Who drives an old car? Found a way to save some money:)

Hi all

How many here drive an old car I wonder? Everyone I know that has older cars that are past the age where they have any real value tends to neglect routine services unless they have reason to suspect something is wrong. Until very recently I was no exception, thinking as long as the car drives ok, can pass an MOT and has not given me cause for concern (I keep an eye on tyres and lights and would be alarmed by metalic knocks etc), it was ok.

My motor used to manage 30mpg, which I considered normal for its age, weight and engine size. Recently the engine started to misbehave, with random misfires and a warning light putting in the occassional appearance. My mate and I did an oil change and I put it some new spark plugs, slight improvement but still poor.

Last Friday I chucked in a new set of HT leads to replace the filthy ancient ones. It cost me about £30. I can only say the return on that £30 (and 5 minutes of time) investment has totally stunned me. Apart from running a lot better, I've already had my money back in terms of the fuel I've saved. Its been a fortnight since I last filled her up, and since then I've done my usual trips that would normally mean I'd have had to fill her up again before now, and would normally now have half a tank of fuel left. I've missed a refill and still have quarter a tank, so I reckon I've saved about £30 in fuel in a week, about the price I spent on new leads that will last a couple of years.

So let that be a lesson. If, like me and a lot of others, you have an old car and treat maintenance as a corrective thing rather than preventative, you may well be paying out much more than you need to.

I can understand why some people (me included until recently) shy away from 'unneccessary' maintenance because it can be expensive, especially if you don't have the confidence to tackle it yourself and have to pay garage rates but it is worth bearing in mind. It is also worth noting that a 'full service' at many garages is nothing more than an oil and filter change, which is worth doing but its not exactly a full service.

So there you go, my new found knowledge has saved me money, improved my enjoyment of the car, and reduced my carbon footprint all in one go

 

At seventeen I bought a 23 year-old pre-war Austin 7 Ruby convertible. It had a re-con engine, new hood and seat covers. An architect bought it for his wife, she didn't like it so he bought her a new mini! He just wanted to get rid of it. It cost me £35. The same amount of money that my best mate's dad paid for some naff plastic seat-covers for his new Morris Oxford.
I had it for a year, drove thousands of miles, I wore out the tyres and replaced them and the innertubes myself at a cost of £14. I also had to replace the bearing on the dynamo, (I went into a Lucas service dept and asked for a twenty-odd year old part and they didn't bat an eye. Today they'd laugh at you and sell you a complete dynamo). That cost me a shilling and I drifted it onto the shaft myself. I replaced the semaphore indicators for flashing lights, they cost me only a few pounds. I also relined the brakes. I did all the servicing myself, after a bit of tuition from an uncle who drove trucks during the war and had taught me to drive on a private road, when I was fourteen.

I used to do all my own servicing on my cars up to the 2ltr Alfa Romeo I had in the early eighties. I replaced a valve on that and re-shimmed the valve gear. (Not an easy job!)

Since then I've not done anything on any car other than check the tyre pressures, the oil, coolant and air con fluids.

Mechanically now, cars are impossible for the DIY enthusiast to do much more than change the oil and frankly, I don't want to know.
The car I have at the moment is five years old, I had the one before seven years. My last five cars have been new. I keep the interior clean, but only wash it about four times a year. Each year, the main agent sends someone to collect the car, they service it, do the MOT and bring it back.

The last service and MOT cost me £507, but that included four new tyres Which should have been around £90 each as it's for a "soft roader." But I got them at a discount price. So I don't think the total charge was unreasonable.
I always ring the service manager before it goes in and say "I don't want a phone call an hour after it goes in, with helpful suggestions about other work that I could have done which isn't necessary." They've got the message as I've bought my last three cars from them. The "big service" last year was £245. I budget for these expenses and I'm happy with the situation.
You could say in the past, I've "paid my dues."
With most other things now, I consider whether I can do it myself, or as my wife would say "get a man in!"

 

I know what you mean. I wouldn't say they're impossible, but you lift the bonnet on a new car and it is hard to even identify anything these days, never mind fix anything. Then you need all sorts of special tools if you are brave enough to tackle it.

The manufacturers will tell you that all the extra complexity is necessary for emissions control and economy etc. That's a load of rubbish. My 16 year old 2 tonne Volvo estate does more miles per gallon than many newer cars when tested realistically (I.e on an actual run rather than on a dyno), and emissions are actually lower than many new cars of comparable size. My motor has electronic ignition and fuel injection, a catalytic convertor and a carbon canister just like new cars do. The simple fact is that car manufacturers want to increase their revenue by making people dependent on main dealers for servicing. The EU have forced them to back down on some things, but they keep pushing. Did you know that the OBDII connector that the you plug diagnostic computers into only exists because of EU pressure? Car manufacturers fought hard to have their own standards so that if anything went wrong you'd be left no option other than to go to a main dealer. And Torx screws? Why do we need those? Its just more tools to buy. What was wrong with standard hexagonal nuts and bolts?

Also, I can't help but suspect that oil companies are pulling the strings of the car manufacturers a bit too. If my 16 year old brick shaped two tonne tank does 30+ mpg, how come some brand new cars do less than that? Nobody can tell me that 16 years of technological advances has amounted to nothing but unneccesary complexity. With all the engineers and scientists working all over the world, there must have been something in the last 16 years where someone said "hold up, if we do this, we can double fuel efficiency by reducing loss through effect x".

 

Sometimes I drive this.



I bought this for when I want to do a little serious gardening. :D :D :D



Occasionally I borrow this armoured car and go on the rampage if neighbours are bothering me.

 

Great pics krs I would not like to mend a puncture in that wheel on the cat

 

Oh come on, I dont think there are many 2 litre motors out there that are doing less than 30 mpg.
Things have moved on a lot as regards MPG these days, or is it( MPL now? or even KMPL).
Especially when it comes to diesels.

Also performance wise, per engine size, things are much better.

I've never been one to tinker under the bonnet, if its going OK dont fix it I always say.

I can remember some years back when nearly every bloke in the neighbourhood spent his weekend "fixing" the motor.
Then come Monday morning the bloody thing wouldn't start.

I always just left mine alone and rarely had problems.

I still only get mine serviced once a year whether it needs it or not, and some years I even take it to the car wash.

 

Heres some figures for a new 2 litre Vauxhall Vectra estate.

http://www.dicomwg12.org/mpg/VAUXHALL/Vectra-MY2006/2.0i-16v-Turbo-5-Door-Estate-with-19inch-tyre/

And here's the new Ford Mondeo 2 litre estate.

http://www.dicomwg12.org/mpg/FORD/Mondeo/2.0i-16V-Estate-16-inch-tyre/

I chose these two cars as 'typical' larger estate cars to compare against my 16 year old Volvo estate. Mine is 2.3 litre but being 8v rather than 16v as newer ones tend to be, the extra 300cc on mine would make little difference.

Looking at the MPG figures on the Mondeo, that's about what I'm getting on my 16 year old two tonne tank. The Vectra is slightly better.

Looking at the specs for the Mondeo, the 2.5 V6 gives 170bhp. I couldn't find the bhp figure for the 2 litre one, but as my 16 year old 2.3 straight four is supposed to deliver 130bhp I'd have expected much more from a brand new 2.5 V6 engine than 170bhp.

So there in terms of engines (petrol ones at least - diesels have done much better) there hasn't been much progress in the last 16 years. I struggle to understand that really.

Diesel engines are a different story in terms of performance. Diesel cars are doing well in motorsports nowadays, something that was unheard of a few years ago, but its at the expense of fuel economy. Or you can have economy but not performance.

The simple fact of the matter is that the basic design of an internal combustion engine hasn't changed in over 100 years. All the peripheral parts maybe, but the main block is still the same basic design (upgraded slightly granted). They have poor energy conversion efficiency rates, with something insane like 90% of the energy being lost through heat and noise. I'm sure modern technology has a way to plug that loss of energy. I don't have the answer but I'm no engineer, but car manufacturers have all the brains and all the gear to solve it, and a market to sell the solution to, so where is it I wonder.

 

Right, I'm not sure what engine is in the Mondeo, but as you say the design is probably at least 15years old, its not that often that manufacurers actually come up with a completely new engine.

I've got a 3 litre mondeo and I get about 25 around town and more than 30 on motorway driving, so I cant explain those figiures.

Its a known fact, and always will be that you cant have performance and MPG.

But I think more these days its MPG that sells motors, so I cant think that the manufactures are ignoring that fact, add to this the emissions being tied to road tax, and more and more people will be buying fuel efficient, low emission cars.

I pay £410 road tax for my 3ltr mondeo, I know of someone who drives a 4.7ltr Jag and he pays less road tax, purely because the emisions are lower, being that its a newer design of engine.

 

I'm on my second Honda CRV, they are 2ltr, this one has the V-tec engine, neither of 'em could I get more than 23mpg round town, or 27mpg on a run. But I don't do more than about 6,000 miles a year, so it doesn't bother me, I fill up on average, three times in two months.
But they can't 'alf shift for a big car with the aerodynamics of a garden shed.

 

I agree with what you're saying, but my point is I can't see why, to some degree, we can't have better performance and better fuel economy at the same time.

Years ago, if a manufacturer wanted to test a new engine design, the first step after the drawing board was to build a prototype. That would mean the costly business of reprogramming milling machines, making new moulds for casts etc, building the prototype, testing it, scratching their heads and saying "hmmm, I thought we'd get more out of it than that". Nowadays though with powerful computers the first prototype can sit in a computer model and run in simulation. They can have a fairly good idea about airflow, fuel flow, heat produced etc before it even goes to the factory floor. If the simulation shows that efficiency is lost because the spray pattern from the injectors into the manifold is wrong, or the valves are in the wrong position or the wrong size, they can change it in the simulation and try again before building a physical prototype. The whole process should in theory be much quicker and cheaper than ever before. Yet we still see figures like 38mpg extra urban for a new 2 litre estate. The next model up from my car, the 940 turbo, has 38 mpg for its official extra urban mpg and that puts out 170bhp and uses a design dating back to 1992.

When you also consider aerodynamics, my car is shaped like a giant brick, the new Mondeo is far more aerodynamic. That means my car spends a greater proportion of its fuel just fighting wind resistance, but still manages respectable figures for performance and economy. I know I'm not comparing like for like with Volvo vs Ford, but if Volvo were in some way better at engine design, Ford could easily have nicked Volvo's design because Ford has owned Volvo since 2001.

So its hard to see what the engineers have been doing for the past 16 years. On things like aerodynamics, weight distribution, suspension and handling, there is no denying they engineers have been working hard, but given the drive for fuel efficiency and clean burning, its a bit unfortunate that a brand new car is hardly doing better than a 16 year old one that's clocked up nearly quarter of a million miles since it rolled out of the factory.

 

I 'm not sure on this but as I said a brand new car does not mean a brand new engine design, I'm not up on Fords like I used to be but I'm pretty sure the engines are fairly dated.

Mines got the Duratec I think, possibly american design as my old 2.5V6 had "manufactured in Cincinnati" on it.

I'm sure its an old design going back to when the Mondeo was first launched.
About 20years I guess.

 

You're probably right, and I think that's half the problem. I know that in my car, the engine block design dates back to the late 1970s. The carburettor and the contact points were chucked away in favour of electronic ignition and fuel injection at the back end of the 80s but the main bulk of the motor was left untouched. I suspect that's how it often goes. My Vectra diesel was the same, my version had a measly 82 bhp, but two years later the same model with the same engine gave 110bhp. They left everything else alone and just put a beefier turbo on it.

I can understand the cost implications of sticking with a known good motor design, but imagine what would happen to their profits if they spent a bit of time and said, right, lets ditch this 20 year old motor design, and apply all we've learned about heat transfer, friction, weight, airflow etc and put our rivals out of business with a car that gives 50% better fuel efficiency than our rivals can manage, without compromising reliability or performance.

If I was out for a brand new motor, and I saw two that I liked, both similar spec in almost every way, but one offered me 40mpg and the other offered me 60mpg, the choice would be a no brainer.

 

hi clueless as you know i had the renault megane convertible and had quite a few problems with it but now since i took it back and changed it for the pegeout 307 rapier HDi 2 litre and its a diesel well pleased with it apart from someone pinching the back mirror the other week it costs £40 for a new part, its a 52 model and runs like a dream.

 

Not too keen on French cars. I once had a three-year-old Renault 5 GT. Low milage, one careful owner (my sister!)

About six months after I bought it from her, it dropped a drive shaft and a couple of months later, it dropped the other one!

This is "Bruce" ('cos he's Spruce Green)

We had him seven years and all it cost me was servicing and a set of tyres.
This was him just before we traded him in, "as good as new."
He sat on the dealers' forecourt for four months before he went. They wanted too much for him we thought. We used to wave to him every time we passed on our way in or out of Manchester. We can only hope he went to a good home.



This is "Rhonda" (the Honda). Four years old last May. Again just servicing and a set of tyres.



The car before Bruce, was a Honda LSI called "Gloria" 'cos she was bright red and the reg. was GLO...
She was three years old when we traded her in and only cost me servicing. So I'm quite set on Honda as a make.

What I find a bit irritating was that I diligently keep the service records, receipts and manuals in their binders for my cars and leave them in the glove boxes when I trade them in and the dealers are never interested enough to ask for them.


Youngest son calls his VW Campervan "Ruby" Athough she's not quite that colour.

 

It always amuses me when people name their cars. I do so too. My first car was Saffy because she was a Ford Escort Saphire. I had Sarah the Xsara, a couple of others whose names I can't remember, my Vectra was called The Heap o'----, and my latest car, being a Swedish battle axe is Helga.

I always choose girl's names for my cars because cars are female. They must be because if you don't pay attention to them they sulk. Also all my cars with the exception of Heap o' would always start in the morning regardless of how cold it was. If they'd been male they'd have complained they felt unwell and were dying and it would have been up to the driver to bring them a constant supply of hot drinks while they just sat parked up moaning.