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Mr Milk said..
Has the engine ever had to be overhauled, or did you get 400K up just on oil changes?
My suggestion, with your skills, if the body is still good, is to let the missus buy herself a car and then do a DIY conversion to an electric vehicle to get yourself down to the beach in.

Only oil and timing belts. (Original plugs ). Always use fully synthetic, so the engine has only just worn in.

Just another safe car on the roads of WA. Needs 3k spent on it but customer is happy to do oil and filter ! Annual inspections are needed.

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THE PIN PULLER said..



Just another safe car on the roads of WA. Needs 3k spent on it but customer is happy to do oil and filter ! Annual inspections are needed.

Give us your name and address so we can avoid you shop please.

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Harrow said..

Mr Milk said..
Has the engine ever had to be overhauled, or did you get 400K up just on oil changes?
My suggestion, with your skills, if the body is still good, is to let the missus buy herself a car and then do a DIY conversion to an electric vehicle to get yourself down to the beach in.

Only oil and timing belts. (Original plugs ). Always use fully synthetic, so the engine has only just worn in.

So, what car is it?

I think its pretty simple. The bigger the engine and the more cylinders it has, the slower it should need to rev, so the longer the engine lifetime.

I think you could treat a small 4 cylinder to the best oils in the world and its still going to wear out more than twice as fast as a larger capacity 8 cylinder.

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novetti said..

THE PIN PULLER said..



Just another safe car on the roads of WA. Needs 3k spent on it but customer is happy to do oil and filter ! Annual inspections are needed.

Give us your name and address so we can avoid you shop please.

Why would you want to avoid his shop? I agree with him in that annual inspections avoid anywhere near that sort of rust problem.

The downside to annual inspections is that you lose a lot of interesting cars earlier. I have seen far more older cars in WA and Qld than I have in NSW. Sometimes they last better because of the climate, but its probably more the lack of inspections.

I have not yet changed the timing belt on my Toyota Avalon,it's done 182K.

I bought it with 58K on the clock and the brake pads had just been changed.

Not changed them since. I do not use the brake much!

Only changed tyres,plugs,oils,air filter. No repairs so far.

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FormulaNova said..

novetti said..

THE PIN PULLER said..



Just another safe car on the roads of WA. Needs 3k spent on it but customer is happy to do oil and filter ! Annual inspections are needed.

Give us your name and address so we can avoid you shop please.

Why would you want to avoid his shop? I agree with him in that annual inspections avoid anywhere near that sort of rust problem.

The downside to annual inspections is that you lose a lot of interesting cars earlier. I have seen far more older cars in WA and Qld than I have in NSW. Sometimes they last better because of the climate, but its probably more the lack of inspections.

Lack of common sense. That is why I would avoid his shop.

Obviously that rust bucket is not that is been discussed here, why discard a car which is running ok without issues and is still economical to repair and use it.

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petermac33 said..
I have not yet changed the timing belt on my Toyota Avalon,it's done 182K.

I bought it with 58K on the clock and the brake pads had just been changed.

Not changed them since. I do not use the brake much!

Only changed tyres,plugs,oils,air filter. No repairs so far.

I had a timing belt break a couple of months ago. I've got a 2000 Camry V6, so same engine as you. They are supposed to last 150K. I always change at 100K, and they have always looked perfect. This one was shredded to pieces after only 80K. Fortunately the Toyota 1MZ-FE is a free spinning engine, so no catastrophic engine failure. Would hate to see the result if it was an Astra or similar.

Pin puller---- non structural hole. Not ideal, but hmmmm not a guaranteed crash ? I do get your point..... but.....

I am sick to death of double the hourly rate for farrrkheads who strip the sump plug by doing it up with a rattle gun, service managers who sell pensioners like my parents on a $3K service bill as the flooglwwhatsit mounting is no longer shiny so it can't resist corrosion anymore and needs replacement, plus the battery is a bit old so we will replace it at $300 when the same model is $150 at batterymart and $120 delivered on eBay....

$1500 to do an oxygen sensor....... when they are all Bosch so the generic one at $200 and solder on the manufacuturer-specific plug which takes 15mins- but they won't......

Annual inspections will support an industry that is 90% based on fleecing the customer due to their ignorance.....

Wait till they do seaworthys on our windsurfers.
Dont laugh ,
They do safety checks on motorcycle helmets . They tag electric chords . Will I have to register my floatation vest so they can check it every year ?

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Mark _australia said..
Pin puller---- non structural hole. Not ideal, but hmmmm not a guaranteed crash ? I do get your point..... but.....

I am sick to death of double the hourly rate for farrrkheads who strip the sump plug ....

$1500 to do an oxygen sensor....... when they are all Bosch so the generic one at $200 and solder on the manufacuturer-specific plug which takes 15mins- but they won't......

There are good mechanics out there. I think the key is to find one based on their name's reputation not the branding of a franchise. If its their name on the door, they need to keep customers happy.

Its the non-trade people that a lot of dealerships hire that might be the cause of some of these problems. Someone that likes cars, whether trade qualified or not, will be much better working on your car than some idiot that was hired because he was cheap.

You are using generic sensors and soldering the plug on? Ebay often has the exact one and pretty much the same price. To be fair, I am assuming they are real Bosch ones and not some sort of knock-off, but they are generally pretty cheap.

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Mark _australia said..
$1500 to do an oxygen sensor....... when they are all Bosch so the generic one at $200 and solder on the manufacuturer-specific plug which takes 15mins- but they won't......

Solder doesn't belong in an engine bay. Crimped connectors only.

(Solder creeps and breaks, especially when heat and vibration are present)

A lot of people here focusing on the car.
A saying that I have found to be true, "happy wife, happy life".
I'm pretty sure she's not hoping for a Bentley, to sit beside your relic, which you should probably keep.

In my experience if I spend a fortune on repairs to bring the car up to perfect condition.
Someone will then run into it & write it off .
So thats when I replace them at the point where I can lose the most amount of money

Guys,it's not that clear just how old the cars you are talking about are.
But the improvement in safety shell design that occurred during the first decade of this century, the increase in the number of air bags that followed it and the introduction of ABS and skid control have all made a more modern car so much safer than an older one that it's beyond a joke.

If the car you own has no ABS and skid control and less than six airbags, get rid of it now.
A senior professional colleague of mine died driving his classic Jaguar around the Northern Beaches of Sydney. Had he been driving his PA's Mazda 2 equivalent he would have survived. The difference is that great.

Anything much before 2004 is a death trap (the luxury brands had the shell worked out a little before that). Anything with out the full range of modern safety features is getting your priorities wrong.

And happy wife, happy life.

Safer cars = riskier drivers.

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Tamble said..
Guys,it's not that clear just how old the cars you are talking about are.
But the improvement in safety shell design that occurred during the first decade of this century, the increase in the number of air bags that followed it and the introduction of ABS and skid control have all made a more modern car so much safer than an older one that it's beyond a joke.

If the car you own has no ABS and skid control and less than six airbags, get rid of it now.
A senior professional colleague of mine died driving his classic Jaguar around the Northern Beaches of Sydney. Had he been driving his PA's Mazda 2 equivalent he would have survived. The difference is that great.

Anything much before 2004 is a death trap (the luxury brands had the shell worked out a little before that). Anything with out the full range of modern safety features is getting your priorities wrong.

And happy wife, happy life.

Sorry, but I think you are being a bit dramatic there. What sources do you have for your opinion, and why a magical 2004?

A classic Jaguar is a long way different to a car built after 2004 or even 10 years before. ABS was fitted as standard in a lot of Australian cars around 1994, and around the same time airbags became standard, followed by passenger airbags.

What is 'skid control'? Traction control? Great if you drive like someone ignorant of the road conditions, which to be fair are a large number of people.

I would argue that ABS has made the biggest difference, and no doubt airbags when you actually have a crash.

6 airbags as a minimum?

I don't know where you got your data from, but crash testing has been a large part of car safety for a while now, so I think there were a lot of improvements before 2004. I remember someone criticising the 'glued in' firewall of the VN commodore back in 1988, and despite people fearing that it was weak and untrusted, it was far superior to something that was designed 20 years before.

The sad thing is that in a head on collision with someone else, physics wins, so the guy in the 2.5 tonne 4wd might come out better than you in the Mazda 2, despite the safety features you have. Unless of course the 4wd is from 1980.

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FormulaNova said..

Tamble said..
Guys,it's not that clear just how old the cars you are talking about are.
But the improvement in safety shell design that occurred during the first decade of this century, the increase in the number of air bags that followed it and the introduction of ABS and skid control have all made a more modern car so much safer than an older one that it's beyond a joke.

If the car you own has no ABS and skid control and less than six airbags, get rid of it now.
A senior professional colleague of mine died driving his classic Jaguar around the Northern Beaches of Sydney. Had he been driving his PA's Mazda 2 equivalent he would have survived. The difference is that great.

Anything much before 2004 is a death trap (the luxury brands had the shell worked out a little before that). Anything with out the full range of modern safety features is getting your priorities wrong.

And happy wife, happy life.

Sorry, but I think you are being a bit dramatic there. What sources do you have for your opinion, and why a magical 2004?

A classic Jaguar is a long way different to a car built after 2004 or even 10 years before. ABS was fitted as standard in a lot of Australian cars around 1994, and around the same time airbags became standard, followed by passenger airbags.

What is 'skid control'? Traction control? Great if you drive like someone ignorant of the road conditions, which to be fair are a large number of people.

I would argue that ABS has made the biggest difference, and no doubt airbags when you actually have a crash.

6 airbags as a minimum?

I don't know where you got your data from, but crash testing has been a large part of car safety for a while now, so I think there were a lot of improvements before 2004. I remember someone criticising the 'glued in' firewall of the VN commodore back in 1988, and despite people fearing that it was weak and untrusted, it was far superior to something that was designed 20 years before.

The sad thing is that in a head on collision with someone else, physics wins, so the guy in the 2.5 tonne 4wd might come out better than you in the Mazda 2, despite the safety features you have. Unless of course the 4wd is from 1980.

I don't disagree that physics wins. To a point. Mind you I always objected to my professional colleagues who put their inexperience kids in large 4WD to keep them safe (while they killed someone else). That's what they call crocodile thinking. Mind you it didn't help them in rollover crashes.

There is nothing magic about 2004. Around that time was a transition period for when safety cells designed for upmarket cars really started to penetrate the full depth of the Australian market of everyday cars. Just from buying a series of new cars for my kids from around that time I was aware of how passive and active crash safety was improving and of the difference between ANCAP tests for the recent models and older ones. 2 airbags and no ABS was standard in (cheaper) cars in 2004. You had to pay extra for more. And don't even think of stability control. It just didn't exist at that level.

But don't take my word for it. Here's a longer term study of real life crashes.
www.monash.edu/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/632533/UCSR-2016-Update-MUARC-Report-328.pdf

Page 51 has a nice summary if you can be bothered with reading it all. The curve goes constantly down right up to today.
It still shows a 50% improvement in survival between around 2002 and today's models and, as it recognizes, that doesn't take into account crash avoidance technology in the newer cars. So less crashes to start with.

In my experience no wife happy life

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Harrow said..
Maybe if I scrape all the lichen off the car roof she will feel differently about it. I might give that a go this weekend.

I just bought a 20 yr old holden rodeo 4WD and when i climbed up on the trade box at the back it actually has LICHEN!!!!!!!.i reckon thats awesome. Ive left it alone since it makes oxygen from CO2.

yes my 2wd ute had two small trees growing in the mulch/dirt that accumulated against the back board:). Current 4wd has the odd cockroach. Kids eat heaps of stuff in the back.
Canvas seat covers and vynil flor are the go. Clean it with the leaf blower

I've got ABS in the 2000 Camry. It actually almost made me rear end someone once. I was braking fairly hard, then just as I'm about to come to a complete halt, the ABS kicked in and the car slipped forward an extra 1/2 meter.

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Harrow said..
I've got ABS in the 2000 Camry. It actually almost made me rear end someone once. I was braking fairly hard, then just as I'm about to come to a complete halt, the ABS kicked in and the car slipped forward an extra 1/2 meter.

I remember my first car with ABS and it was a 96 SS Commodore. I had learned to 'threshold brake' in the previous cars, and it took a bit of mental effort to make myself just stomp on the brakes. It really is better to just let the ABS take care of it. I even went for a bit of a fang around the road that rings the mountains around Lake George on the way to Canberra, and surprisingly the ABS was fun on dirt roads too.

The ABS on the VS commodore was excellent as far as I could tell, and it was surprising to hear that the VR commodore's ABS was not as well received. I think it had less channels, so the braking was not as effective. So, sometimes ABS is not 'ABS', but I guess the systems now are probably all good.

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myusernam said..
yes my 2wd ute had two small trees growing in the mulch/dirt that accumulated against the back board:). Current 4wd has the odd cockroach. Kids eat heaps of stuff in the back.
Canvas seat covers and vynil flor are the go. Clean it with the leaf blower

had a lancruiser wagon as a work vehicle and the employee swore he wasn't eating pies, pasties and ssg rolls in it.
one day i left a bag of chips in the back and when i opened the door next day the resident mouse had eaten the rest of the packet. the mouse was sealed in at night and living off his crumbs

So you replaced it because of a mouse ?

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actiomax said..
So you replaced it because of a mouse ?

nah, the $20 per day fuel costs

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landyacht said..

actiomax said..
So you replaced it because of a mouse ?

nah, the $20 per day fuel costs

bloody thirsty mouse

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FormulaNova said..

I remember my first car with ABS and it was a 96 SS Commodore. I had learned to 'threshold brake' in the previous cars, and it took a bit of mental effort to make myself just stomp on the brakes. It really is better to just let the ABS take care of it. I even went for a bit of a fang around the road that rings the mountains around Lake George on the way to Canberra, and surprisingly the ABS was fun on dirt roads too.

When I was teaching the kids to drive I always made them have a go at activating the ABS (after checking the rear mirror) so they knew what it felt like.

In the early days, the story was people would feel it pumping for the first time and lift their foot off the brake in panic.

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Tamble said..

FormulaNova said..

I remember my first car with ABS and it was a 96 SS Commodore. I had learned to 'threshold brake' in the previous cars, and it took a bit of mental effort to make myself just stomp on the brakes. It really is better to just let the ABS take care of it. I even went for a bit of a fang around the road that rings the mountains around Lake George on the way to Canberra, and surprisingly the ABS was fun on dirt roads too.

When I was teaching the kids to drive I always made them have a go at activating the ABS (after checking the rear mirror) so they knew what it felt like.

In the early days, the story was people would feel it pumping for the first time and lift their foot off the brake in panic.

Now there to busy checking seabreeze on there phone to bother trying to stop

When do you replace a car?

When it is knackered. Sixty odd posts to come to that conclusion. Unbarluckingfievable.