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[quote=”twiggy02919″ post=157603]
Same thing happened to me, so I replaced my IPAD2 with a Samsung Galaxy tablet and couldn’t be happier.[/quote]Except that when your Galaxy tablet is as old as your iPad 2 was (5 years), chances are it’ll be similarly slow when trying to run the latest Android OS. And of course, 5-year-old hardware is virtually Stone Age as far as the computer market goes, so there’s every chance that you’d want to upgrade again at that point anyway, as the brand-new hardware by then will be so far ahead of your Galaxy.
Yes, that’s what I’m referring to – did you see the clickable link in my first post?
What puzzles me is this: right now, you can buy an original 1980s DeLorean and have it fully restored, by DMC in Houston, for about $65k. So why would you pay $100k to buy one of DMC’s just-announced replicas? Where’s the value in the additional $35k?
OK, the replicas will use a new engine, but is that alone worth the $35k premium over a fully-restored original?
I agree that while planned obsolescence is a real thing, it doesn’t apply to cars.
The most obvious example of planned obsolescence is the smartphone/tablet market. New versions of operating systems that can’t run on older hardware (sometimes only a few years old) or slow it down to the point of near-unusability; new phones that are 98% the same as last year’s model but with one or two “must-have” hardware additions; that sort of thing. It’s quite blatant that they want you to be upgrading your phone every year.
But cars? No. They’re too expensive. Sure, some people can afford to buy a new car outright every year, and many of those who can’t are happy to keep rolling over loans or lease deals so they can always be driving the latest model, but for most people, a car is something they replace every 5-10 years, and often not because it’s broken beyond repair, but because they just want something newer, more comfortable, with more toys.
The idea that engineers deliberately build in failure is, to me, nonsense. There are components that will wear out and you expect to replace, and there are components that you can reasonably expect to last the life of the vehicle. As Eric says, early failure is an unintended but unavoidable side-effect of the budgets that engineers have to work to; there will always be bean-counters saying “No, you can’t build that part out of that material, it’s just too expensive”, and then there’s the whole issue of automakers not actually building most of the parts themselves, but contracting out to the external companies that can meet the required spec at the lowest possible price.
The simple fact that there are millions upon millions of old cars still in regular use as daily drivers should give the lie to the idea of “planned obsolescence” in the auto industry, as should the fact that the automakers typically provide parts support for old models for about 10 years after they are officially discontinued (and, in the case of popular models, often much, much longer).
I appreciate the reply, but that thread is not very helpful because it barely mentions specific high-temp brake grease.
Providing a used part would save you a certain amount of money, which could be quite a lot if you left it to a shop and they sourced a brand-new subframe (if they are even still available), but it obviously won’t affect the labour cost.
As to how much a shop would charge, have you tried asking some reputable local shops? Ask three or four and see if they’re all roughly in the same ballpark. Consider too that dealing with rusty fasteners and any other unforeseen stuff could add a lot of extra billable hours over and above any estimates.
[quote=”MDK22″ post=156595] Electrics do not perform as well as air in any way shape or form[/quote]
There are lots of cheaper cordless impacts that can’t provide the same power as air tools, but If you spend the money to get something like the IR W7150 electric impact gun, you have a professional cordless impact that can stand toe-to-toe with any 1/2″ air gun, and which outperforms many of them. I’ve owned one for 3 years now, and I’ve yet to find the fastener it won’t break loose within seconds. Even big Loctited suspension bolts get torn out without breaking sweat.
An air compressor offers huge versatility, to be sure, but the professional-level electric tools are just as powerful.
[quote=”nightflyr” post=155558]By chance do any of these suit your purpose??
https://www.google.com/search?q=2003+Ford+Escape+2.0L+throttle+body+gasket&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8%5B/quote%5DI don’t know. They might, they might not.
I specifically asked at the Ford dealership parts counter if there was any interchange with other Zetec throttle bodies, and they checked the parts catalogue and confirmed that the 2001-03 Maverick 2.0L throttle body assembly has no interchange with any other Ford Europe vehicle.
As I mentioned in my first post, I have a gasket from the American 2003 Escape 2.0L on its way from RockAuto. Fingers crossed that will work.
Just to add to what others have said, the only real way to make money in old car resto/servicing is to be the specialist guy who everybody recommends you go to – and you often can’t reach that stage untll you’ve been a professional mechanic for decades, preferably working in a shop that deals with a lot of that sort of stuff.
My parents used to know a guy who started out as the local independent mechanic in their village. He worked on whatever came through the door during the day, and indulged his passion for restoring old luxury cars in his spare time. Fast-forward about 20 years and he’d become a specialist in classic car restoration and servicing. He had a nationwide reputation in his field and owners of classic cars (especially old Rolls-Royces and Bentleys) would travel hundreds of miles to have him do their restorations and servicing. And of course, once you’ve reached that stage, you can ask for and get serious money, because your clients are the people who can afford it.
The thing to remember is that supercars and hypercars are still just cars – they are nuts and bolts and hoses and screws and clips and connectors. The main differences are the stratospheric cost of the parts, and frequently much higher labour costs because the nature of the vehicles often means that jobs can take much longer – access is typically terrible and it wouldn’t be unusual to have to pull the entire engine to perform a plug change. But then, if you can afford the car in the first place, you should be able to afford the maintenance costs!
Sure, there will be special $$$$ factory tools you need to do this job or that job, and I hate to think how much a (say) Ferrari factory diagnostic scanner system costs, but then that holds true for pretty much all cars. Sometimes you can find a way around using the factory tool and sometimes you can’t.
The higher-end nature of the clients of supercar/hypercar dealerships may mean that they’re pickier about who they hire as technicians in terms of personal appearance etc, but at the end of the day, a supercar tech is still a tech. The only difference between them and a tech working at the Chrysler dealership next door is the manufacturer-specific factory courses they’ve been sent on.
Sorry, you misunderstand. I’ve *got* parts diagrams, the official Ford parts catalog is available to access online – just enter your VIN and bang, you can look up all the parts diagrams for your particular vehicle. The problem is that Ford parts diagrams only give you the “group number” for any given part, and that number is the same for all the different versions of that part for all the different Ford vehicles. What I need is the specific part number for that part for my specific application, and I don’t want to have to waste time going to the dealership to get that number.
I’ve never had this issue before. I’ve been a DIYer on Jeeps for the last five years, and when you look up a part in the official Mopar catalog, it gives you the actual part number, plus any relevant information about VIN breaks etc. Easy. The Ford system seems unnecessarily unhelpful.
My view is very much that annual inspections are necessary, because you simply can’t trust people to keep their vehicles in a road-safe condition. And no, you can’t trust people to drive in a safe way either, but there are traffic cops, speed cameras and other things that are out there in hopes of deterring people from putting other people’s lives at risk and catching those who just don’t care. So why shouldn’t there be some kind of equivalent for a vehicle’s mechanical safety?
I wouldn’t set much store by the statistics you quoted, at least not without proper cites, examination of methodologies etc. For sure, the root cause of most accidents is bad driving, but the effects of those accidents can quite easily be exacerbated when they involve vehicles in poor mechanical condition. Obvious question to ask: would you think it so great that Ohio has no safety inspections if someone you loved was badly injured or killed in a crash that would have been much less serious if, say, there hadn’t been terminal frame rot that would have seen the car fail an inspection in a different state?
I’ve never heard the expression “compliance bushing” before. Is that just Honda-speak for what’s simply called a control arm bushing elsewhere?
[quote=”c918″ post=151419]I’m surprised you didn’t have issues with the bolt seizing to the inside of any bushings. It’s a nightmare when that happens.[/quote]
Fortunately I’ve never encountered that. What’s the option when you do? Try and cut a circle in the rubber around the bolt so that you can turn it and the seized part of the bushing out together? Sawzall the bolt and then use an easy-out or similar to remove the section of the bolt that’s still threaded into the frame?
I guess it all changes on a case-by-case basis depending on bushing accessibility etc.
Good video. I replaced the front LCA bushings on my Jeep Liberty earlier this year, but I only attempted it because I was able to pick up the special factory drivers/receivers/forcing screw tool set on eBay at a bargain price, I think about $60 (ex-dealership tools). Because the drivers and receivers were designed specifically for those arms and bushings, it was a piece of cake, with no power tools required.
A tip I picked up on the Jeep forum was to put the bushings in the freezer the night before, and only take them out when you’re ready to install them. They shrink just enough that you can press them in with noticeably less effort. The same trick works with bearings and ball joints.
Good video. Always like to see how the pros deal with really sticky problems, and it nearly always comes down to the Big Red Wrench 🙂
Was anybody else backing away from the screen as Eric cranked the press harder?
One serious question: using the air hammer to break the driveshaft free of the knuckle. Is there any way by doing that – or using a hub puller or similar – that you could push the shaft back far enough to damage something inside the diff?