually until the warranty runs out), and smell nice and new, and “entertain” the driver with all sorts of features that in MY opinion is dangerous, especially these touch screen radios that makes the driver remove their eyes from the road to change the channel etc. And I believe that if anyone can not park their own car, should NOT be driving! Computers that hit the brakes when it THINKS there is something in front of the car is NOT safe; every computer WILL fail, and every computer WILL malfunction eventually: just that no one knows when – will it be when someone is driving down the freeway at 75 miles an hour with car loads of human life behind then and it decides to slam on the brakes? What if a bird flies in front of the car and the computer slams on the brakes? Are the people behind that car driving a car that will do the same, or will they slam into the back of the “new car”, and cause a chain reaction of bent steal and death? I KNOW what is going on behind the walls of these “new” auto manufacturers! It’s scary to think that no one cares, or that they want all the new toys and be noticed in their “new” high-dollar expensive cars like they’re better than the guy driving an “OLD” car; they might be embarrassed when the sexy blond drives past them in her brand new Lexus – I think it’s a shame that people have to maintain their status rather than their pocket book.
People say, “old cars nickel and dime you to death!” YES! They are right! The cost of my parts are a dime compared to the new cars. I say, “I would much rather stick a nickel or dime into my old car once in a while than to pay $300 dollar car payments every month!” How can anyone justify paying that kind of money on a car, every month? Since this is a Mopar forum, most of you would have to agree that oldER cars share many of the same parts through many different years. I can interchange most engine parts and even drivetrain parts between my 68 Plymouth Satellite and my 90 Dodge Ramcharger 4X4!!! Yes, even the same u-joints in the drive shafts! Thirty years, and a 2 wheel drive car uses the same parts as a 4 wheel drive truck? THAT’S WHAT MAKES PARTS CHEAP, stocking less parts vs. a different one for every year makes a huge difference to. Water pumps, oil pumps master cylinders are CHEAP compared to ANYTHING “new”. I had to buy a new master cylinder for my 73 Polara, (41 years after she was built), and it only cost me $20 brand new from O’reilly’s! (I looked up for a 2009 Dodge Challenger= $120!!!).
I’m not sure if I got my point across or not yet, there’s so much I could say, but seriously, if they, or anyone, made the exact same car from the 70’s again today, it would be nice J and ****, you can have your USB port to! I have one in my 73 Polara! By the way, I have 400 cubic inches that makes 400+ HP and I can still get 32 miles to a gallon of gas, when I want to, because I know how to drive for mileage! It has so much power, that I practically IDLE around town! NO ONE needs to “floor it”, but if I do, I get about 6 miles to the gallon. I have a ’97 Mercury Grand Marquise (daily driver for $3,000) and I have “trained it” to give me 33 miles to the gallon by the way I drive, using as little throttle as I have to. The key to better gas mileage incase no one knows, is to keep your throttle plates as CLOSED as possible even during acceleration – if your car can do 55 at 1/16 throttle, it has enough power to get you up to that speed also at the same position! The only problem is that everyone is in WAY TOO BIG of a hurry to be patient and spend an extra minute or two to get up to speed. They would rather pay another dollar or two a gallon for gas. Supply and demand! Everyone is demanding more fuel by driving like raped-apes these days and now I have to pay more for a gallon of gas. I do what I can to conserve, (because I have to!!!) while everyone else is sucking it up faster and faster. I use to drive hard, and I love the feeling of 0-60 in 6 seconds, but I can’t afford to do that every time I take off, but other people who can afford $30,000 car payment can! Those people make it expensive for the rest of us. The need for speed! They DID have carburetor designs back in the 70’s that could get 70 to a 100 miles per gallon I hope you know (the oil companies & automakers bought the patents)! I also hope you all know that with todays ‘computers’ they could easily program them to get that also, but guess who owns most of the stock in the auto manufactures??? Could the big oil companies be investing in them? Would they? Why would a company invest in stock of a company that makes things that USE their product? Would it be to have say in the matter of what the fuel economy of these machines might get? Would they pull their money out if they decided to make a vehicle that hardly used ANY of their product? Would they put more money in their stock if they made products that used more of their product?
I’m almost done! My last point is this: conditions are different than they were 60 or even 40 years ago, roads are smother, no wash board gravel pot holed roads mean= lest wear n tear on a vehicles suspension, and body. Engine Oils are much better than ever, and gear lube/greases are way better than ‘back in the day’,,, the addition of oil filter and even air filters around the thirties helped a lot to get more mileage out of a car!!! Point is, if an old car could be manufactured again today with the MUCH better tooling and precise accuracy of the machining technology that we DO HAVE today,,, wow, could you imagine how long they would last? Now think about how long a new modern car (design) would last, if the tolerances on all the machined parts were as they were back then (not very good), made with plastic instead of steel where ever possible, and then drive them on these washboard gravel roads and running the poorest quality oils and lubes available; then think about how long a QUALITY built and designed car of the thirties would last if it was machined with all the latest hi-tech tooling that we have today, and synthetic oils, much better filters, better tires (and balancing) , and smooth as silk freeways like we have nowadays. Makes you think. Everything new IS better! That’s not to say the DESIGNS are better, or even that they will last longer, no, todays designs are getting worse and worse, not to mention more n more scary -they are deceiving all the rich people into thinking about buying a new car. You can take anything that is available today, and put it use on an “old car” if that would inflate your bubble.
THESE ARE THE QUESTIONS YOU NEED TO ASK YOUR SELVES. Ford has been asking all of you lately, “Are you ready to get floored?” Ecoboost my ***!
Hope i didn't burst anyone's bubble, just stating the facts.
Bandit
