I"ve got to agree with everything but the part about the automobiles. I say that for several reasons. One is that the extended life of the newer vehicles comes as much from the advances in both oil quality as well as filtration as anything else. Think how many vehicles made before about 1955 had no oil filter at all, and to the best of my knowledge synthetic oil wasn"t even invented at the time. I"ve seen an older diesel engine (3306 CAT to be exact)that was run nearly every day for close to 12 years, running a good quality oil, that checked standard on both the rods, and mains when torn down to repair a pinhole in one liner. I"ve also seen an excavator pump with nearly 10,000 hours on it before it needed repair. That, according to my pump guys, is about twice what they normally run before needing a rebuild. It"s all due to running good oil, and keeping it clean)
While the newer vehicles may go for 150,000 miles that"s only the powertrain. Usually the plastic trim and things like that are shot and either not repairable or not available to be replaced. With the older vehicles, many had metal trim that could easily be repainted, and reused. Too, back then there was a limited amount of parts available, like points, caps, etc, etc, so most mfgs used the same parts across many of their lines of vehicles. Now days it"s like they invent something new all the time just to keep it proprietary and keep the price up as much as possible. that usually means that even though they make a dozen other needed parts that cross lines, it only takes one "special" part that"s not available, and the whole car is junk. That rarely ever happens with the older vehicles unless it"s something extremely rare.
Talking about the cost, think about it like this. I can easily go down to most parts houses and get everything to tune up an older vehicle, and do it myself, for less than $200. Many of the newer vehicles have one part of their ignition system that will cost that much, or more. I know some of them have individual coil packs, and those alone cost nearly $100 each. Then between the special tools, and computers needed, and the cost of each, it becomes something that you can"t do yourself. In other words by the time you pay for parts, and pay for someone to do the work, you easily double, or triple the ongoing cost of a new vehicle -vs- an older one. Between that, and the planned obsolescence, I"ll take an older car any day of the week.
Last, to address the fuel economy aspect of the older vehicles -vs- the new ones. When my "55 Chevy wagon was on the road, I was getting about 23 MPG out of it. That was with a 283 that had a decent cam, solid lifters, and a 450 spread bore Holley carb. It was backed by a 4 speed Saginaw transmission and a 3.08 geared rear. I"ve got no idea how many HP it was pushing, but it would easily spin the tires in at least 2 gears, and I"ve topped it out around 150 MPH with that particular gear setup. With the original 3 speed, and a 3.73 gear, I could spin tires in all three gears, and do it until I got off the gas. Find a new car with that kind of HP, and getting that kind of MPG, and it won"t be the average grocery getter. That being said, back then most folks weren"t as worried about the cost of fuel either, so it wasn"t that uncommon to see a V8 in the "grocery getter", where the engines in most average cars now are V6 or inline 4, unless you get into the sportier models. In any case it"s those 4 and 6 cylinder engines that are getting the the really high MPG, and the new V8"s with all the fancy fuel injection, electronic ignition, etc, are still getting about the same MPG my 55 did, with an old school carb. I will admit that I did have a strobe ignition -vs- a set of points because I was getting too much point chatter at high RPMs)Even then that was 20 year old plus technology, not the latest and greatest.
In the end, when you take everything into account, the "lower" cost of a new vehicle -vs- an older one is more than offset by the high maintenance cost for the newer ones, and the need to completely replace it with yet another new car, within the same amount of time the older one can be repaired, and reused...and continue to be repaired and reused long after the newer ones are scrapped and made into the next new one. Sadly the same seems to hold true for both construction and farm equipment.
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Today's Featured Article - Earthmaster Project Progress Just a little update on my Earthmaster......it's back from the dead! I pulled the head, and soaked the stuck valves with mystery oil overnight, re-installed the head, and bingo, the compression returned. But alas, my carb foiled me again, it would fire a second then flood out. After numerous dead ends for a replacement carb, I went to work fixing mine.I soldered new floats on the float arm, they came from an old motorcycle carb, replaced the packing on the throttle shaft with o-rings, cut new ga
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