But maintenance remains important. You still have filters to clean, fluids to check/change, etc. Yourself, or a qualified technician can do those.

Ignoring those basics will eventually result in an undriveable or severely damaged vehicle. Service techs I know have told me they get customers who have not changed oil in +10 K miles, then wondered why their engines were ruined.

Through the years, I’ve stopped by the old shop and noticed that almost no one carries extra parts and tools around anymore…classic car guys excluded.

Engineering, cell phones, and AAA have almost eliminated the “roadside mechanic”.

-ted

He said, “You need some adventure in your life. I’ve got an AMF-era Harley that’ll put grease back under your fingernails.”

That Corolla broke down, for the first time ever, on our way to the Toyota dealership. Fortunately, it’s only a 10 minute walk to our house. It’s turns out to be a failed alternator. So, next day, the fixed Corolla (with no power steering) fetched $3000 in trade in for a new Camry.

My family concluded that somehow the Corolla knew we were about to sell it and went on strike for the first and last time.

Who says the Corolla doesn’t have a soul?

I’ve lived with daily drivers that ranged from an unrestored ‘49 Chevy p/u (in 1999) to carb’d motorcycles year round in TN weather to very high mileage cars and the parts that need to be replaced from time to time. With enough experience most failures can be detected and planned for well in advance. I no longer rely on used parts when possible b/c that partly worn out part is going to wear out sooner rather than later. Using this method my two high mileage vehicles are getting more reliable instead of the other way around… VBG!

Driving an old car just requires more maintenance more often and a little planning ahead in case the engine vapor locks or some guy wants to tell you all about the old truck his Daddy had that looks alot like your truck. Or the aircooled VW that doesn’t climb the hills very fast. Or the old car with drum brakes that can’t safely go down the mountain at the same fast pace as a modern sports car.

FWIW though I prefer my daily drivers to be reliable and ready to go when I am so I keep them well maintained.

And with the advent of GPS units, Mapquest, etc getting lost has become much less of an issue than it was before.

In the old days, Crappy tires were totally intransigence, if u wanna to order a part where they dont have it in stock, u need to go there paid for it first. Can u use your plastic card to order over the phone? No dice. So u need to arrive at the store to pay for it plastic or cash then wait patiently for it to arrive and pick it up there. Is hard if your only car is not working at that very moment.
Anyways now there’re many other types of parts stores around u no need to deal with Mr. Parts Nazi anymore.
They do get bigger now in store footage, but also closing many smaller stores. So kind of gave more opportunity to other competitors.

Another annoying issue is they hire high school kids to run the parts counter. They only knew how to operate the computer and nothing else, whatever is not listed in there = u cannot buy it. Is nothing wrong to give HS kids a chance to learn, but when u need some advice, u feel more lost than them, I am sure they are even more frightened when ask these difficult questions.
They should either properly train them or hire some more experienced person.

Just to bring this back to the topic of cars: …and that’s why I don’t like the Toyota Prius.

That said, I recall reading the owners manual of my brothers ‘62 Lark. The manual advised that in the case of engine overheating, pull over and wait a while until it cools off.

In ‘62 people might have had time to pull over and wait. Not today. Even if one was willing, imagine a cop’s reaction – no way are you just going to sit by the side of the road for a half an hour or more. You’ll have a tow truck whether you want one or not.

I think there should be some Godwin rule appropriate for using the word “soulless” when describing a car. It’s such a default position.

when Windows goes bad, it really goes bad

Having used Windows since 3.1… when it actually went GOOD?

Honestly, Windows started working decently since NT, 2000 or XP, the last one enjoyed by most people.

Up to the advent of NT based Windows, you ALWAYS prayed the stupid thing not to crash. And saved frequently your work, which I currently still do.

This is one reason why I love to travel an old car. Mind you I said “travel” not “commute” or “drive”… for daily driver type stuff I prefer a reliable new(ish) car. But for long trips, the old car wins, hands down. It really is more about the journey, not the destination. Many of my trips are just that… long drives without a real destination. The last few summers I’ve driven the old Jaguar around Montana, Idaho, BC & Alberta. This summer I’m driving down and back up the Pacific Coast with my two sons (oldest southbound, youngest northbound – swapping them by plane in LA.) No schedule except their flights. No real plan beyond following our nose with a few changes of clothes, and a box of tools & spares. If the car breaks, we’ll fix it. If it doesn’t that’s fine too.

We leave in mid-July (12th-14th), and you’re all welcome to follow along on my website. Should be a blast.

–chuck

but by your own admission, its useless with today’s cars, cell phones, GPS, onstar, and AAA

You are correct — I’m not an expert on women either :)

I’m not an expert on cars OR bikes…

Or women, apparently.

I’m an electronics Engineer in my mid-30s and I own (and have mecnanically restored) several old cars, and my viewpoint is similarly tempered. For me at least, there’s a certain satisfaction in diagnosing and repairing a problem that doesn’t involve plugging-in a scantool.

When I see an old car, an old prop plane, steam locomotive, etc. still in operation, it gives me the warm fuzzies because I know that it’s because someone understands and loves their machine. I understand and appreciate modern technology as an Engineer, but it doesn’t evoke that feeling (unless it’s something I designed myself).

Electronics may be able to perform the job of controlling an engine much better than the pressure/vacuum, electromechanical and mechanical systems they have replaced, but computers are soulless in their perfection.

That Mr. Sutherland has apparently not done so (at least as I gather from the article) tells me that duct-tape-and-bailing-wire repairs are a lot more fun to reminisce about than they are to do.

It also happened far, far more often. Old cars were, for all their simplicity and ease of maintenance, quite crude and problematic. People don’t know this because, quite frankly, they don’t need to put up with that kind of crap any longer**

Take the carbuerator (please, ba-dum-boom!). When that anachronistic lump of metal was excised from the engine bays of cars everywhere, all sorts of problems just up and vanished. Between that and the need to continually make sure the engine’s timing wasn’t off, cars are quite simply better. With that improvement in precision comes these side-effects:
* People don’t need to know what to do, nor should they be expected to. Just like computer users today shouldn’t be expected to put up with crap like editing CONFIG.SYS.
* When something goes wrong, the precision of the machine means it’s not as easy to fix with a few hand tools on the side of the road. Again, to stretch the computer analogy: when Windows goes bad, it really goes bad.

I’d consider this a good thing, on the whole. Once cars became an appliance and not a hobby for me, cleaning carbs and screwing with timing and checking fouled plugs and all the crap that went with an older car became decidedly less amusing. Fixing a side-of-the-road incident when you’re a single teenager is one thing; as a parent with two toddlers in tow, it’s quite another. I’ll call CAA, thanks.

I remember that in 1976, I had a girl out on a date in my (recently purchased used) ‘67 Chevelle, and the tranny got stuck in 1st and 3rd at a red light because of the cheap 4-speed shifter that the previous owner had installed in it – I had to get out and crawl underneath to set the linkages to “neutral”, while horns blared. You’d think the chick would have been impressed at my quick thinking and mechanical prowess… but nooo, she was pissed at me having a crappy car.

So goes my life. Replaced girl, then bushings later on.