Re: MOT station trying it on?

In article <eB4yk.4072$hr.475@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Chris Whelan <cawhelan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

In article <bVNxk.23123$1i2.10581@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Chris Whelan <cawhelan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I'm old enough to remember with astonishment reading in the motoring
press that a car somewhere in the world had run 100,000 miles on the
same engine.

Blimey, when was that, back in the forties?

Nope '60s. Of course, many cars then were powered by the BMC A series
engine designed in the forties...

The actual basic design of the engine doesn't seem to make that much
difference to its life. The A series being a prime example.
The first version (803) was lucky to do 40,000 miles before requiring a
complete overhaul. Each later incarnation upped this mileage by a
considerable amount - the '1000' unit mainly because it changed to full
flow oil filtration. And then better production tolerances and bearing
materials etc on later units.

I was asked to fix a work colleague's Minor 1000 that had a fault
described as " a bit down on power". It was only running on three
cylinders, and rattled badly even by A series standards. The valve gear
was so badly worn that a pushrod had jumped out of place! It certainly
hadn't done more than 50,000 miles, although to be fair it clearly
hadn't been well maintained!

Try running a modern car and not maintaining it. You'll get problems too.

My brother ran an Ital to well over 150,000
miles - and it wasn't the engine which killed it.

What a masochist! I disliked the Marina/Ital with a passion.

Same here - but my brother likes a cheap basic practical vehicle as a
runabout, and it was an estate. He has plenty other cars for fun. ;-)

There was good reason for the mechanical weaknesses of the Morris Minor.
Post WW2 austerity meant a lack of suitable materials, and of new
production machinery. The design of the Moggie was hampered by what was
available.

If that were the case the XK 120 would never have appeared. Makers were
encourage to make for export and given priority with material supplies if
they did. And of course the MM used a pre-war engine at launch - not the A
Series. Which is a post war design. I doubt anyone designed a new engine
thinking poor materials etc would be the norm for ever - they might as
well just have used current ones.

To design and build a car over 20 years later, using essentially the same
drive train and suspension, was sheer lunacy.

I'd agree with that - yet we're forever reading here and elsewhere that a
simple car is what's needed. No fancy bits and pieces. Exactly the same
principle then with the Marina - no complexity like the Austin 1100 series.
Of course today the 1100 isn't thought of as complicated - but then
things like FWD and fully independent suspension were by some.

BTW, the Ital wasn't released until 1980, so not a great example of how
well 1960's cars lasted :-)

As cars got cheaper and more plentiful they got scrapped earlier - and
that is even more so today.

By the end of the sixties, the big improvement was in lubricating oils.
The use of multigrade oils, with newly developed additives, removed the
need for regular decarbonisation, and greatly reduced cylinder bore wear.

Absolutely. As did better materials and production tolerances.

Chris

--
*Sherlock Holmes never said "Elementary, my dear Watson" *

Dave Plowman dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Chevy Volt question
    ... mile for a car that gets 25 mpg at $4 per gallon). ... average electricity rates (and they are quite a bit higher in the ... cents a mile it would take over 150K miles of driving ... on the gas engine. ...
    (alt.autos.toyota)
  • Re: Looking for info on Mercedes diesel engines...
    ... fast when the car key is on a ring with heavy other ... engine compartment and also below car) for any ... > Toyota Avalon he owns today, with 100k miles, service records, service ... them from the one hole to the other (to hole 2, ...
    (alt.auto.mercedes)
  • Re: MOT station trying it on?
    ... engine designed in the forties... ... admitted to at least another 40,000 unrecorded miles while the speedo ... the very worst car I have ever driven was a 1.3 Marina. ... I'd have thought those figures would be pessimistic by the late sixties. ...
    (uk.rec.cars.maintenance)
  • Re: MOT station trying it on?
    ... engine designed in the forties... ... admitted to at least another 40,000 unrecorded miles while the speedo ... the very worst car I have ever driven was a 1.3 Marina. ... I'd have thought those figures would be pessimistic by the late sixties. ...
    (uk.rec.cars.maintenance)
  • Mercades 280SE Auto (W126)
    ... I've got a Merc 280SE with very few miles on the clock and it is ... the engine won't give me more than a modest amount of power 1700 rpm, ... what made me put the car down was that I was driving away from ... After two attempts at this it would not restart, ...
    (alt.auto.mercedes)