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Maybe some selective memory going on here as well. There are some older cars that are no fun to work on with cramped engine bays and odd engineering.
But what's the bigger impact on your life a fuel pump that you change maybe once(if ever) in a modern car at a few hours or one that requires multiple changes over the life of the vehicle and maybe a few cases of having to be towed home?
Everybody forgets that little detail.
My alternator was easiy to change at home. Problem was it went out after dark on a desolate stretch of road coming back from Mexico with 50k on the odometer in a time before cell phones.
Everybody forgets that little detail.
My alternator was easiy to change at home. Problem was it went out after dark on a desolate stretch of road coming back from Mexico with 50k on the odometer in a time before cell phones.
Yes true, but the thing is that I'll probably already know, or at least have a good idea of what's wrong with the old vehicle and already have it diagnosed before I even call anyone. With a newer car it could be any number of things causing the problem.
I absolutely prefer working on older cars, give me a distributor and carburetor any day of the week over a computer and fuel injection. We build hot rods and they are simple and straightforward, but I am currently doing a nut and bolt restoration on an 04 Mustang GT to be my street/strip daily driver. It is so much more complicated and so many systems have to interface with each other for it to function correctly.
Another problem with newer cars is there is no room to even get your hands into some areas to work on it. I have about a half inch between the headers and body, and have cuts all over my hands from trying to get in there.
After this one is done I am going back to the old ones I actually like working on.
I like older RWD easier to work on had a 1972 Dodge Dart with the slant 6, I could change the starter from on top of the motor. Easier to remove plugs and wires. Carberators were easy to rebuild or change. FWD cars you have to tilt the engine on some of the cars to get to the rear spark plugs. Also ever change the alternator on a FWD Pontiac Grand AM good luck. Also parts were way cheaper back then. FWD is nice but a car on frame was easier to work on. my older brother had a 1959 VW bug with a 6volt system.
Maybe some selective memory going on here as well. There are some older cars that are no fun to work on with cramped engine bays and odd engineering.
The "older cars are so much easier to work on" crowd needs to adjust the points on a Slant 6 in an A-body Mopar sometime.
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But what's the bigger impact on your life a fuel pump that you change maybe once(if ever) in a modern car at a few hours or one that requires multiple changes over the life of the vehicle and maybe a few cases of having to be towed home?
Multiple changes? Not common at all. Mechanical fuel pumps typically had a life expectancy of about 100K, which was about the life expectancy of the entire vehicle back then so most of them never had to be changed and certainly no more than once under normal operating circumstances. And when you did have to change it, the part was cheap and it could be one in a matter of minutes with common hand tools on the side of the road. Unless it was an A-body Mopar with a Slant 6, of course.
In-tank fuel pumps last a lot longer, typically 150K miles or so; but the vehicles are good for 200K+ so there's a much greater chance that you're going to have to do it eventually if you're the type of driver that runs a car until the wheels fall off. And the part isn't cheap under any circumstances, and unless you've got a model with an access panel under the rear seat you're going to have to drop the tank to do it.
And then there's the fact that mechanical fuel pumps usually give you some warning before they go out (leaking, loss of prime, etc.) where electrical fuel pumps usually just quit cold.
Newer vehicles are better than old ones in most ways, but I have to give the nod for fuel pumps to the old cars.
I totally agree with that observation. I think cars reached an apex of reliability and efficiency after the introduction of OBD II and through the mid 2000's, but now they are headed back down the other way and becoming disposable POS's with every fancy gadget under the sun that'll break in 3 years. Time to trade it in and get the new latest and greatest POS!!!!
No thank you, I'll stick with my old stuff that is reliable and that'll stand the test of time.
I'm up to year 6 of my 2011 Grand Cherokee. It's got every imaginable gadget and it all works like the day I bought it. My older cars used to be a pile of trash by 80k miles. Everything from window motors to engine sensors to freeze plugs would start going by 40k.
I remember a brake that had locked up half way up a bridge during rush hour. I had heater core hoses that sprung a pin hole leak and hosed down my engine bay with anti freeze to the point my belt was slipping and lost power steering, A water pump that failed on the side of the highway at 2 am on the way home from work (next morning the wheels were stolen to make things more fun), leaking freeze plugs in the middle of a hurricane evacuation (required a transmission removal). I had a fan relay fail open which I turn fried the fan and melted it in place cause an overheat everytime I pulled up to a stoplight. Cracked cylinder heads, rusted out radiators, random gasket leaks, rusted out mufflers, vacuum line leaks, hood release handles that fell off, ignition switches that locked and refused to turn, steering wheel locks, that froze in the locked position, transmission rebuilds, failed window motors and speakers were all stuff that happened well before 80 miles on every older car I had up until about 2009.
It was easy to change a window switch in one of my cars. The part was $5 and took no tools to replace. I had done it so many times I had it down to about 2 minutes. I even memorized the phone number to the dealership's parts department to order the switch. The car only had 70k miles on it, why the hell did I know so much about this stupid window switch?
Being "easy to work on" wasn't the problem. It's great if your hobby and/or job is fixing cars. For me I was either pulling a pump in 100 degree South Texas heat or changing radiator hoses in -20 degree Midwest winters. That and the fact when I worked on the car, it was always unplanned and sometimes in a parking lot somewhere (one alternator went out on me conveniently in front of an auto parts store), or improvising something on the side of the road. In the days before cell phones they also meant thumbing it to the next service station. I don't know if old timers have forgotten all this mess, or simply look back at them as "fun adventures", but those days and cars sucked.
Don't forget about the maintance cycles. Every 3k for an oil change, 36k for a radiator flush, transmission filter, spark plugs, wires, and belts. That's just for one car. Having 3 daily drivers in the family meant every weekend was wasted doing routine vehicle maintenance or fixing broken crap.
And no they weren't easy to work on. Hondas required ripping off the front end of a front wheel drive engine every 60k to change a timing belt. Spark plugs? Try changing an LT1's plugs and wires on a 90's F-body. I'll take the modern coil over plug on a modern Honda Civic over that mess any day. And the late 70's early 80's attempts at having a computer control a carb? Anybody miss crossfire injection? I loved Oldsmobile's 3.4L's thoughtful design placing the oil filter at a 30 degree angle over a hot cross pipe so you inevitably had oil dribble onto the exhaust for that nostalgic burning oil scent. Does anybody really want to trade a modern canbus system with a 1970's era Lucas Electric?
I keep meticulous records on everything. On one F-body I owned in the late 90's, I spent $12k on the car with 67k miles on the odometer and it was 6 years old. By 120k miles and 5 years later, I spent another 7k in maintenance and repairs.
Part of that was due to shear bad luck and a combination of no cell phone or Internet. You don't exactly have the leverage of shopping around when your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere. Before the internet started allowing you to shop the entire globe for parts, you were limited to whatever ripoff the local guy had. Forums didn't exist, so some well known problems for your particular make and model would cost you a lot in diagnostics just to rediscover what everybody else already knew somewhere else.
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