Car Maintenance Rant

[ls99]

Some will point out that the pump is cooled by the fuel surrounding it. Okay, why? They can't make an air-cooled fuel pump and put it outside the tank? I don't think so. It's stuff like that, that increases maintenance expenses that drives me nuts.

THe fuel pump is easily cooled by fuel flowing through it. My 88 Jguar had a flow through fuel pump mounted externally. As did my 74 Mercedes 450. Yes both were fuel injected cars with high pressure fuel pump, unlike carbed cars with loww pressure pump.

Then Ford bought Jaguar and the fuel pump is now in the tank of my 95. And a PITA to replace, unless a smart alec such as I cut a hole in rear deck, under the decorative panel.
Another brilliant manufacturing move. Yeccch!

 

[ls99]

I had a 1967 AMC Rebel that had a freeze plug rust out and start leaking. Dealer said, "need to pull the engine to fix it". I cut a 4" diameter hole in the firewall, popped in a new freeze plug, pop riveted a cover on the hole and covered it with the carpet.

BTW I was never a package engineer, so don't shoot me.

IIRC 57 chevy V8 rear plugs were never changed unless engine was pulled or holes cut in firewall.
I'm not sure but around then maybe 55? oil filtes were not in the design.

 

[ERD50]

But....

Luscious Garage charges $30 for the replacement. Supply your own bulb or buy one of ours, Philips D4R OE bulb, for $94 plus tax.

$94, for a headlight bulb? The halogen bulbs in my Volvo are like $5-$10 each. For $94, I'd expect LED and never needing to replace them. Are these special 'green' headlights?

One of the reasons I am RE is that I never bought a brand new car, and never will. In the last 10 years or so, I have always bought one owner, low mile, 1-3 year old cars and kept them to just under 100k miles. Lately all Toyotas and Volkswagens. If you have to have the "thrill" of a brand new car, be aware of what it is really costing you in depreciation. ...

I don't think this advice holds water anymore (or at least not in all cases). My current car is going on 15 years. I don't think that first few years depreciation really matters over the long run, and as others mentioned - how was it treated those first years? Probably not as well as I would treat it, hoping to get 10+ years out of it. Why chance it. And you move up those first maintenance jobs, some to shortly after you buy it - new tires, brakes, maybe coolant changes, etc.

'cars' in the past 10 years? Do you put a lot of miles on them? Maybe your situation is different, but you made the statement in an absolute manner. One of my mottoes - "Never say 'never'".

-ERD50

 

[doneat54]

^^ depends - if you buy used you may be buying someone else's problem - the turbo on my 09 FXT ended up failing at 59 months, probably due to lack of maintenance by the prior owner, turbo failure caused metal to be shot into the intake (bad juju) and it spun a rod bearing - at least it was covered under warranty and I got a new sb out of it

Oh, forgot:

By a car with a known maintenance history.

 

[aja8888]

Oh, forgot:

By a car with a known maintenance history.

And make sure if it has a turbocharger, the correct synthetic oil was used in it's life.

 

[John Galt III]

Where do you find this info?

I'd also like to avoid getting stuck with a light bulb change, or other simple maintenance issue that is unreasonably difficult/expensive. But I've only founf generic 'total cost of ownership' numbers, or random complaints. Are these organized somewhere, by model?

-ERD50

ERD50,

I would browse forums like alt.frugality.something, a newsgroup. I don't think it exists anymore. Also rec.autos.tech, which does exist. After I found a few models that other like-minded frugals recommended, I went to more specific sites, like Nissan Forum to get the dirty low-down reality, to see the specifics of what repairs if any were typical of that car. I got as specific as what year of Versa had what problems. Early years had some problems. In Fall of 2009 I bought a new 2009 Versa. The 2009's had been on the road for about a year already, so I had that data to refer to. I also refer to Consumer Reports, but as you know, they only have generic reliability ratings.

BTW, one of the websites said that the headlight in the V could only be removed by taking the fender off, but turns out not to be the case.

I owned an 85 Chevy Caprice V8 for many years. CR rated it average in reliability, but the good thing was that more than half of the repairs it needed were doable by me, for $0 labor, plus parts. You could replace a part, like water pump, by just removing a few things out of the way, somewhat of a hassle, but not too bad. I had 425,000 on the odometer when I traded her in. Original engine and trans still working fine, no work done on either, just reg maint stuff.

Oh yeah, I asked my mechanic what cars were reliable, and all he would tell me was "Don't buy a Volkswagen". He hated working on them because they were so labor-intensive and he didn't want to charge his customers the full amount, since they would cuss him out, and maybe not return. So they weren't money-makers for him.

 

[doneat54]

But....




I don't think this advice holds water anymore (or at least not in all cases). My current car is going on 15 years. I don't think that first few years depreciation really matters over the long run, and as others mentioned - how was it treated those first years? Probably not as well as I would treat it, hoping to get 10+ years out of it. Why chance it. And you move up those first maintenance jobs, some to shortly after you buy it - new tires, brakes, maybe coolant changes, etc.

'cars' in the past 10 years? Do you put a lot of miles on them? Maybe your situation is different, but you made the statement in an absolute manner. One of my mottoes - "Never say 'never'".

-ERD50

Keeping cars 10-15 years is different, but still more costly if you buy them new. If you study typical depreciation curves you will see that ALL cars have a rapid drop in the first 1-3 years (I bought my last VW, slightly over 2 years old, for less than half of sticker, but arguably it was a model known to depreciate and lose resale value...) then there is the flatter spot, ~2-5-6 yrs out. After that, there is another drop, where you go over 100K, they are now "old" nobody wants them, maintenance costs are up, etc. After that drop, they are $1-$3k cars. My approach, and many others, is to buy and sell in that first flat spot.

I used to have a goal of $1000/yr depreciation, and met it 10+ years ago when I was buying $2k-$4k cars. But when you buy more expensive (and newer cars) This is harder. Did $1500/yr on an '05 Camry, and about $2k/yr on an '09 that we just sold last month.

I disagree that the first few years don't matter even in the long run. Simple math, buy a new $20k car and keep it for 15 yrs, about $1333/yr depreciation. Buy that same car 2 years old for say $15k, and drive it for 13 years and it is around $1100/yr. Eek a couple more years out of it and you are even better off.

TONS of other factors there I know, very car dependent, and to each his own of course. I just like to avoid the big depreciation drop years, and generally keep driving a fairly new car.

 

[doneat54]

Oh yeah, I asked my mechanic what cars were reliable, and all he would tell me was "Don't buy a Volkswagen". He hated working on them because they were so labor-intensive and he didn't want to charge his customers the full amount, since they would cuss him out, and maybe not return. So they weren't money-makers for him.

LOL that really says a lot. Read between the lines there......

 

[Walt34]

Wiki covers this a bit - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_pump

Okay, that explains the fuel pump issue pretty well. I still think there are plenty of other examples of poor design making cars harder to maintain than they should be. When I did major work on our cars with my father (rebuilding an engine, replace transmission, rear end, etc.) I still remember thinking that if I ever got hold of an engineer from Chrysler (we had Plymouths and a Dodge) that I was going to strangle him. Slowly.

 

[38Chevy454]

I'm not sure but around then maybe 55? oil filtes were not in the design.

Many old cars had bypass oil filtering systems and did not have primary oil filtering. The first 1955 Chevrolet small block V8 did not have primary filtering, or even provisions on the block for it to be capable. 1956 started the block mounted filter.

 

[Christine]

Perhaps buy a RV?

I am not a car person - but I have changed lightbulbs myself. On my old car atleast 15 years ago. On newer cars it's to complicated.

But then I got my RV. And it's very simple to change a lightbulb. Just like in my first 197x car. Probably because it has a commercial truck chassis with lots of room? But I will never change a tire on this one - can't lift the wheel! But when I had a flat on my Nissan I changed it myself.

 

[Rick_Head]

Keeping cars 10-15 years is different, but still more costly if you buy them new.....

Maybe, but I bought my current car new 11 years ago, and haven't paid a cent to have a wrench put on it. I do my own maintenance (a lot cheaper than even an independent) and I have 100% confidence in my mechanic. Can you say that?

I plan to keep it until some other car says "buy me, you need the thrill". According to a friend who works a a "stealership", if I wanted to sell my car it would likely bring about 45% of what I paid new. I can handle depreciation at that rate. OTOH, I doubt DW would bring anywhere near what she has cost me over 39 years (ok, insert smiley here).

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

$94, for a headlight bulb? The halogen bulbs in my Volvo are like $5-$10 each. For $94, I'd expect LED and never needing to replace them. Are these special 'green' headlights?

They're high-intensity discharge headlights, and I can tell you from firsthand experience that they're excellent. You can get replacement Philips bulbs at Amazon for $42 each, or you can get cheaper knockoffs for about $20. More basic Prius models used standard dual-filament H4 bulbs, and yes, you can get them for $10 or less.

I just posted the video to debunk the notion that the bumper has to come off to change the bulb. You can watch the tech do it in three minutes. Of course it helps to have small hands!

 

[ERD50]

They're high-intensity discharge headlights, and I can tell you from firsthand experience that they're excellent. You can get replacement Philips bulbs at Amazon for $42 each, or you can get cheaper knockoffs for about $20. More basic Prius models used standard dual-filament H4 bulbs, and yes, you can get them for $10 or less.

I just posted the video to debunk the notion that the bumper has to come off to change the bulb. You can watch the tech do it in three minutes. Of course it helps to have small hands!

Yes, I was thinking it wasn't co-incidence that this mechanic was female, and likely had small hands. Being small isn't always a disadvantage.

I'd think that LEDs are advanced enough now to provide same/better brightness than these HID - after all, a headlight is only ~ 55W, similar to a home bulb (different applications/requirements of course). Maybe they need more testing to meet the environment and it takes time to see these changes?

It isn't really a matter of one technology being brighter than another - you can always make them brighter by making them bigger.

-ERD50

 

[robnplunder]

I do all my oil changes b/c these shops keep finding(?) minor/major issues to fix besides doing the oil changes. Since then, I stop having car issues.

 

[travelover]

I do all my oil changes b/c these shops keep finding(?) minor/major issues to fix besides doing the oil changes. Since then, I stop having car issues.

Same here. I took my car into the stealership for a recall fix and they told me I needed new brakes and tires. I guess if you define "need" as more worn that when new, they were right.

 

[frank2009]

A while back, while my Mazda was at the dealership for recall work, I casually asked for them to change a burned out headlight. That casually cost me $75. When the other headlight went out this winter, I put on a pair of gloves and did the other headlight in about 10 minutes. Standing in the snow. Freezing my a off.