Why not doing your own repairs will make you go bankrupt.

Not sure I've opened the hood 5 times on the Wife's 2018 Murano....no need to.

 

But when u have to, u got to spend an hour taking all the plastic #### apart and break 35 of the plastic clips in the process , 16 extensions and 25 wobble sockets later, only to find you need some proprietary special tool to get whatever it is u need to get off...

 

Ain't no way....just because a guy knows what he's looking at under the hood doesn't make a new 1983 car more reliable.

 

Has nothing to do with reliability.

 

Heres my view on it. Older vehicles had worse longevity. At least insofar as cars. Even semi trucks had a limited shelf life compared to what they are today. Anyone who denys that is denying reality. 1 million mile trucks, cars consistantly hitting 150,000+ miles and so on were near unheard of even when I was growing up.

HOWEVER, what older vehicles have in spades over new ones is cost, ease of maintaince, general reliability and ease of manufactureing new parts (no 20 week parts shortages because whatever and even if the factory goes up in a mushroom cloud you can restart the line easily anywhere without billions in machines and 10s of thousands of specialists) and ability to keep right on moving even when the engine is being held together with bubblegum, spit and bailing wire.

Sure new vehicles last longer and are more efficent. But they cost many many many times more then they used to, break down more often, have in many cases moronically long waits for even basic service. And worst of all they are rapidly approaching a point where they are non serviceable without specialized equipment and software with some manufactures locking down the ability to do even basic repairs (paccar) or in some related fields bricking your equipment if you so much as do an oil change (john deere). And while they are more efficent they are actully just as bad or worse on economy due to just how much extra weight size and crap is crammed into the vehicle.

In addition to that these new vehicles when they DO break down often turn into revolving parts doors, or even with a minor glitch will shut down until you pay some upjumped jiffy lube tech with a computer to reset the car. How many times have we seen people on here BEGGING for help with even minor computer issues that have deadlined their rig that you could bypass or reset with a paperclip on old iron? Theres at least one new thread a day on it.

Older rigs and vehicles you could bypass almost anything shy of the engine literally explodeing and at least limp it to a shop. Hell you could do an engine swap in the parking lot with a tool box full of basic hand tools and a forklift if it came down to that. Then of course there is cost of parts.

A new vehicle will set you back 10s of thousands for even minor damage. In many cases you can FULLY (engine, transmission, difs ect) repower an older vehicle multiple times for the cost of even a single repair on a new car. Hell my dads 2020 honda is a perfect case in point. He had a cracked head. Cost him $6200 with labor and the part ALONE was $2200. Our farms D150 blew its engine and i got an entire new one fresh from rebuild for $1900 and installed it myself in a day. His honda has needed multiple followup repairs after the fact and he is sitting at near $12,000 total so far and is STILL not right.

Ancidotial on my part sure, but its also a case in point since im sure many others here who are happy to wrench on their own cars have simular storys.

So yes many of us will take older vehicles because while they require more work over time, said work is a tiny fraction of the cost and the vehicles are generally more reliable and usually able to at least get you home even when something is broken.

 

That's why I miss the old Chevys. Coworker brought his old early 90s pickup into the shop the other day. So much room under the hood and no stupid plastic #### covering everything. Its refreshing to see.

Thats one of the big reasons I miss my old 2nd Gen Ram. Open the hood and all you see is 360 cubes of mediocre power lol.

 

I miss having to set points and burnt up ballast Resistors and flooded carburetors and moisture getting under the distributor cap. I could work on it, and I worked on it a lot.

 

And "3 on the tree" with rusted out cab mounts....those were the day!

 

Pump the pedal 5 times and then hold it to the floor.

 

The new stuff rust's out faster
What isn't plastic or carbon fider .. that fades & cracks after a year
3 on the tree I don't miss