I hate cars...

[Martin Hocking]

I hate cars to.

I’d hate them slightly less if Haynes published an encyclopaedia of automotove electrical connectors with an appendix of how to release them…
Every car seems to have at least one mystery connector with three hidden release tabs.

 

[minimutly]

My 16 Dodge Challenger had a "clutch delay valve" in the hydraulic line from master cylinder to slave - so if you were driving with enthusiasm, the speed of clutch re-engagement after a fast gearchange was too slow for the oomph you expected it to transmit. It also seemed to make actually moving off smoothly hard work - you thought you had the biting point . . . and then you hadn't as a bit more fluid passed through it and give you more engagement than you thought you had - in 30 plus years of only owning manual cars, I suddenly couldn't use a clutch properly. My first modification was to remove it. Sudden no clutch slippage I believe it was in there to reduce the shock to the transmission from enthusiastic clutch dumps, especially at the Friday night drag strips.

So it might not necessarily be the fact they haven't yet learnt how to drive stick . . .

Most Rover cars had them at one time. I gave my 420 some standing start grief one day, the resultant burning clutch smell hung around for days...

 

[Ross365]

I've owned a Rover 620 for almost 20 years; an exceptionally reliable and therefore cheap car to run. That Rover is actually a Mk IV (or Mk V) Honda Accord in every aspect, other than a handful of Rover body panels pressed in Swindon. It's only once failed an MoT (at a bonkers garage I went to just once) nor has it attracted many advisories. Of course, the counter side of all that is that I do spend time on it to keep it sweet. I paid £1450 for it in 2004, so if we said it's worth £200 now (quite pessimistic), that's a depreciation of £66/year.

 

[Onoff]

Modern Haynes manuals.....

No more hardback covers for a start with the one I just bought for the Mondeo

Pretty sure then that the one for SWMBO's 206 said to "refer to dealer" for setting the back axle beam / ride height up.

 

[Bobupndown]

I've owned a Rover 620 for almost 20 years; an exceptionally reliable and therefore cheap car to run. That Rover is actually a Mk IV (or Mk V) Honda Accord in every aspect, other than a handful of Rover body panels pressed in Swindon. It's only once failed an MoT (at a bonkers garage I went to just once) nor has it attracted many advisories. Of course, the counter side of all that is that I do spend time on it to keep it sweet. I paid £1450 for it in 2004, so if we said it's worth £200 now (quite pessimistic), that's a depreciation of £66/year.

That's value for money

 

[RWD3M]

86 years old and it's already failed ! Fit for purpose?

Yeah, I know. I did try to get it repaired under warranty but apparently that ran out last week!

 

[Morrisman]

You did well to get the point across, usually when I've tried to make the case for the environmental benefit of owning an older vehicle, you just get the "yeah, but no but yeah but no" denial routine.

"Yes, but my car is green, can't you see that, it puts out a nano gram less pollution a mile than yours"

I know the type well, the ones who conveniently forget the thousand tons of raw materials required to be processed and shipped globally to actually build their new 'green' car.

 

[fizzy]

I wonder how many people would run electric cars if fuel taxes were scrapped? Petrol and diesel would cost about 70p per litre the moment. And about 45p when the fuel prices come back to normal. There is no fuel duty on electricity.
Cost me about £35 to fill the tank of a RAV4 in Florida as they don't pay fuel taxes.

 

[armalites]

with a BMW mini we had problems with we ad taken it to four garages, two being mini specialist and........well after spending over £800 on repairs to try to find the fault, and to no avail we sold it as is as it was getting stupid. you should be able tp plug a car in and find the fault first go, no messing with could be this or that.

I think big issue is people assume a code is the fault, garages will then just change parts without actually proving an item is failed. Fault codes need to be thought or more as symptoms than actual diaganosis. Intermittent faults can be a nightmare.

Diagnostic codes are only as good as the effort put into writing the software and even though manufacturers do millions of test miles it never really prepares for the real world with massively differing conditions.

In my last job as a mainframe engineer we had the opportunity to go the manufacture plant to test diagnostic routines, you would go for 6 weeks and basically break the machine to show what the diagnostic would show. On that level of machine the repair routines would be really accurate but we are talking about machines that run into millions of pounds.

 

[Tangledfeet]

I've owned a Rover 620 for almost 20 years; an exceptionally reliable and therefore cheap car to run. That Rover is actually a Mk IV (or Mk V) Honda Accord in every aspect, other than a handful of Rover body panels pressed in Swindon. It's only once failed an MoT (at a bonkers garage I went to just once) nor has it attracted many advisories. Of course, the counter side of all that is that I do spend time on it to keep it sweet. I paid £1450 for it in 2004, so if we said it's worth £200 now (quite pessimistic), that's a depreciation of £66/year.

Good on you; that has to be the definition of low carbon footprint motoring!

 

[armalites]

This is lack of skill and poor diagnostic tools.

I personally like diagnosing modern systems but each to their own

This is 100% true, people see a code for an O2 sensor and change it and then can't work out why the new one does exactly the same. The reality is the code possibly said the sensed value was outside expected range and was actually caused by something else causing too much/little fuel to be pumped.

Watch Wes Work on Youtube has done some brilliant videos digging into difficult faults. On one he has a pick up that ran rough at start up for a couple of minutes but only when the air was damp and the vehicle hadn't been run. It needed a specific set of circumstances to happen. After a lot of investigating with a scope he found an injector pulse signal was showing on a temperature sensor line. Turns out the wires had rubbed on a plastic rocker cover so weren't shorting but when there was moisture in the air the signal was tracking across both wires.

 

[Robbie260]

This is my issue with Ev’s base spec ev is only just shy of £6000 more than one of the top spec performance petrol models.

And over £11,000 more than a normal run of the mill one not to mention seen brand new ones go for around £14000 making it even worse. I do congratulate you if you are doing well enough that you can afford to pay nearly £30000 for a 2 door city car but the simple fact is the majority of the population cannot.

Also my personal experience is that electric motors and electronics are far less reliable and more expensive to repair than diesel engines but that’s just my experience.

Unfortunately I don’t think leccy being cheaper for use in cars than fuel will not last long government will want to make up the shortfall in revenue soon big time.

 

[redlig]

Yeah, I know. I did try to get it repaired under warranty but apparently that ran out last week!

Designed obsolescence .

 

[redlig]

I think big issue is people assume a code is the fault, garages will then just change parts without actually proving an item is failed. Fault codes need to be thought or more as symptoms than actual diaganosis. Intermittent faults can be a nightmare.

Diagnostic codes are only as good as the effort put into writing the software and even though manufacturers do millions of test miles it never really prepares for the real world with massively differing conditions.

In my last job as a mainframe engineer we had the opportunity to go the manufacture plant to test diagnostic routines, you would go for 6 weeks and basically break the machine to show what the diagnostic would show. On that level of machine the repair routines would be really accurate but we are talking about machines that run into millions of pounds.

Agreed. Hence calling them Fitters as all they do is fit new bits until,hopefully, it cures the problem. So easy and cost effective ,low level operatives , mark up on unwanted parts which they can't send back as the package has been opened. Not just the car/bike trade .I had a fault on my c/h boiler so begrudgingly called in the local Boiler expert. Before he arrived I said to SWMBO I bet he diagnoses a faulty control unit. BINGO ! Absolutely clueless and spent 1/4 hour on phone to main supplier /manufacturer and diagnosed guess what. £150 later no better. He wandered off and was never seen again. I spent an hour or so and found a valve needed reseating. Lasted another 5/6 years .

 

[ajlelectronics]

Cologne C3 "No drive".

 

[Morrisman]

Holy flex plate Batman.

 

[armalites]

Flex plates are bizarre, you look at a flywheel and a clutch and then look at a flex plate even on something big like a Range Rover and they still look really flimsy

 

[Blobber]

I would love something a bit newer but I cant afford it and I certainly wouldn't be able to afford when it went wrong, the daily is a 2003 Astra G 1.6 8 valve that I gave £500 for 9 years ago, never broken down and just needs the usual come MOT time, the other bonus is you dont need a code reader, press the brake and throttle to the floor turn the ignition on and it blinks the engine management light in morse code which you can then look up to find the fault, its a dull motor but does what it says on the tin!
I also have a 1992 Carlton 3.0 ltr 24V estate with a mileage of over 380000 of which I put 358000 of those on it, its been in storage for 7 years but Im seriously thinking of getting it back on the road, an epic motor thats only broken down twice once with a shredded auxiliary belt and the other a split heater matrix when having a little fun with an Aston Martin down south!

 

[Trevorleach]

Modern Haynes manuals.....

No more hardback covers for a start with the one I just bought for the Mondeo

Pretty sure then that the one for SWMBO's 206 said to "refer to dealer" for setting the back axle beam / ride height up.

They are truly junk these days, 30 odd years ago I bought a haynes for every car/bike I bought, even showed you how to make home made tools to get around issues, then I started to notice the refer to dealer appearing and that was it for me.

 

[Trevorleach]

This is 100% true, people see a code for an O2 sensor and change it and then can't work out why the new one does exactly the same. The reality is the code possibly said the sensed value was outside expected range and was actually caused by something else causing too much/little fuel to be pumped.

Watch Wes Work on Youtube has done some brilliant videos digging into difficult faults. On one he has a pick up that ran rough at start up for a couple of minutes but only when the air was damp and the vehicle hadn't been run. It needed a specific set of circumstances to happen. After a lot of investigating with a scope he found an injector pulse signal was showing on a temperature sensor line. Turns out the wires had rubbed on a plastic rocker cover so weren't shorting but when there was moisture in the air the signal was tracking across both wires.

Still see this nowadays, nox sensor out of range, they change it then I have had to explain to them it is out of range so something upstream is causing the issue, normally adblue doser.
Newer stuff is defo much much harder to diagnose and repair.