[SneakyElephant]

I HATE modern cars! Most of them are so stuffed with stupid electic gizmos (too lazy to push your seat back? press a button! gaaah!!!) that they need huge amounts of horsepower just to get them moving. And don't get me started on doing your own servicing/repairs! A quick glance at the help sections on this very forum will amply illustrate the point...having to disassemble wheel arch liners to replace a lamp is a case in point. Electronic ignition? This was supposed to make things EASIER for the motorist, eliminating the need to check the gap on your points (remember them?), but now everything is computerised to the point of lunacy. I used to own a 1973 VW Type 2 Kombi, which was the very FIRST car to have a computer connection in the engine bay so that the technician could find and correct faults quickly, but it was by no means necessary for the home mechanic to have a computer to do his own repairs.My tool kit for that vehicle consisted of a socket set and a variety of hammers, and it racked up well over 300 thousand miles before I sold on. Things like air powered washers (no electric motor- you pumped the water bottle up like a tyre!) made the car SIMPLER, not more complex. The Beetle was even funnier as the washers operated off the spare wheel! I miss those days...having said all this, I must admit that the Note is a lot easier to work on than most of the cars now produced by 'Alliance Partner' Renault. It takes HOURS to fix a headlamp on the new Megane and God help you if anything breaks when you remove it...bloody modern JUNK!

 

[flash22]

theres a few good design faults on the note like the hr16de you have to remove the inlet mainifold to get at the spark plugs and the only real way to get at the oil filter is up on the ramp, the arm rests are a pain as thay just get in the way then there down
there are some lovley faults on older cars citroen cm/mx the brakes where linked with the high pressure suspention the suspention fails you loose all braking, handbrakes on the front wheels is another good one

the bosch manual fuel injection was a pig on the mk 3 escort xr3i/s1 rs turbo and it was fitted to plenty of bmw's too

fiat strada built by robots and rusted like thay where in the ocean all there life, lancia beta was the same being made out of tin foil you could here them rust on the forcourt so im told

 

[jerry3167]

Agree with all the above!


When its comes to doing routine maintenance things like Oil changes, you at least expect it to be easy to find and remove the oil filter, and spark plugs.

Stealers capitalize on those thinking you really cant be arsed to do all that!

 

[SneakyElephant]

My personal favourite job was fitting a new clutch plate on my cousin's 4.2 Daimler Sovereign...it took us THREE DAYS (evenings after work) to jack the bugger up, remove engine and trans as a unit, then onto the bench to hammer off the bell housing and open the beast up. This was due to the way the chassis members stretched right across the frame, making it impossible to do the old plastic bag round the prop housing dodge and drop the box out on its own. There was a lot of swearing and cursing in the Elephant garage I can tell you! Cousin Chris managed to buy the car for £450 purely because the previous owner was quoted over £1000 just to fit the new plate (this was in 1997!). Apart from that, the car was immaculate...all that cream leather and wood! LOVELY!

 

[SneakyElephant]

Amendment to the above...it was 1987 NOT 97...I seem to remember having similar problems replacing the clutch on a Rover P6 too, and for the same reasons. Having said that, most other jobs were easy to do on these old cars, and they were so easy to tune too. There was a time when a pair of twin choke Webers would give any Escort a new lease of life, as many people of a certain age will tell you. As a teenager I was the proud owner of a Triumph Vitesse 2000 with t/c Webers and a megaphone pipe, with rollcage and race numbers on the doors...I used to get pulled by the law every single weekend without fail! It had to go after an incident one sunny afternoon. Halfway down Egham Hill, we were overtaken by a wheel and tyre...how we laughed! Unfortunately, when we hit the roundabout at the bottom, we discovered whose wheel it was...

 

[paperman]

memories of the good days when i used to make a few quid off people who "couldnt be arsed", because i had to learn young (tight arsed yorkshire man) i learnt a lot on my first car, a vauxhall viva of all things, ex police car with 100k on the clock and you knew it had been abused


still good to learn on and easy to work on too, the good old days of rear wheel drive, drop the prop, undo a few bolts and whip off the gearbox, change clutch and have it all back together in an afternoon, did a clutch on a fiesta, front wheel drive....took me bloody ages to do, took me longer to clean up all the spilt oil lol



for my last car i got a ODBC reader (fault diagnosis handheld thingy) manufacturers got wise and changed the canbus on newer cars, it only works on cars upto 2006 and my note is a 57 plate, buggered again

ah well back to ebay to find a new one me thinks
Edited by: paperman

 

[SneakyElephant]

I'm currently on the lookout for a Sunbeam Tiger...grrrrr! Now there's a proper motor, small block v8 with loads of torque and lightly stressed with that little light body. Decent ones are hard to find and fetch top money, but I'm a bit long in the tusk now and need a nice gentleman's toy for the summer. What would be YOUR choice for a weekend plaything? And please don't say TRIUMPH SPITFIRE!!!

 

[Rich Note]

TRIUMPH SPITFIRE - no

A Lotus

 

[flash22]

spitfire was a good little car as long as it had the rover 3.5 v8 the standard cooling was rubbish using a 2 core rad the standard lump had a habit of cracking heads warping and the carbs where a big issue, i had a 1980 mini clubman never missed a beat good as gold till it failed its mot as the a pillars had rotted out but that typical mini
re. the obd2 reader it works fine on my 59 plate my elm based reader used with a laptop works fine too with full diagnostics and data logging

 

[SneakyElephant]

spitfire was a good little car as long as it had the rover 3.5 v8

Rover v8 in a SPITFIRE??? Have you been eating those mushrooms? ((((((((((((((((oo) raaar!

 

[Rich Note]

Spitfire had astraight6 in the GT6, I think.

 

[SneakyElephant]

There were a few v8 Spitfires, but they were never factory models, just fools trying to stuff big motors into their silly little roller skates.Official models were all inline 4s

 

[Rich Note]

Plus... I like modern cars so

Turn the key and away you go.
Not like the old days... do you remember the POINTS...
Open the doors with any key...
Anyone could drive off in them...
If you had an accident in one...

and o

R.I.P.
and... 70mpg

I don't think my 50cc Gilera bike would do that
My old Scimitar SE5 neededgreasing every 3 months :-(

I LOVE them...

 

[jerry3167]

Heres my car history!


GOLF GTI mark 1 W reg

MONDEO GLX 2.0 L reg

FORD PUMA 1.7 V reg

HONDA CIVIC TYPE-R 02 plate

NISSAN 350Z - 04 plate

NISSAN NOTE Tekna 1.6 - 58 Plate
Edited by: jerry3167

 

[Rich Note]

Vauxhall Viva HC 1.3 BlueL reg (I was 17)Vauxhall Cavalier MK1 Coupe 1.9 YellowP reg (18 years old)
MG Metro Turbo 1.3 BlackA reg(20 years old)
Vauxhall Astra 1.3BurgundyE reg(25 years old)
Vauxhall Cavalier MK3 2.016VBurgundyM reg
Rover 400 1.6 Dark GreyR reg + Scimitar SE5 3.0 V6 YellowK reg
NISSAN Sunny ZX Hatch 1.8 16V LSD RED H reg

Vauxhall Corsa 1.4 GLSBurgundyL reg (had a crash in the Sunny and my insurance went very high)
NISSAN Almera GTi 2.0 16V RedT reg

NISSAN Note 1.5d n-tec Black59 plate

Edited by: Rich Note

 

[jerry3167]

Impressive list there Rich, thought I was going to see a Austin ALL-AGGRO (Allegro) ROFL!!

 

[Rich Note]

My dad was not happy when I got the MG Metro

He likes his Vauxhalls.

 

[jerry3167]

My dad was not happy when I got the MG Metro

He likes his Vauxhalls.

Yep, thats the little Beauty! Thats a great acheivement for Nismo getting the Z engine into that Micra body! Iheard that it will play all-day with Porsches, Lambo`s, and pretty much anything else that cares to try it..

They put my RAYS alloys on it too ..nice

but how they got those 18`s under it is a wonder.

 

[flash22]

Mini clubman 80Mk1 fiesta 82
Fiat 105 tc arbath 84
mk 1 Fiesta 81 (i know another one)
Corsa B 1.4 cdx 96 fully loaded i even converted the sunroof to electric
Corsa c 1.4 design 04
Corsa D 08 design 08 had this 8 months heap of $%^& needed a top end rebuild
Nissan note tekna59

been playing with cars and bikessince i was 12 anything from a 50 cc moped right up to v12 jag's turbo and superchargers - quickest car so far is a mini era turbo running 310 bhp,Rs turbo s1 running 415 bhp, cosworth engined mk 2 escort,quickest bike 1400 busa turbo

i get moreenjoyment from building engines than i do driving

 

[SneakyElephant]

Ok here goes:
Triumph Vitesse 2000
Ford Consul 2200
Vauxhall Ventora 3.3 (what possessed me to get this heap)
Ford Cortina Mk2 Savage 3000 (with a 1300 engine!)
Cortina Mk3 GL
Triumph 2000 TC
Triumph 2.5 PI (lovely car)
VW Denim Beetle (great! lol)
VW 1700 t/c Kombi w/Devon conversion (owned for 23 years!)
Vauxhall Cavalier GSI (square tailpipe model, very nice)
Nissan 300ZX
Toyota Supra Turbo
Honda Legend (had everything)
Citroen Berlingo (don't laugh, it was great)
Nissan Skyline R34 V-Spec (best car on the planet)
Nissan Note 1.5 dci N-Tec (the Sneakmobile)

TBH I can't remember all of them, there was a period in the 70s when I was keeping cars for a week then swapping them for something else (I gave away a very nice Dolomite Sprint in 1979, what a fool!).