I used to leave my doors and trunk unlocked to keep thieves from breaking the windows and locks but they did it anyway.
That sorta happened to me. I always left the doors unlocked, but not the trunk. Never kept anything in the car. But I married a gal who always locked her door. So that 4 door 66 Galaxy I had, she locked the front passenger door, the other three were unlocked. Thieves broke the windwing frame to break into the car to get absolutely nothing. That frame cost more than the window glass.
I had to start locking the car after California passed a law that if someone under 18 broke into you car with it unlocked, the owner would be charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Dumbest law ever, I think it eventually got repealed or cops and prosecutors just ignore it.
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I know a woman who hoped so much that her absolutely awful Simca would be stolen that she would park it in Manhattan with all of the doors unlocked. Unfortunately, none of the cosmopolitan car thieves were desperate enough to suck on that lemon and she kept driving it until it finally wouldn’t start anymore.
My wife left an empty purse in the backseat of her old Camry. They broke the rear window to steal it, but just dropped it in the floorboard when they saw it was empty. I sure wish they’d just tried the door handle because she never locked it.
I don’t think there were MPG standards or pollution standards or catalytic converters in the XKE days (which for a while was my dream-for automobile).
There weren’t any MPG standards or cats on an XKE, @andyw77_155343. That was too long ago. What was your point in mentioning that?
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It was supposed to be in a reply to one of your posts where you might have been referring to more modern standards, but I interpreted as commenting on the XKE. Sorry if I misinterpreted it. Also, I apparently hit the wrong reply icon because it did not go where I intended.
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OK, Gotcha. The thread went a bit off track, as many do! I forgot about that. 
My first car a (new) 1970 Fiat 124 Spider was fun to drive, but mechanically it was something else. I’ll leave out the major unexpected repairs but it was to have a tuneup every 3,000 miles-plugs, points, etc. I could feel the engine running rough at 1,500 miles, but could not afford the time or money to do it that often. I used to carry tools, belts, points & a rotor and a plug (it blew one apart once) at all times. I don’t remember that it burned oil. But the top was simple to put up and down. Of course, the cover for when it was down had some snaps that did not mate with the ones on the body.
That was one of the minor problems with my brother’s total POS Datsun SPL-310. When you attached the boot in order to cover the retracted convertible roof, you could choose which 2 or 3 snaps weren’t secured. It was not possible to secure all of them. If that was the only problem, he might have kept it longer than 3 tortured years.
That was exactly my problem. I kept the Fiat for 2 1/2 years and had to change it for something more reliable as I needed it to get to work. So I bought a 1973 Dodge Dart Swinger! And wouldn’t you know it, when I picked it up from the dealer in the evening the brakes were stuck on. I pulled over, found a pay phone and he hadn’t left yet, so he came and picked it up. They said the master cylinder had been connected wrong, but who knows. The only other major problem I recall was the ballast resistor burned out, but you could start the car by jumping it, IIRC.
Exactly what I was thinking. Makes me happy to be an older boomer.
Suddenly I feel better about myself. This has never occurred to me.
Guess I can stop wondering if I’m frugal or cheap. Looks like not cheap.
Not sure if it counts as the “Old Days” but my 04 goes through a quart every 350 miles/week. Those are highway miles. Compression looks okay for a 240,000 mile car and it doesn’t smoke at all. There’s quite an impressive stain on the driveway where it sits though.
-Milk
-Eggs
-Bread
-5w30
Friend had a car he wanted stolen so bad left the signed title on the passenger seat, never happened.
There was and is something to be said for the good old days. But probably only by the relatively small number of drivers who would buy an XKE then, and still would today. These are the folks who may still have 1 or 2 last century vehicles in their stable, who until their old age didn’t consider personally caring for their cars a problem, and who today may decry the varieties of idiocy that are variously forced into vehicle design, sometimes thoughtlessly, even if well-intentioned (though many don’t seem so).
And those were the days when you could trust your car to the man who wears the star, when there were, on almost every corner it seemed, a service station, and no convenience stores with gas pumps but no service.
A time when your windshields were always clean and.your oil could be checked and topped up with every fill-up, while you watched and listened to the pump fill you tank.
The world and the earth have drawn our attention to other considerations.
My 1993 MR2 was the same way. It had a front main seal leak for something like 12 years. I’d get maybe a teaspoon of oil on the ground every time I shut it off. It’s expensive to fix, so I just left it until I started getting more like half a cup of oil on the ground. Then I had it fixed, along with everything else under the timing cover including the timing belt. The mechanic showed me the timing belt. It looked like string cheese. Wasn’t long for this world! But the car uses a non-interference motor, which is why I hadn’t replaced it in 180,000 miles.
Now that the front main seal is fixed, I fully expect the rear main seal to let go at some near-future point.
Agreed. Technology has been the key to advances in all those things you mention. The only good things about The Good Old Days was morality, the state of the nuclear family, and perhaps, product longevity… Can anyone chime in and think of any others?
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Have to agree with that for a lot of things that lasted much longer than now plus a lot of things got repaired and not dumped when they broke.
Except for cars. They last longer now.
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