Alternators are pretty reliable, but they do fail every few 100K miles on average so they do have to be replaced occasionally if you keep a vehicle for a reasonable amount of time. Also, when they do fail, it’s usually unpredictable. It’s not a huge deal, but I would still prefer to minimize the number of things that can leave me stuck. I also prefer mechanical devices to electronic devices in most critical applications (although they are almost always going to be more expensive).
The main point was that the simplest technology that will get the job done is almost always the best technology. IMHO, more complexity is rarely “better,” unless you are the one selling the technology.
I remember the old cars too, like my '65 Chevy when I was in college. Doing the headgaskets was a simple. Changing the shockabsorbers was just as easy if nobody had cold beer around.
Today, I open the hood on a new car (if you can find the latch) and finding the battery is proetty simple at times. Yet, finding the engine under all the crap that has been added to it is something else. The only cars I work on are mine, and that’s maybe.
A couple of people have danced around it without stating it so I will. Carb?ed engines with mechanical ignition (meaning points and distributor, OR a magneto) are very likely to run like crap for a long time before complete failure while the more modern replacements can leave you stranded in a heartbeat. Would I trade? No way!
Meanwhile the rest of us have to put up with the added polution your car is putting out until you get it fixed.
I’ll take electronic ignition any day of the week. Do they fail…sure they do…But how often…1/10,000…or 1/100,000 will have a failure in 300k miles usage…And for POINTS…100% of them will fail in 300k miles more then once. I’ve replaced too many points in -10 degree weather during the winter…NO THAT YOU.
Sorry Mike, you missed my point that I would NOT trade backwards to points and carbs. Electronic controls are way too efficient for daily drivers. I have to say though, with the old systems failure usually came after a warning for someone in tune with their engine. The general driving public is not at all that aware of what their equipment is doing as evidenced by the fact that they can?t do simple stuff like read the owner manual, keep tires inflated to anywhere near specs, know that they should pull over if the OIL light comes on,?.
Craig, for hobby cars you certainly have a ?point?. I believe, however, that with a real tuner for a OBD II (or is that EEC-V ?) engine, you could fairly easily get much greater control over mixture than you can with a carb. The trouble would be where to start and finish since there is so much intervention that you could do.
“Craig, for hobby cars you certainly have a ?point?. I believe, however, that with a real tuner for a OBD II (or is that EEC-V ?) engine, you could fairly easily get much greater control over mixture than you can with a carb. The trouble would be where to start and finish since there is so much intervention that you could do.”
All cars are “hobby cars.” that’s the point. Sure you can have more control with a computer than a carb, but would you rather play with a computer or with hardware? I’ll take the hardware any day.
Okay. I know a picture is worth a thousand words but this one by itself doen’t teach me anything. I have looked at the other pictures on the linked page, but I still see parts that are clearly frame and parts that are clearly body. Thay are welded together which I understand is why you call it unibody construction, but when I look at a picture of a 1960 Plymouth, I see something different. The Plymouth unibody frame is like a bridge truss with a body that is made up of rails and even the 1960 Plymouth had a sub frame that was bolted to the body. What am I missing here?
Jeremy:
Here are pictures of a 69 Dodge Dart unibody. As you can tell the design is similar to the design of the civic. You are correct that some unibodies have subframes. These subframes bolt to the unibody to support additional weight (ie: engine, trans, suspension). Those parts are bolted on and not part of the “Unibody”. Hope this helps to clarify what I am saying.
~Michael
Way off subject, but I remember reading something about the period of WWII where the Jap Zero’s were kind of kicking the pants off our fighters. The Navy and I guess Army Air Corps leadership were chomping at the bit to get their hands on a downed Zero and when they did, didn’t they take it apart/study it and use it as kind of a model for the P-51 Mustang? I could be wrong about the details here. It’s just ironic that
we did that with Japanese cars, too. I do remember watching a documentary on PBS- early 90’s- where Lee Iococa said they took apart the new (Honda’s?) as soon as they came out. I personally think the Japanese cars forced Detroit to wake up. Late 70’s Chrysler products. Arghhh!
I currently own two vehicles, a 1970 Jeep DJ5a and a 2000 Ford Windstar. Guess which one I drive 20 miles to work each day… the Jeep! I love that little car. It is the easiest car to work on I have ever owned. I am a mechanic by necessity, not choice ( if you can’t afford to pay someone else to fix it you do it yourself or it stays broke!). I cannot count the number of hours I have spent cursing while under the hood of the Windstar. If I’m under the hood of the Jeep there is usually a smile on my face. Now I will admit that the Windstar is much more comfortable, quiet and will run circles around my Jeep. But at least if my Jeep breaks down, I know I can fix it! I’m not knocking new cars, they are great if you can afford to pay someone else to maintain them, but there is something comforting about a machine you know inside and out. And finally, as an earlier poster mentioned, older cars all seem to have their own little quirks that make each one a bit different then another. I didn’t get that feeling with any car I’ve ever owned that was newer then the early to mid 70s.
Yeah, I can agree with that. If the choice was between an eight year old unreliable car and a 38 year old unreliable car, it would be more fun to drive and work on the 38 year old one. After all, you did say that you “cannot count the number of hours I have spent cursing while under the hood of the Windstar.” The Jeep would certainly be easier to fix and I can appreciate that. However, if you compare the classic unreliable car to an eight year old reliable car, I would not necessarily feel the same way. What if you had a Ford Windstar that except for extremely rare circumstances (like once every 100,000 miles), only required regular maintenance? What if it was so reliable that essentially repairs were nonexistant? If the choice was between routinely repairing a 38 year old car and simply maintaining an eight year old car without repairs, how would you feel then?
“If the choice was between routinely repairing a 38 year old car and simply maintaining an eight year old car without repairs, how would you feel then?”
I have a '70 Chevy 3/4 ton, a '72 Ford F-100, and a '90 Thunderbird. I just finished swapping a 5.0L V8 in to my '90 Bird, I actually went newer on the engine, it is out of a '93. And even though a '93 isn’t too new anymore, I love the tech of my '70 Chevy just as much as the tech of my Thunderbird.
Let me suggest something: In many ways today’s automobiles are simpler because of electronics than were the cars of the 1950’s through the 1970’s. Right now, I’m staring at the service manual for my 1978 Oldmobile Cutlass 4-4-2 and trying to decide if I want to tackle the carburetor or find a specialist. As I look at the carburetor passages, the choke pulloff, the choke stove that heats the bimetallic spring, the accelerator pump circuit, etc. I think that the electronic fuel injection may be simpler. I’m not so certain but what electric wipers are simpler than vacuum wipers when a vacuum booster section had to be ncorporated into the fuel pump. The tube type car radios of the 1940’s and 1950’s were certainly more complicated. There was a pulsator or vibrator that was used so that a tranformer could step up the voltage to around 90 volts. Then the voltage had to be rectified back to dirrect current for the tube plates. There were tube filaments that drew a considerable amount of current. A difference in potential was thus established between the cathode and the plate and the current flow was controlled by the grid element of the vacuum tube. The solid state transistor is much simpler. Voltage from the car battery is supplied to the emitter where it attempts to flow to the collector. The rate of flow is controlled by the base. Remember that the car radios of the 1940’s and 1950’s were AM radios. An AM transistor radio of the 1960’s and later was much simpler than this. However, we added an FM band, stereo sound, cassette players, CD players, Ipods, etc because it was feasible with the modern electronics. The solid state ignition systems where a transistor switches the power on and off to the coil when signaled by a pick-up coil seems much simpler to me than the mechanical ignition point system. Even in the small engines on my lawnmower and roto-tiller, the electronic ignition has been completely trouble free. On my old equipment, I had to periodically change the condenser and magneto points.
Some years back, I had a head gasket fail on a 1990 Ford Aerostar that was under warranty. The service manager started blaming the problem on the electronic controls. I said, “Hold on. Cars have had gaskets to mate the head and the block since the beginning of the autombile”. When I look at the issues on this board, many of them are actually mechanical problems–head gaskets, timing belts, transmission problems, brakes, etc. I would go so far as to say that the electronic speedometer driven by the speed sensor is less complicated than the old speedometer cable set-up.
The heater was pretty simple on my dad’s 1939 Chevrolet. It was a small radiator with a fan to move the air in a box under the dashboard. The fan motor had one speed, so there were not blower resistors to give problems. Coolant flow through the heater core was constant. In the summer, there was a valve under the hood to turn off to stop the flow of coolant through the heater. There were no vacuum operated blend doors–one just reached down and opened or closed the doors on the sides of the heater box.
My problem with many of today’s cars is that we have taken the electronic technology to the ridiculous extreme. I don’t understand why we have the mulifunction switches that are time consuming to replace when something goes wrong. The wiring diagram for a car as old as my 1978 Oldsmobile is more complicated than the schematic diagram for some of the radios I used to repair. Car manufacturers have a tendency to use technology where it may not be needed. The 1939 Chevrolet had a vacuum assist on the shifter that was troublesome. This feature was standard on the column shifts of Chevrolets from 1939 to 1948. In 1949, Chevrolet eliminated the vacuum shift and had a straight mechanical linkage. Sears, Montgomery Ward and auto parts stores sold kits to by-pass the vacuum assist for the Chevrolets. My hope is that auto manufacturers will shake out some of the use of technology that is really fluff, but retain that which makes the cars reliable, and, at the same time, keep ease of service in mind when the cars are designed.
Davidellis must be busy fixing his mini-van again (but his jeep does sound like a pretty cool toy).
You do know that this “debate” is pointless (except for keeping us busy while we should be working), no-one is going to change anyone else’s mind?
BTW, I outgrew doing anything “law enforcement” would care about by the carter administration. Now I have things like family and security clearances to worry about, no more “sex, drugs, and rock & roll” for this kid.
Your wish may yet come true! Tata, the Indian bus, truck, and now car manufacturer, will be bringing out a $2500 car with only basic, but safe features. For export, this car may cost as much as $5000, but will only use high tech stuff to meet emission and safety needs.
Expect this car in North America in about 3 years; next year will be the first sales in India followed by exports to other developing nations.