This Youtube video caught my attention, this was the generation of cars that I started motoring with and from which my expectations of longevity & reliability were formed, they have had to be reconsidered in recent years.

 

The glory days of motoring, a vehicle driving at an average of 60mph 6 days a week and serviced every Sunday morning could only optimistically be expected to manage 20000 miles before destroying itself with main & big end bearing failure if something else did not let go first.

 

I have started the video at the relevant bit but if it floats your boat its worth watching from the beginning, highlights are the suspension on the Morris Minor being even worse than a torsion beam axled Octavia 3 and what was then considered to be heavy traffic conditions on a motorway, something that most drivers of today will have never experienced and could only dream of.

 

Fuel consumption was pretty rubbish as well but having owned most of those vehicles I can assure you that without the restriction of modern day traffic driving flat out everywhere I never ever got anywhere close to those figures, probably half that.

 

I can recall a couple of rare occasions where I bought a minter, a car driven by a pensioner on Sundays only that had got to 30 or 40000 miles and was still sounding sweet, not a rattly old dog, they would always need a decoke & valve grind to get any performance out of them due to being clogged up, but that done, being driven by myself or my pals who all thought the road was our personal racetrack, they would never manage 6 months or 3000 miles before the engines had blown or were as rattly, clattery, wheezy and oil burning as any other example.

 

 

Edited 6 January, 20206 yr by J.R.

I could buy any Ford and it would be sure to have the death rattle, the minimum needed was an oil change, now oil pump, strip the rocker shaft and reprofile all the rocker arms on an oilstone to remove the indentations that made tappet setting impossible, reassemble with the shaft reversed front to back and upside down so the rockers bore on the unworn portion, doing that could if there was not significant crankshaft & bearinh wear make it silent enough to sell on but if it was driven the tappets would needt to be reset every 2-4 weeks.

 

I remember driving (flat out of course) from Sussex to Cornwall in a minter MK1 Cortina 1500, it really was the sweetest motor we had ever had yet the first thing to do on arrival (270 mile journey) was reset the tappets & points, top up oil & water before the holiday could even start 🙁

Edited 6 January, 20206 yr by J.R.

Have to disagree with you on that. I've got a 1984 porsche 924 with nearly 150k miles on and the engine is absolutely perfect. It starts first time even with k jet and on the coldest of winter days (hence was my daily for 5 years). Its an absolute joy to work on compared to our passat which is an absolute pig to work on. Last year I took the cross member off to do some tidying up and bolts that had been there for 35 years came straight off, where as trying to remove some of the bolts on the passat that had been there less than 10 were completely rusted solid and needed heating hammering and eventually cutting to remove. 

@caprixpack

Do you know the price new of the excellent German engineering of the Porsche 924 in 1984 compared to a 1984 VW Passat?

http://evo.co.uk/porsche/924

 

They were built in the vw Neckarsulm factory alongside other vag cars, using lots of vw components and a modified version of the vw "van" engine. Stuff just isn't built the same as it used to be

My Dad has said this for years. Old cars were **** pretty sometimes but **** mostly.

Edited 20 January, 20206 yr by Aspman