New vs. Old… The Video!

Brent,

No machine – or electronic component – doesn’t wear out. Not break – wear out. The “when” is not relevant. You don’t know the exact date, neither do I. Your ’97 is not quite 20 years old. It hasn’t given you any trouble yet? Great! Let’s see how it fares over another 20… .

Machines and electronics wear out now, just as they wore out then.

The difference is that when your more complex, modern PFI/computerized car does wear out, it will cost much more to bring back than a simpler car like mine – which has many fewer parts (especially electrical parts).

This is the essential point you continue to deny.

Again: A replacement carburetor costs at most a few hundred bucks and you have just replaced the entire fuel delivery system.

Is this a fact – or not?

No quibbling – just a “yes” or “no” answer, please.

Is it a fact – or not – that one can rebuild a carb to good-as-new for less than $100?

Again – “yes” or “no”?

How many total components are there to a modern PFI/computer controlled car’s fuel delivery system? A dozen? What is the cost of these individual parts taken together? How many of them can be cleaned and rebuilt vs. thrown away and replaced?

You have yet to directly answer these entirely reasonable questions!

Your answer is “six sigma curves” and so on…

I’ve never disputed the longer service life of modern computer-controlled cars. But they are not eternal.

They will degrade and fail, just like a carburetor or a set of points.

But which costs less to replace? Which is easier to replace?

How’s outlasting you or me?

My car has 208K on it. How many miles on your TA? 40K? 70K? How long has it lead a pampered life? When was it was driven daily in rain, sleet, snow? When it did it encounter road salt from October to April? Put a car like my ’97 on a well cared for ~1-2,000 mile a year average which is where I think your TA is at, and that’s effectively more than a century already under my car’s belt.

But no, it’s always the same. repeat the same mantra. It will fail. I know, I know, I’ve heard it since I was a teenager. My cars are shit. I just haven’t had them long enough. No matter where I go in car circles it’s the same damn thing. My Fords are shit. I just have to have them a few decades longer to prove it.

Anyway it’s as if you don’t know what these components are. If you knew what they are you’d realize their 1970s equals ARE THE PARTS YOU KEEP in a carb rebuild. There’s a solenoid on the carter RBS for my Maverick. But I can trust that this piece of unobtainium is going to function forever and if it doesn’t well I can just do something non-stock. But you won’t give a fuel injector, a much more robust piece, the same credit. You insist your car’s die cast carb body isn’t going to turn to white metallic powder but my car’s throttle body will. I’m not allowed to replace a couple bushings and a couple gaskets to rebuild it. No you insist I do the calculation with new OEM dealer list price replacement.

Throttle bodies are rebuilt. Even fuel injectors are re-manufactured. You don’t have to throw the parts away. here’s what rebuilding a fuel injector runs if you do it: $2.00. Look for yourself:
http://injector-rehab.com/shop/Bosch-EV1-Rebuild-Kit.html

You refuse to believe there is anything but full replacement for modern car components. You’re wrong. There are remans and kits and places to take or send components just like with your TA or a 1908 model T.

As a side note, let’s figure my car has averaged 1500 rpm and 30mph over 200K. That’s 600,000,000 cycles. Do you know how you achieve that many cycles in part? You design it so fatigue doesn’t happen. It doesn’t happen because it’s a dirt simple concept. There’s nothing to wear out. The materials themselves have to start returning to nature. So after a century or three of enjoyment as a hobby car a Mustang’s injectors will cost ~$16 dollars to rehab.

An ABS sensor uses the same basics. Again there’s nothing to break unless the materials return to nature. That’s not going to happen treated the way your TA is and it’s unlikely if the car is pulled from such service before it starts.

Will it cost more to restore a basket case modern car vs. a basket case 60s car. Sure. But you admit that turning the modern car into that basic case is going to take a lot more. So this is an irrelevancy because such an exercise, the restoration of a basket case, is the result of insanity, emotional attachment, or market demand or some combination there of.

Brent- c’mon! I never said your car was “shit.” I don’t think it is shit, either. 🙂

I merely stated – as a fact – that a carburetor comprises the entirety of an older car’s fuel delivery system, that it can be replaced for at most a few hundred bucks, that it is often not even necessary to replace it, that it can be rebuilt (every 10 years or so, in my experience) for about $50.

With an older, pre-computer car, I will never have to worry about computers, or sensors, or elaborate wiring or a bunch of can’t-be-rebuilt/must-be-replaced electrical parts… because there are no such parts. There is no – zero – worry about them. Ever.

The above isn’t really debatable … or am I missing something?

Maybe the body will rust – but that’s a different issue. And – trust me – modern cars rust, too. Sometimes, they rust as quickly as older cars. But when the modern car rusts – being a unibody – the rust is typically even more expensive to repair. Also, there are (once again) elaborate/expensive components to deal with. Like the rusted fuel line/assembly in my late-model Nissan truck.

You claim that your electrical/computer components will outlast you and I. Define that. Is it 20 years? 40? You don’t know. You project/estimate. But I retort that everything mechanical and electrical has a service life. Your computer-controlled/PFI car may indeed run reliably for decades. That’s possible. But not certain. I have given you several examples of personal experiences I’ve had with modern vehicle electrical and other components not lasting even 15 years. This is by no means a rare thing. And the cost of these parts was much higher than a comparable problem with an older car (viz, the fuel pump “assembly” in my late-model Nissan vs. the fuel pump in a car like my old Pontiac) as well a much bigger hassle to deal with. Serviceability – for the DIY/home mechanic – is much more difficult as a general rule with modern cars for many reasons, including packaging as well as the greater complexity, need for higher-order skills and tools to properly do the job.

I grant that individual small parts may not cost a great deal – but many do cost a great deal. And an older car has fewer (and maybe none) of these parts… so there is a certainty of no repair/replacement costs while you have the absolute possibility and – eventually – the actuality.

Right? Or am I missing something?

Brent, my wife’s Cutlass has 290,000 miles on the same everything but alternator, plugs and wires. It just keeps on keeping on. I’d say it was not only superior design but execution as well. What make of car from the 70’s(I had plenty of them…..had)would go 23 years of everyday service in the heat of west Tx. with the same water pump, the same power steering pump, the same everything except for struts which do wear out on badass roads? Tell me so I can buy one. My Elco’s been sitting for 20 years from a variety of ailments. A new style engine and transmission as well as a rack and pinion would have it lasting a great deal further than original. Of course an overpowered vehicle with my foot in it isn’t going to last like the way my wife drives but then again, mine won’t have the body bashed in which is a pretty expensive fix in itself. And to be honest, my body skills(and tools)are limited although the other day I got out and reformed the fender on Step Child with a big hammer and a big shop hammer on the backside and did it in a matter of seconds, not even minutes.

That car has never needed anything replaced on the port fuel injection, not a single piece. If the body of the car would hold up, I could see the engine going another 100K or more. The transmission, from the factory had a bad sun gear. The replacement is the one with more than 200K on it. I had a ’69 Impala that had the transmission last 200K and the engine would have without the nylon timing gear. The Elco was made in Mexico with cheap shit. Driven easily it would probably have lasted 200K but not a great deal more.

I have two friends, one with an’89 GMC pickup and the other with a ’93 Chevy pickup that both engines went well of half a million miles. I think it was due to the simple TBI on them. And neither one ever needed a single part on the fuel injection system including the fuel pump.

I can tell you for sure I’ll never have another carb for anything except the new lawnmower.

When my ’75 Maverick was about 15 years old I would go to a auto parts store for something ordinarily replaced on a 15 year old car, like say brake hoses. As you know 1970s rubber often doesn’t last all that well compared to the modern stuff, but once replaced it’s good for a long time. Anyhow I would be subjected to counter people making various disparaging remarks about my car being no good. The same happened with my ’73. When I bought my ’97 I got much the same. Always about how they wouldn’t last. And here you after I think it’s been proven that my ’97 lasts, telling me it hasn’t been long enough. It will never be long enough. Major failure is just around the corner.

Yes modern cars can rust. I fight rust. my mazda (which is kept outside) is trying to rust away on me in many creative ways but it isn’t like it used to be. Cars were heavily rusted inside a few years in the 60s and 70s. I remember. Now it takes over 15 for it to start.

Ever notice that shops replace a string of sensors and electronic components and the problem isn’t fixed? Ever notice that places that sell autoparts have strict policies on the return of electrical parts. Policies that go back to before the 1980s? That’s because there’s often an underlying problem that they get blamed for. When they don’t exist they can’t be blamed and people have to find it.

I had a sensor fail. Flow sensor for the evap emissions system. It’s there just to make sure the evap system is working. That’s uncle. But I don’t ‘worry’ about it. Most everything that can go wrong with the modern system is the same with the old system. Grime, varnish, etc. Cleaning usually takes care of it. Keeping things clean often prevents it. Just like you do with your 70s car.

If not that it’s a rubber piece. If it’s something expensive like an injector the rubber piece is often available if one looks. There are heat cycle related problems like the evap sensor that was next to a heater hose but those aren’t going to appear on a garaged 40K mile, 30-40 year old car that’s lived the good life. Such cars from the 80s aren’t filled with electronic issues unless they come from makes known for such problems built in from the factory.

If your thing is the number of parts you want the Fords made when Henry was still running the company. Maybe one of the first flathead V8 cars. That OHV V8 in your TA is way too complicated for that way of thinking. But even then that car can’t be fixed without a fair amount of infrastructure behind it. What’s really needed is a early model T.

The line of argument you’re taking here has been used since the model T got replaced. It’s the same one that Henry nearly bankrupted the company using. That another part is just something else to break but the starting point is arbitrary.

Can you imagine having one of the first cars made that had oil reservoirs that simply ran through the engine that was open on the bottom and the oil dripped on the ground? You not only had a driver if you couldn’t operate one but a riding mechanic for their non-stop problems.

While I like TBI, I don’t want any other computer on a vehicle. But I know many vehicles that are extremely reliable that have quite a bit of computer controlled parts. I can’t and therefore don’t work on those vehicles so I’d just as soon Not have one.

And now you can get a stand-alone TBI system that learns for $800, the price of a new high end carb….that never learns.

I realize the old 6.5L Turbo Diesels GM made without computers only have a fraction of the power of a new one but there are few specialty tools required to work on one and none of which need be acquired from GM. A tie rod separator is a specialty tool but you could make one although they’re cheap enough and won’t ever wear out while being good for quite a few vehicles.

Eight, some early cars required the driver or passenger to pump oil for the engine. No fancy cam driven oil pump to break.

Computers and electronics don’t scare me. They are really very logical and very simple.