Re: Maintainable diesels


"Ivan" <ivan'H'older@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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"Huw" <hedydd[nospam]@tiscali.co.uk> wrote in message
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"Autolycus" <mar2006@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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I recently sold my Rover 218 Turbo diesel, and bought a 2001 Astra
1.7DTi,
but I'm alarmed by its total lack of maintainability - I can't even set
the
tickover because it's "drive by wire".



Unless you buy a ten year old car you will not find such a beast with
either
a diesel or petrol engine. The electronics have contributed to todays
cars
being more reliable with lower running costs than ever before while
lasting
much longer and polluting far less. A win-win situation if ever there was
one. The electronics have been forced on manufacturers by emission
regulations to the benefit of everyone as it turns out.

Huw


Apologies for re-posting this link <
http://htdig.honestjohn.co.uk/news/index.htm?news_id=560 > but I own one
of
these vehicles with 150,000 miles on the clock, it cost shirt buttons to
run
is simple to maintain and appears to be infinitely reliable.

Yes they are reliable on the whole. Definately far from unique though.



It seems to me that all manufacturers want to do nowadays is make
megabucks
on service charges

Hell the latest Vauxhall diesels can travel up to 30,000 miles between
garage visits. Even if the services are twice or thrice the price of the old
4500 mile services of old 1990 Astra's they are dirt cheap per mile.




and astronomical repair bills, or force people into
dumping relatively modern vehicles because of high maintenance costs.

Yaaawn.
This has been a gripe of the same type of person since my dad were a boy.
It gets worse as you get older. "They don't make them like they used to" is
a frequently heard phrase. 'Thank God' thinks I. Cars are more reliable and
last longer on average than ever before.





A classic example being that despite being a front wheel drive, the clutch
can be replaced on the aforementioned model Astra in about an hour by a
competent mechanic.

Of course some car models are faster to repair some features than others.
Some have components that last longer than others. Vive la differance.



Compare that to the modern Fiat (a bit further down the thread under
'Clutch
problem') any technical reason why say a timing belt replacement couldn't
be
a straightforward 60 minute job on the majority of vehicles?


My Fiat does not have a timing belt and has no service interval for valves,
timing or any other maintenance schedule apart from fluid and filter
changes. The accessibility for clutch changes does not look too bad for such
a small car.
At the other extreme my Land Cruiser is infinitely more roomy under the
bonnet for all maintenance but does require a timing belt change every
90,000 miles which takes no more than an hour and a theoretical valve
clearance adjustment which I have never done. Oil changes on my model year
were required every 4500 miles but I have always used truck oil and changed
every 10,000. Surprise surprise the latest models with exactly the same
engines have official 10,000 mile oil change periods.

My other vehicle has official variable service intervals which equate to
around every 14000 miles for me.

All are diesel and all are nicely refined and all have been very reliable so
far but the Fiat is fairly new and none have much exceeded 100,000 miles.

Even my old Land Rover has had a totally reliable drivetrain over 21 years
and over 10,000 hours of use. It is fairly maintenance intensive and much
more expensive to run than more modern equivalents though and always has
been. Drivetrain simplicity does not equate to a certain low running cost.
It must have a combination of build quality, low depreciation, low service
requirement, high reliability, economy, low insurance cost and fuel economy
and lastly, and this gets more important for older vehicles, reasonable
repair costs. If repair costs exceed a certain percentage of the vehicles
value per year on average then it should be disposed of.

Huw


.

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