My hourly pay was 40p when working in a garage before my apprenticeship, a gallon of petrol for my Honda SS50 cost 73p, my pals with their 2 stroke Fizzies etc paid even more.

 

The garage owner berated me for spending close to 2 hours pay on a can of coke and a Mars bar at lunchtime, he was right and it always stuck with me but I had no choice, my mother had died and I was pretty much starved at home, my father kept food in a fridge locked in his wardrobe, there was no way that I could have had a packed lunch.

 

I dont know how much my starting pay was at my apprenticeship but recall vividly that it was a significant drop from my 40p an hour cash in hand mechanics salary and I now had to pay tax and NIC, there was however thank heavens a subsidised canteen where egg & chips cost 11p, sausage egg and chips 21p and first year apprentices like me had a 10p discount so my one proper meal of the day cost me 1p.

 

I also had to pay £10 a week rent to my father, later on he took in a lodger which turned out to be his girlfriends daughters boyfriend and only charged him £5 per week saying he was not eating meals at the house, except he was, that was my cue to move out.

I was on £18 a week as an apprentice mechanic, but also worked on the petrol pumps.... 77 pence a gallon. 

&  had a FS1E. 

& a 1959 Morris Minor that had been my uncles, then traded for an Anglia, then a Hillman Imp before my 17th birthday. 

Edited 7 March, 20242 yr by Rooted

By the age of 20, maybe 21 I was driving a Triumph Stag, it did 16mpg and cost 10p per mile to run as petrol had risen to £1.60 per gallon by then.

 

I had just finished my apprenticeship and was a Junior Draughtsman and guess what, it turned out that all we had been told as 16 year olds was lies, my starting salary £3850 IIRC was less than my 4th year apprentice pay!

 

But I still had paid day release for another 4 years, I had been working evenings and weekends as a mechanic, welder, paint sprayer in a rented workshop since 17 years old which carried me through those difficult years, looking back inflation must have been rampant then, petrol going from 73p to £1.60 per gallon and my wages similarly.

Edited 7 March, 20242 yr by J.R.

When i stopped going to Day Release i got an extra £10 a week. 

1 hour ago, J.R. said:

My Grandfather said that from the 30's right up until the 80's two motoring costs were an absolute constant, a gallon o f petrol cost the same as an hours pay for a skilled man (we would say person now) and a single spark plug cost 5 shillings and when I checked he was absolutely spot on.

 

Spark plugs got cheaper with mass production techniques and road fuel became cheaper in real terms and vehicle ownership became democratised and available to the masses.

 

When I had my moped a gallon of fuel was far far more than an hours wage as an apprentice, I will have to do some googling to see how much.

When I started as an apprentice, I had to do a 48 hour week and was paid in todays money, £2.50 or £2 and 10/- as it was back then, I started driving 2 years later and petrol was then 3 gallons for £1.

46 minutes ago, J.R. said:

By the age of 20, maybe 21 I was driving a Triumph Stag, it did 16mpg and cost 10p per mile to run as petrol had risen to £1.60 per gallon by then.

 

I had just finished my apprenticeship and was a Junior Draughtsman and guess what, it turned out that all we had been told as 16 year olds was lies, my starting salary £3850 IIRC was less than my 4th year apprentice pay!

 

But I still had paid day release for another 4 years, I had been working evenings and weekends as a mechanic, welder, paint sprayer in a rented workshop since 17 years old which carried me through those difficult years, looking back inflation must have been rampant then, petrol going from 73p to £1.60 per gallon and my wages similarly.

We really had it hard in our day, we had no option other than to go to work to help support our families. Todays kids have never had it so easy.

5 hours ago, Winston_Woof said:

Why does everyone forget V4s (or even V2s)

I've not forgotten them, I just like V8,s V10s and V12s better 

32 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

We really had it hard in our day, we had no option other than to go to work to help support our families. Todays kids have never had it so easy.

 

 

56 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

We really had it hard in our day, we had no option other than to go to work to help support our families. Todays kids have never had it so easy.

Tell that to the young folk who have to pay for University tuition or those who can't even get onto the property ladder who pay more in rent than a mortgage would cost.
They might have a few more technological conveniencies but kids today are financially far worse off than the generations before them. The only generation who are less well off than those before.

Edited 7 March, 20242 yr by @Lee

3 minutes ago, @Lee said:

Tell that to the young folk who have to pay for University tuition or those who can't even get onto the property ladder who pay more in rent than a mortgage would cost.
They might have a few more technological conveniencies but kids today are financially far worse off that the generations before them. The only generation who are less well off than those before.

 

Young folk?

 

Those in their forties are still paying student loans back and some will have children at university. so that would now be two generations?

2 hours ago, @Lee said:

Tell that to the young folk who have to pay for University tuition or those who can't even get onto the property ladder who pay more in rent than a mortgage would cost.
They might have a few more technological conveniencies but kids today are financially far worse off than the generations before them. The only generation who are less well off than those before.

 

This is true sadly.

Current Western youngsters are the first generation in a century where they are considerably poorer than us older generation due to the sh1te deal we have handed down.

 

Also The West is on the slide as this Asian, mostly Chinese, century.

 

 

Edited 7 March, 20242 yr by lol-lol

5 minutes ago, Stonekeeper said:

 

Young folk?

 

Those in their forties are still paying student loans back and some will have children at university. so that would now be two generations?

Yep. One of Labour's biggest mistakes was introducing tuition fees IMO

22 minutes ago, @Lee said:

Tell that to the young folk who have to pay for University tuition or those who can't even get onto the property ladder who pay more in rent than a mortgage would cost.
They might have a few more technological conveniencies but kids today are financially far worse off than the generations before them. The only generation who are less well off than those before.

IIRC, there are more people going to University today then there was back in the 60s, back then it was the domain of the elite and those with the very highest level of GCSE passes and I have never been able to get a foot on the property level either.

 

However the last 15 years have been tough for youngsters and when I referred to todays kids, I was more thinking about my own, and the youngest is 36 so in the strictest sense, they are really today's kids I admit, but my kids have had it far easier than I ever did.

Edited 7 March, 20242 yr by Graham Butcher

University tuition would have been as attainable to me as flying to the moon, it was not even dreamt about, 2000 pupils at y school, perhaps 2 from my year went on to university, they were either young Einsteins or had rich families.

 

I was 13 years old before I realised that not everybody lived in a council house, my mums bosses son (middle class family) stayed at our house when we went to the company pantomine outing, he asked me if we had never lived in a private house and I had to ask him what one of those was.

 

And yet there was an opportunity to go to university through my apprenticeship, to be sponsored by the company as a student apprentice, I think that was always my mums plan (she was a personnel officer) and her dying wish, I worked very hard towards it in the first 2 years and was on the small selection list but the company chose not to risk their investment and commitment because they could see I did not have any family commitment behind me.

13 minutes ago, @Lee said:

Yep. One of Labour's biggest mistakes was introducing tuition fees IMO

 

Agreed but it was the Con/libs who trebled the fees in 2012?

2 hours ago, Rooted said:

When i stopped going to Day Release i got an extra £10 a week. 

 

When I stopped day release I was 24 and went straight out on the Contract Draughtsman circuit earning 4 times what my then Senior Draughtsman salary was, I was the first of an exodus probably aided by me rubbing their nose in it Harry Enfield Loadsamoney styley! The company (2500 employees) then gave all the drawing office staff a big raise which did little to stem the losses.

 

I did well out of them and have no complaints, if I had not gone off the rails I would have finished day release in 4 years and not 8 and maybe had a further chance of university sponsorship.

 

It was an excellent apprebticeship, second only to Rolls Royce at the time, I never considered any of the several other offers, my mothers words were imprinted on me, that was after she resigned herself that her grease monkey son was not accepting being pushed towards being a Doctor, Dentist, Lawyer etc and had set his sights far too low on being a motor mechanic.

@J.R. I never went back for the 3rd week.  

The last thing the garage needed was people coming checking up on my progress or work practices. 

FFS .... my life stories and political injustice ranting.

 

JUST GET BACK ON TOPIC!

 

@xman  tell us your truth about electric vehicles because at present there seems little new being posted. 

There's chit chat threads elsewhere. Or you can get eachother's whatsapp to chat off topic on there.

 

https://www.speakev.com/threads/whats-more-efficient-than-regenerative-braking-police-assisted-braking.183631/post-3578551

The 12v battery might be the cause for all those electrical issues seen in the 2 runaway-EV stories. The linked post talks about his "mate" had similar problem with ZS EV, where it lit up with errors and had to stump on the brake really hard to stop. Post pointed out similar brake assist problem with Nissan Leaf should 12v battery failed.

 

It's about time EV's get rid of the ancient lead-acid 12v battery.

Or a big ORANGE ring that pulls the KILL switch / fuse right under the steering column.

 

 

Edited 7 March, 20242 yr by Rooted

Does ICE cars with stop/start button have such kill switch? In case of same catastrophic 12v electronic failure?

Not really, you can try yanking on the parking / emergency brake, stamping on the brake pedal and if the accelerator is doing nothing and the engine keeps going you might be stuffed.

When a diesel starts running on the oil (run away) then it keeps on going, not so bad if the car is on it,s side in a ditch. 

19 minutes ago, wyx087 said:

Does ICE cars with stop/start button have such kill switch? In case of same catastrophic 12v electronic failure?

At least ICE cars have a gearbox and some form of clutch plus usually independent control system from the engine. Possible to disconnect the engine from the drive train.

 

The simplicity of an EV drive train has to rely on high reliability of its control system as the electric motor generally can't be disconnected from the wheels

Edited 7 March, 20242 yr by xman

Not necessarily any physical / mechanical connection with an autobox, or an accelerator and much the same e-brake as with BEV,s, PHEV,s.