Piston Slap: New Life for Old Tooling… Or Not?

TTAC commentator Halftruth asks:

Hey Sajeev,

This question came across my mind recently whilst reading all of the sedan death watch articles on TTAC. What happens to all the tooling and hardware when a model is discontinued/killed off? Can any of this stuff be recycled/redeployed?

Consider the Chryco 200, discontinued after 2 years. Will FCA mothball that stuff or throw it out or… something else?

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China To Scrap 5.33M Non-Compliant Vehicles In 2014 To Improve Air Quality
Piston Slap: FREE Cressida, Sanjeev!
Jonny writes:

Hey sanjeev, i’m looking for some advice on what i should do here. The car: 1987 Toyota Cressida, 170,000kms (i live in vancouver, BC), usual mid-eighties toyota rust, other than needing brakes it seems to run great. i paid exactly $0.00 for the car.

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Huge New Fuel Source Found: Old Cars

Talk about unfortunate timing: Just as the scrapping incentives all around the world are running out, a Japanese company found a way to turn old cars into fuel.

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Canada Cash for Clunkers: CA$300

Three-hundred dollars Canadian is not a lot of money for a car that functions. But it buys you—well, the Canadian government—a lot of greenwashing. OK, some. “Retire Your Ride” pays the three bills for any currently registered Canadian car produced before 1996, “the year the government introduced more stringent emissions standards.” Canadian Driver dutifully reports, “These pre-1996 models produce about 19 times more air pollutants than newer cars and trucks.” Wow! Nineteen times! The Clean Air Foundation is in charge of sending any one of five million-ish eligible cars to the crusher, in exchange for CA$300 or discounts on public transit passes, bicycles or memberships in car sharing companies. As my father said to me on many memorable (if imminently lamentable) occasions, “How much is this boondoggle going to cost me?” This one, me, nothing. Canadian taxpayers, CA$92m. Canadian Driver saves the withering analysis for the end of their article, but it’s worth the wait…

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  • Probert They already have hybrids, but these won't ever be them as they are built on the modular E-GMP skateboard.
  • Justin You guys still looking for that sportbak? I just saw one on the Facebook marketplace in Arizona
  • 28-Cars-Later I cannot remember what happens now, but there are whiteblocks in this period which develop a "tick" like sound which indicates they are toast (maybe head gasket?). Ten or so years ago I looked at an '03 or '04 S60 (I forget why) and I brought my Volvo indy along to tell me if it was worth my time - it ticked and that's when I learned this. This XC90 is probably worth about $300 as it sits, not kidding, and it will cost you conservatively $2500 for an engine swap (all the ones I see on car-part.com have north of 130K miles starting at $1,100 and that's not including freight to a shop, shop labor, other internals to do such as timing belt while engine out etc).
  • 28-Cars-Later Ford reported it lost $132,000 for each of its 10,000 electric vehicles sold in the first quarter of 2024, according to CNN. The sales were down 20 percent from the first quarter of 2023 and would “drag down earnings for the company overall.”The losses include “hundreds of millions being spent on research and development of the next generation of EVs for Ford. Those investments are years away from paying off.” [if they ever are recouped] Ford is the only major carmaker breaking out EV numbers by themselves. But other marques likely suffer similar losses. https://www.zerohedge.com/political/fords-120000-loss-vehicle-shows-california-ev-goals-are-impossible Given these facts, how did Tesla ever produce anything in volume let alone profit?
  • AZFelix Let's forego all of this dilly-dallying with autonomous cars and cut right to the chase and the only real solution.