Reply With QuoteCheap credit.
I was pondering the other day that modern cars seem built better than ever using state of the art technologies with comparatively robust electronics, however I'm not convinced that the service life of cars are increasing compared to those from the 90s or 80s. For example I rarely see "W" registered cars on the road even though these were delivered only 15 years back. I'm curious to understand whether this is really the case? Is my impression of increased quality wrong? Are manufacturers engineering cars with specific lifespans in mind? Is our affluent consumer society forcing perfectly usable vehicles to have an artificially limited life? I'd welcome views and opinions, particularly from those within an insiders view of the motor trade.
Cheap credit.
I think they're built as well as ever and do last the same but cars are much more complex than they were 20 years ago so repair costs can be much higher.
Personally I don't run an old car for fear of an expensive repair bill. I expect many are the same.
My first car, a VW Beetle, was super easy to work on. With no mechanical experience I fitted disk brakes and new front axel, stereo, and refitted an interior. Routine servicing was easy too, whereas I doubt I'd be able to change a bulb in my current car.
Wouldn't the scrappage scheme have been the death knell for a lot of older cars?
Tbh a lot of the time I believe it's individual owners who dictate the lifespan of many cars. I know a chap who has a 55 plate Disco 3 and it's done nearly 750000 miles, it's a bit like triggers brush but it is still going. If it were me I would have taken it to the big scrap yard in the sky many years previous but for him its a case of the devil you know. I don't see any less of a life span of a vehicle than I would of done 10-15 yrs ago, we still get a decent mix of ages coming through our doors. I know the Land Rover market is a little different especially where the Defender is concerned but it's by no means significant.Originally Posted by jwillans
I won't say too much more on the subject because our resident Expert will be along to give his unbiased view on the matter.
There has always been things that kill off old cars. It used to be rust, now it's body control modules or ecu's.
A car will last as long as it's owner is willing to pay for it to be maintained.
I think a bigger reason that car's seem to have a shorter lifespan, is the emergence of the PCP. Everyone wants the new model, put a ton down and the same every month and you can trade your old car in and get the latest super mini.
Those cars that get traded in have to go somewhere so they flood the second hand car market with for the most part, decent motors. Therefore, the guys that can't afford, (or don't want the hassle of), PCP's have a lot to chose from, meaning they scrap their old snotters and but somebody else's cast offs.
One big cycle I tell you!
'Better' built as in as little as possible, just as much as needed. The latter does not extend to durability beyond some 10 years.
As such many parts are manufactured as sub assemblies not meant to be repaired and that even extends to bushings et all.
A great many plastic bits are used which again are designed to do some 10 years of service.
Same thing electronics which is a combination of the above.
The car has changed form a durable good to a consumable. Better built means that they give less trouble, need less maintenance for the expected life which is some 10 years.
There is a bit of a sweet spot when cars start to benefit from advanced computer aided design, receive a better corrosion protection but are not yet filled with thermoglued plastics nor operated by electronics.
The nineties are roughly when the watershed takes place. Proper offroaders and UTES are a bit of an anachronism meant to be more duarable/rapairable. Even that has changed during this century.
Just have a look at a 1975 Opel Kadett versus a 2005 Opel Corsa. Though the latter is arguably better everything, the former can be repaired almost indefinitely, the latter not. When you cannot find a functioning replacement sub assy from the breakers, for the Corsa it is eol. For the Kadett it is usually the indivual part you can service or replace. Parts are even remade! This is simply not feaseble for the Corsa.
A more luxury example is the BMW 2002 versus a 21st C. 3-series or the seventies Audis and currrent crop. The first Audis are a non worry for a mechanic whatever the mileage whereas who wants to take on a modern one with unknown service record and 200K on the clock?
So the vintage car has a way longer life than the better built modern car.
My 1983 Porsche 911SC has more than 140,000 miles; and if I can stomach the cost could probably run forever. The engine is very simple and has no computer chips - the only thing impacted by an EMP would be the electronic ignition unit vs points on the older ones. From 1980 or so onwards they were galvanised, so body should be good as long as it is not abused.
I'm not sure a brand new 911 with all the gizmos (even the steering is electronic) could keep going as long although it is superior is almost every sense.
ISTR reading something from the AA about 12 some years ago when they said the average lifespan for a car was, then, only 7 years. I think there's been a couple of credit and money scares since then so I wouldn't be surprised to see a tendency now for people to keep cars longer and for them to be kept running a little longer before scrapping them. However the massive amount of electronics in the modern car and the fact that more specialised (read expensive) repairs are required when they start to go wrong must have an influence. My old SIII Land Rover was 30 years old and still going strong when I sold it on. Repairs were super easy (read DiY) and cheap so I see no reason to doubt it's still trundling down the roads even now 5 years after I sold it ;-)
Or perhaps, the guys that can afford NOT to have PCPs...
It's not that they don't last, it's that they're uneconomic to repair: cars are cheaper in real terms then they ever have been, and so repairs, upgrades and maintenance looks disproportionately expensive.
You only have to see how quick the insurance companies are to writing a car off.
When I bought a second hand car at the weekend, the salesman selling me Gap insurance told me that insurance companies write a car off if 2 or more airbags go off... I took that with a huge pinch of salt but maybe he was telling the truth?
I think car life is mostly about the economics of repair vs replacement with a few exceptions. Used car values generally trend down to the point at which it makes more sense to buy new.
I don't think it has as much to do with build quality as the weakest link. Body can be epic but the engine packs up and it is dismantled for spares!
It's primarily about repair/maintenance costs vs residual value these days. I've an X plate (year 2000) car with approaching 130k on it - it's a bit 'saggy' and rattles a bit but the drivetrain is rock solid. Fortunately I'm pretty handy at DIY - otherwise (for example) a new set of discs and pads would be around £500 fitted which is pretty close to the value of the car (even DIY would be a couple of hundred). So each year I judge its 'continuance' not based upon age or 'quality' but on the costof keeping it on the road vs replacing it. The latter gets ever closer of course!
My Mitsubishi 3000GT is 17 years old and still looks and drives well but if you had a Vauxhall Victor from the early 1960s, it would have rusted away in 3 years; likewise a Lancia Beta.
Have you seen the price of a 25+-year-old G-Wagen?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1989-Merce...AAAOSw8-tWZWiK
Eddie
Whole chunks of my life come under the heading "it seemed like a good idea at the time".
I'm 48 years old, my series 2a is 51 and my TVR is 47. They will both almost certainly outlive me.
Unless you're an enthusiast and/or really handy with the spanners I'd say very short now, when viewed just from an economic perspective, sub 7 years and probably sub 5 years.
Reason is because new/nearly new cars are so cheap. Do a modest mileage and over 2 years you may well not need a service or tyres, so a decent little runabout is what, £200, a month, and a decent car c£300?
If you buy a 5 year old BMW 3-series (say) then you'll be lucky to get away with under £200 a month in depreciation, and £1200 pa doesn't go far in paying for a service and consumables, let alone paying for any significant repairs.
Huge over supply, cheap credit and very high garage labour charges all conspire against keeping cars on the road for long, although in fairness lots of the complexity of modern cars is around safety and genuinely useful gizmos. I certainly wouldn't want to drive a family car without PAS, AC, traction control and a host of other stuff, all of which can, and will, go wrong eventually.
Recently my other half wasn't happy when her trusty 13 year old Volvo was written off after a lorry scraped it. 3 panels and a new mirror was enough to see off a £1500 car that had years of left in it. I guess its being broken for spares now.
The modern car engine, maintained properly should go to 300-500K miles without major issues (rebuild) but the value of the car plummets fast from new, a £30k car is a £5K one within 5-7 years and a £1500 5 years later.
Repair costs and the ease of cheap finance mean you dont see so many older cars on the road; the PCP rental and 3 year itch that goes with it all contribute
The car companies need you on that cycle...well >60% of new cars sold are fleet/company owned, so they need company car owners on that cycle to keep the wheels/profit turning in our consumer world.....
If you are prepared to do a lot of your own DIY then older cars, i.e. more basic, can go on for many, many years. I’m currently running a ’96 Honda with c. 150k miles on it, the previous car was also a Honda and that had over 220k miles on the clock - and when it failed the MOT on emission I scrapped it, retaining a lot of parts to be kept as spares for the current one. Previously I had a Mercedes W124 that is still in use and has covered 280k since 1990.
I don’t have such expectations of modern cars, primarily due to the increasing reliance of ecu’s and to the increasing complexity of them in general.
R
220K:
150k:
Last edited by ralphy; 19th January 2016 at 10:26.
Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.
It used to be get shot of it within three years, before the paint starts to bubble,
Then it was before 100,000 miles,
Modern cars easily last 250,00 miles now, and with extended warranties and the liability being passed down the supply chain it wont be long before it is 500,000. With every part going into modern cars being PPAP'd down to LED's it wont be long before it is a 1000.000, with phenomenal MTBF's
Now the trend is to rent them and give it back, then get another, people seem happy not treating it as an asset,
I recently had a tour of a car repairer and as someone has already said, the insurance companies do seem to write cars off very easily these days.
Last edited by adrianw; 19th January 2016 at 10:27.
My son has just passed his test (woo hoo!) and is happily driving around in his P-reg (1996!) Renault Clio (which was bought off SC).
The sunroof and/or aerial leaks a bit (we intended to fix that, but never quite got around to it!) and it's had the odd knock (pre my son!), but basically it's a perfectly workable car.
Since we bought it, two years ago, it's gone through 2 MOTs and passed both with ZERO work.
It has to be said, whilst old, it was very low mileage when we bought it and it's still got less than 60K miles on the clock (MOT certificates indicate it's genuine too), but it rather challenges the idea that old cars were crap and new ones will last forever.
My RX8 is 11 years old. It did have the obligatory engine rebuild 3 years ago and it's showing signs of age (RX8s have notoriously thin paint, so rust more than most cars that age). I suspect if looked after it'd do another 10 years quite happily (probably with another engine rebuild), but I won't have it that long.
M
Last edited by snowman; 19th January 2016 at 10:35.
I think its also a cultural 'have to have new' thing too, keeping up with the Jonses, that and the ease and affordability of having a new car gets them changed more often, its great for people ( as above ) that just want a very cheap mode of transport rather than have any cache attached to the newness of the reg plate.
Which is what I write.
The 'sweet spot' depends a bit on the brand and the niche it sells in. Ditto the life expectancy. Obviously that is a function of years x mileage.
Bottom line remains that modern care are better built but not necessarily have a longer life expectancy because of the production methods/materials aimed at it being a consumable instead of a durable.
That was already pre war in the States and blew over thisaway; designed obsolescence in cars. It just took a bit longer for European cars to be consumables too.
Btw. The car in The Netherlands, the mobility of Dutch society, follows a markedly different trend.
There is a wonderful Dutch scientific publication from the Technical University Eindhoven: Automobilisme in Nederland - Peter Eloy Staat.
Quite a fascinating read as it provides perspective for the larger pictures.
The bodywork on a modern car certainly may last 10-15 years without any real bother as the big rust trap mistakes of earlier decades have mostly been designed out these days. The increasing amount of mandatory emissions equipment isn't anywhere near as robust. DPFs and the like are usually shagged long before 100k miles and it is a 4 figure sum to put it right. Even relatively recent models have had serious issues with other advanced systems, the Teves ABS/ESP fiasco and the enhanced SBC brakes Mercedes fitted to the W211 models show that not everything modern is reliable and when they fail it is usually expensive.
Last edited by Padders; 19th January 2016 at 11:08.
I run an 19 year old car with nearly 200k, which I've now owned for 12 years.
Still looks good IMHO and can still hold its own today. Electric everything, leather, aircon, cruise, heated seats and mirrors....the list goes on and on. Does look a bit incongruous in the work car park amongst the new BMW, Mercs and Audis but I love it and don't really give a.......
Last edited by vagabond; 19th January 2016 at 11:25.
I agree that modern cars are complex and expensive to put right, but the specialist parts market is catching up slowly but surely and filling the gaps where there is a market. That means 'modern' cars that would have been economically scrapped due to for sample an ECU or ABS module failure are now repairable. I imagine DPFs et al will come down in price too once there is a demand for them from the pool of older vehicles and secondary manufacturers move in to take a slice of the pie.
My old S3 needed an ABS module that was eye wateringly expensive from the dealer, the only parts supplier, but an ABS specialist in Birmingham rebuilt it for me for a few hundred pounds and kept it on the road.
A mate of mine has just had an ECU made up from scratch for his old Japanese pickup, again from a specialist.
The sweetspot as it has been called will just keep moving forwards.
Regarding write-offs, not all companies are super keen to do it.
My Octavia vRS is currently in the bodyshop after having had a recent front end collision. The repair bill is currently estimated around £5500+, and the car pre-accident was valued at £8800. I thought Direct Line would write it off but no, it's having a new bonnet, both wings, drivers door repair, a pile of hoses/cables/brackets etc and it will take around 3-4 weeks for the work to be done.
The previous comment about airbags going off causing a write off is correct. The amount of labour required to completely strip an interior and re-fit the bags is massive, as is the cost of any interior parts that have been damaged e.g. seats.
Last edited by Guitarfan; 19th January 2016 at 11:29.
I have an 2002 Audi TT 225 with a 142k on the clock. Runs absolutely great, granted it has had a lot of money spent on it by me in the three years that I have had it, probably what the car is worth, but I love the car and so much as been done on it I would hate to ever see it go. Had a new turbo 18 months ago and lots of other gremlins but it runs as well as if it had done 42k, and still looks great. Just one small bit of rust has started appearing above the side skirt
I have just agreed to trade in my Volvo S60 DSE having covered 114,000 miles from new.
The factors influencing my decision were, ease of access to the seating for elderly relative, known issues with engine mounts needing replacement shortly and probably most important the likely move to penalise diesel engines in London Boroughs.
The 14 year old Toyota petrol engined car remains having covered only 83,000 miles.
That's good stuff, and your car will be a good buy one day having been looked after by a fastidious owner.
Then, they will come on to a forum and proclaim that they don't build cars like they used to and new cars are worn out in 5-7 years.
If you think about it, for every 1990's vehicle on the road (or DAF!), there are tens of thousands more that aren't.
My local garage has a 1950s car for sale, does that mean all 1950s cars are brilliant, or is it an example of a rare car that has had many times its original value spent on it in maintenance, replacement parts/panels and resprays?
Porsches in particular are good examples, the ones I've looked at with huge wads of repair and service bills are indeed akin to Triggers Broom.
That's not a bad thing at all, it's just proof that older expensive cars with a passionate following are worth keeping on the road, whereas a similar vintage Yugo probably isn't. It doesn't say anything about how well they were built or how long they were meant to last.
I know the above sounds a bit contradictory to my earlier post, newer cars are more complex electrically, but you can bet that a 997 Porsche 911 won't be scrapped because of a bad ECU or catalytic converter....
Cars are generally better built and last longer than say, 30 years ago. But used, high mileage cars over 10 years old are also incredibly cheap. If there is any sort of significant work needed, the cost of repair is frequently greater than the value of the car, so it makes more economic sense to scrap it and buy another.
End result, fewer old cars on the road.
On that note if it is a pre-2009 997 there is good chance it may end up with catastrophic engine damage, the standard non turbo flat 6 of that era is an expensive disaster waiting to happen with major IMS bearing and bore scoring issues. The bearing is fixable pre failure at a £2k hit, if it fails think nearer £10K but the bore scoring isn't fixable without major replacement surgery and lots of them get it. Porsches are wonderful but reliable, errr not necessarily.
Last edited by Padders; 19th January 2016 at 12:04.
Yes, agreed, but my point was more that Porsche have a passionate and enthusiastic following, and the general value of them means money gets spent.
Several 911 SCs I've looked at over the years have had Autofarm engine rebuilds costing £10k plus sometimes. Probably didn't make economic sense, but somebody thought it made sense on some level.
Those fastidious owners I mentioned will change that IMS bearing to.... :)
In November last year, we scrapped my wife's 2003 Mercedes A140. It had 42,000 miles on the clock & she only did 3000 miles a year.
Put it in for a pre-MOT, as I knew it needed a couple of things done.
However, my local independent garage, that I've used for 20-plus years, told me it was beyond economic repair.
It needed some consumables, pads & shoes, front discs, two tyres.
It also needed two front springs (one was broken, the other was the original on the car), four brake pipes, the hand-brake caliper wasn't working correctly, plus another couple of bits'n'pieces. The right rear wheelarch had also rusted out within the arch (& out of sight, as within the plastic liner). The left rear wasn't as bad, but would also need to be rectified soon. The Mercedes 'Russian steel' strikes again.
His fag-packet estimate was 'about £900', which I didn't think was bad for the work required, but I wasn't paying it for a 12-year old car whose worth was a lesser figure.
As many others have said, it's the "beyond economic repair" hammer that kills many relatively modern cars. I have a friend that works as a tech (that's modern speak for mechanic) at the Mercedes shop. I remember having a conversation with him over 10 years ago about the increasing complexity of cars. I recall him saying that a then brand new E55 would be worth a toffee apple in 10-15 years and the slightest problem with any of the oily bits would be too expensive to fix.
Another one of my friends actually did buy an E55 about 2 years back. It cost him £6k and in the first 2 months (which was the amount of time he lasted before getting shot of it) it fronted him £3k in garage bills for the gearbox alone.
By comparison. I've almost completely rebuilt a rather basic late 80s/early 90s hot hatch using new parts for not much more than that £3k gearbox bill.
Including labour, or did you do it yourself, its the labour costs which make repairs to old cars unbearable.
As has been said, if you can spanner a little yourself you can make some savings, my runabout is a ten year old Civic, recently I had the ABS / VSA warning light come on, I tracked it down to a failed abs sensor.
Called a couple of garages and was qouted 2-3 hrs labour and a new sensor at around £120 + the dreaded, so all in £280-440.
A bit of time on google and youtube and a £15 sensor from ebay and its fixed and still only took me 3 hours so I expect in a garage you could do it in a hour, hour and a half max.
I doesn't take many of these type of bill's to see a car off.
b A good example of my comments earlier.
ANY car can be keep running indefinitely, it's down to justifying the cost and a big part of the expense is labour charges. So by doing your own work whenever possible you can significantly influence the 'is it worth repairing?' question. Feeler gauges and timing lights were the tools of yesteryear, but replacing them with a good multimeter and an OBD reader will sort out many problems on more modern cars.
A recent example: I was abroad when SWMBO's car came up with a warning light indicating a brake problem and so she took it to a main agent. They told her that the minimum charge would be over £120 plus VAT and that was to plug the car into the diagnostic system, whatever fault it could be would be more labour and parts. I get home and with a code reader and a multimeter it took just a few minutes to find it was one of the ABS sensors. A quick trip to my local breakers yard and I got two sensors for a fiver and total 'labour' time was less than an hour. Major brownie points from SWMBO and a good deal of self-satisfaction for me.
R
Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.
This reminds me of an article I read saying that a Land Rover Defender has a whole life CO2 rating which is better than that of a Toyota Prius; because the Prius will be scrapped well ahead of the Landie, plus there is all the embedded energy of production, batteries, etc. Whereas the Landie will keep on for 25+ years without trouble.
I run an old Mk2.5 MX5 which is now 15 years old and trouble free, I reckon cars are maybe getting a little too complex and high tech for their own good. I now have hankerings for a classic Merc G Wagon too.
Since break downs on most car models tend to limited themselves to common culprits, those are the first to be sourced from the breakers.
Over here the economic situation is seeing many cars kept in use by local garages and diy mechanics. The most common parts giving up the ghost are becoming scarce.
The biggest problem with the 21st C. gen cars is that there so many parts, especially those of the motormanagement system and dashbord are integrated in hotglued plastic subassemblies. Even when only one sensor part or micro switch is malfunctioning, the whole assembly needs to be replaced. Often not even cheap at the breakers IF it is available.
Intake air flow sensors are an example.
I am very pleased to read that in the UK selfemployed independants are coming up with alternative repair jobs for those assemblies.
Imo it is an environmental 'crime' to have to buy a newly produced car to replace a perfectly good one because the designed obsolescence makes the subassembly with the broken 2 euro part too costly.
The Defender versus Prius comparison is a good one in this aspect.
Also as a parallel to pre and post modern cars.
In many ways the issue is very much like ETA 2824 versus Swatch Sistem51. The latter is arguably very good, better even, yet there is no sense in service/repair, making the former (appear) more durable.
The service schedule of my new car says replace spark plugs at 100,000 miles.......chasing auto box fluid at 150,000 miles...
Based on my average annual miles of around 5000 miles that's 30 years....🤔😈
Many modern cars are 'rigged' so that even if you manage to do so, you still need to have the system reset. Again, a service offered by independents if you don't want to invest in an OBD thingamy yourself.
Really? For a bulb change?
You need to give yourself a long hard stare in the mirror.
"Bite my shiny metal ass."
- Bender Bending Rodríguez
Blimey.
I certainly wouldn't say that my years of LR ownership have been 'without trouble'!
Fixable? Yes.
Without trouble? Definitely not!!
My diesel A4 however has been pretty well bullet proof for the 8 years I have owned it and has now done 150k trouble-free miles.
I recently looked up 'bulb replacement' in my Audi User Manual. On the appropriate page, in black and white it just said 'take it to the main dealer'.
I couldn't believe what I was reading!!
For a HID, LED, or Laser headlamp unit that may well be true.
"Bite my shiny metal ass."
- Bender Bending Rodríguez
It was for bog standard lights. I kid you not!
Granted the front ones are a bit hard to get to, but it even says the same for the rear ones too - which are really easy to do - when helped by YouTube...
It is such a con.
Stoo is giving himself a long hard stare in the mirror.
My recent experience of a faulty sensor causing the car to cut out randomly (i.e. at 80mph on the French motorways halfway through a 500 mile journey) has not made me optimistic about the new technology in cars.
Simpler (older) constructions may not be as refined but surely they're cheaper/easier to keep going.
Posting Permissions
