Did you recently take on (or consider) a loan of 84 months or longer on a car purchase?
A reporter would like to speak with you about your experience; please reach out to PR@Edmunds.com by 7/25 for details.
A reporter would like to speak with you about your experience; please reach out to PR@Edmunds.com by 7/25 for details.
Options
I spotted an (insert obscure car name here) classic car today! (Archived)
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
The Mercedes Benz fuel injection system was a pain in the neck for Studebaker dealers who had to service those cars on the rare occasions a very expensive 300 SL would show up for service. My opinion is shared here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercedes-Benz_300SL
The engine's maintenance requirements were high. Unlike the current electrically-powered fuel injection systems, the mechanical fuel pump would continue to inject gasoline into the engine during the interval between shutting off the ignition and the engine's coming to a stop; this gasoline was of course not burned, and washed the oil from the cylinder walls and ended up diluting the engine's lubricating oil, particularly if the engine was not driven hard enough nor long enough to reach a temperature high enough to evaporate it out of the oil.
Exacerbating the problem were the large oil cooler as well as the large volume of oil (10 liters), both oriented more to racing than to street driving, which virtually guaranteed that the oil would not reach a high enough temperature. In practice, many street drivers would block off airflow through the oil cooler, and the recommended oil change interval was 1,000 miles (1,600 km). Operation of the clutch was initially very heavy, later roadster having an improved clutch arm helper spring which reduced the pedal force. From March 1963 to the end of production, a light alloy crankcase was used on a total of 209 vehicles.
=====================================================
Changing ten liters of oil every 1,000 miles is an unreasonable maintenance requirement. This is one of those European automotive "firsts" that was not ready for prime time.
As Packard used to say "Ask the man who owns one".
Such poppycock. This mechanical injection system propelled millions of Benzes throughout the world for probably 20 years or so.
I'm not surprised American dealers couldn't cope with them. Same problem with SU carburetors from England. American mechanics just botched them up because they were not properly trained.
Gullwings were built to go 140 mph out of the box. These are not Cadillac Eldorados.
And, the Gullwing had the first "Slant 6" engine as well.
True the cars have to be revved to be kept in order, they need frequent valve adjustments, they like to drink a little oil...the price you pay for bleeding edge tech. The driveability concerns IMO are as much a problem of the sales force than anything - people should have been educated on how these cars should be driven, and I think in NA, most were not. But maybe the salesman who was used to selling Scotsman two door posts to spinster librarians just didn't know or care :shades:
The difficulties weren't about "fuel injection", they were about choosing direct injection of the fuel in the 300SL---which as it turns out wasn't much of a benefit at all for a road car.
Gullwings run great if you drive 'em right, and they are incredibly reliable cars, compared to say a '55 Jaguar or Ferrari. You can use them as daily drivers if you wish. Just wind 'em up.
There aren't many '55 cars that can keep up with one.
If anyone wants to loan me a gullwing to use as a daily driver, I'll conduct that testing :shades:
Believe me the 3.8 was not an upgrade. You got a little extra power and a whole lot more problems..... Thank God I had an extended warranty.
2025 Ram 1500 Laramie 4x4 / 2023 Mercedes EQE 350 4Matic
The tranny in my 3.8 Taurus was going too, they weren't spared. I would floor it and it wouldn't shift into 3rd without lifting off the pedal.
2025 Ram 1500 Laramie 4x4 / 2023 Mercedes EQE 350 4Matic
He then got a later model with a 3.8...I don't know what happened exactly, but it had an engine fire and was a total loss. I remember the windshield wipers had trouble parking properly, he had to get that fixed a few times.
2025 Ram 1500 Laramie 4x4 / 2023 Mercedes EQE 350 4Matic
I thought that the 1955 direct fuel injection system was only used on the 1,400 Mercedes Benz 300 SLs that were built. I never knew it was put into millions of cars.
Maybe that is why STP got so popular. It would be cheaper to use it than than to change 10 liters of oil every 1,000 miles.
I'd imagine the 3.8 in the Taurus would be even harder on the transmission than the 3.0, since it had more torque.
My grandparents had a 1989 Taurus LX with the 3.8, 140 hp. Seemed like an awesome car at the time. They tended to trade every 3-4 years, so it didn't stay around long enough to have any serious problems. I think it did stall out once or twice toward the end.
It was replaced by a 1994 Taurus GL, with the 3.0, and also 140 hp. It was an okay car, and one of my cousins still had the thing as of Easter 2009. When Granddad gave up driving back in 2004, they had offered to give it to me, but I didn't need another car, and really didn't want it, as it always smelled of antifreeze. I'd imagine that it would've been more reliable than the '89, if my grandparents had kept the '89 long enough for it to start having problems. But at the same time, it just seemed more generic, rental car-ish, etc. Interior was cheapened, but not as bad as they'd get in later years.
I guess if you wanted a sturdy, reliable domestic midsize back in the mid/late 80's, your best bet was probably one of those old dinosaur Mopar M-bodies...Gran Fury, Diplomat, or 5th Ave. With a body design that dated to 1976 (and even then was oft referred to as a heavier, larger, plusher Dart), a transmission that could be traced back to 1957 and an engine to 1955, it was low-tech enough to be fairly reliable and long-lived.
On the downside though, you got a car that was midsize on the inside, full-size in weight, almost full-size in exterior dimensions, and worse-than-full size in turning radius and fuel economy.
A second runner up would probably be something like a Bonneville sedan with a 305 or Cutlass Supreme with a 307. Their 4-speed overdrives weren't as durable as the old 3-speed Torqueflite, but by that time had most of the bugs worked out. And the V-8 engines were pretty reliable. Just about everything else from the domestics was FWD by then, more complex, and troubleprone.
I remember a 1985 or 1986 Bonneville actually making CR's recommended list of used cars one year. For a domestic back then, that was almost never done!
Its a shame that Ford had spotty reliability issues with them. In 1986 there was nothing like it and the formula Ford created with it continues today in all the best selling midsizers (FWD, 4cyl or V6 option, basic or loaded depending on your budget).
IMO the Fusion should be wearing the Taurus nameplate.
2025 Ram 1500 Laramie 4x4 / 2023 Mercedes EQE 350 4Matic
And you don't have to change the oil every 1000 miles. Just put that in your myth-basket along with Rolls Royce locking their hoods and the 100 mpg Oldsmobile that was bought back by the panicky dealership. . :P
Electronic injection was used by Alfa Romeo in 1940 but it never evolved into more modern systems.
The Hillborn system worked pretty well for racing engines but wasn't suitable for the street at all. The Benz system was more flexible for both street and racetrack.
Also, in the parking lot at work, a white '86-91 Taurus. Didn't notice which trim level. Paint was faded, and it was missing a trim piece, but overall still looked pretty solid.
All one has to do is Google the phrase “Mecredes Benz 300 SL oil change intervals” and there will be plenty of hits which explain that Mercedes Benz itself recommended oil change intervals at 1,000 miles and that the fuel injection system was high maintenance including this gem from Hemmings Motor News: http://www.hemmings.com/hmn/stories/2009/09/01/hmn_buyers_guide1.html
"The mechanical parts are around, but are expensive; if you have to buy a newly rebuilt fuel-injection pump from Germany, it would cost north of $12,000," he explains.
The only person I could find who said the system was NOT high maintenance was a mechanic interviewed by Car & Driver who specializes in fixing them.
That is why I said the Mercedes Benz fuel injection system was "not ready for prime time" and was not installed in millions of vehicles.
if the car is driven continually at low speeds and for short trips....
Trust me on this one --this stuff you're reading is either misinformation or only partial information not delivered very well. I have no interest in misleading you. The car is dead reliable and the fuel injection system works beautifully. It is indeed a prime time system, as all its racing and rallying victories attest. All you need to do is read the factory service manual to know how to keep it running great, and drive it like a European car, not like a Buick.
The GW is in no way a fussy car. Get in it, turn the key, have fun. Day after day, year after year.
Only real complaint? They get hot inside.
And I've never heard of an injection pump going bad. I'm sure it happens but not to anyone I know who has one.
More to the point of this discussion we are talking about 1955, when car makers were still recommending that you "de-coke" your flathead engines and when any engine was lucky to go 100,000 miles before a rebuild.
Of course cars needed more maintenance than now. Of course parts on rare cars cost money. Try to buy an original air filter for some types of American muscle cars---how's $4,000 sound?
Modern eyes have to put the amazing Gullwing in the perspective of 1955. It was like it came from another planet compared to any other car!
If one cannot envision the world in 1955, one cannot accurately criticize the cars that lived in it, or assess their impact, I don't think.
I still see a fair amount on the road, I guess becuase they sold so darn many of them.
The Cutlass is a nice car too, they just looked so much better in the 2 door variety, IMO.
2025 Ram 1500 Laramie 4x4 / 2023 Mercedes EQE 350 4Matic
From what I've learned about the 3.8's problems, they were largely due to the engine compartments being too tight for that engine. Again, the 3.0 was a narrower 60 degree design, which resulted in more space for air circulation and dispersion than the 90 degree V angle of the 3.8.
This was true of the 3.8 Fords, Sables and Continentals that shared that FWD platform. As the crowding under the hood compromised ventilation, the inside of the engine compartments were hotter than those of the Taurus/Sables with the 3.0. I've heard from sources I consider reliable that this condition adversely affected not only the head gaskets, but batteries and transmissions.
Crowding may not be the only factor for explaining the problems associated with the 3.8 vs. the 3.0. The Windstar minivan also was plagued with a high rate of head gasket failures. Was the Windstar based on the Taurus platform?
The Vulcan 3.0 was generally considered to be a decent engine. Not great, but not bad, either. However, one thing that has always puzzled me is why it was an overhead valve design, instead of an overhead cam. I mean, you'd think that since it was the '80s, it was an all-new engine, and the Taurus was otherwise advanced, that it would have had overhead cams. Ford fianally replaced the 3.8 with a OHC 3.0 in the redesigned '96 platform, and kept the 3.0 vulcan as the base engine.
Winter 1979 in southeast Ohio I was at a party with some very interesting, opinionated people. Mixed among the Lynyrd Skynyrd and drinks with smoke wafting through the house were some amazing insights to life the universe and everything. Some guy who had been staring straight on at a spot on the wall - instead of the women - suddenly began speaking in tongues: "They weld the hoods shut on every Rolls Royce before they leave the factory!"
We all began to wonder aloud what kind of factory that could be. Cracker factory? Peanut factory? Pizza? PIZZA! All this factory shop talk began to make us hungry.
I wished someone would have welded the hood shut on my 1971 LTD parked outside because its hinges had come "unhinged" when it flapped open on the highway like Big Bird's cousin, Rusty Rooster. So we made a beer+pizza run in my friend's 1968 Superbee and the cops paid no attention to the old Mopar muscle car rumbling down the street late at night. It was a pretty common sight then along with all the other aging Detroit-Sunoco-260 club survivors. That was the perfect breeding ground to foment (ferment?) a lot of mysterious claims for exotic furrin cars and oil company conspiracies.
It's surprising to find some of that mystical enlightenment has survived even after all these years of Detroit's lost opportunities to innovate and lead. Management tends to believe its own myths and legends right up until the market "betrays" them by shopping the competition.
Despite Google, Wiki and medical cannabis it turns out that fuel injection like other postwar innovations really were the future. Henry Ford and Alfred P. Sloan didn't have to be dragged kicking and cursing to the concept of innovation or competition. Look at the postwar difference with the arrival of the "whiz kids" in Detroit by comparison. And we're still arguing what? carbs were still king in 1955?
Great, now I've got the extended version of "Freebird" running through my mind, and have a craving to watch "That 70's Show"!
I can just picture Red Foreman saying "I can't believe they only offered me $500 for the Vista Cruiser. I'll let it rust in the driveway first." and Kitty responding "But honey, it IS rusting in the driveway!"
History tell us what was worthy of survival. If nobody imitates your ideas, or the ideas you think are noteworthy, they probably weren't as good as you thought they were.
Detroit eventually made the huge mistake that the CIA used to call "drinking your own bathwater". You can't be believing your old myths after their time has passed.
I disagree with that statement because fuel injection was IN the future, but the future had not arrived in 1955.
It is correct to give Mercedes Benz credit for releasing the first four stroke gasoline engine with fuel injection in 1955 BUT modern fuel injection systems did not originate from the 1955 Mercedes Benz/ Bosch mechanical system. Modern fuel injection systems are based upon the electronic fuel injection system pioneered by Bendix and licensed to Bosch http://www.carhistory4u.com/the-last-100-years/inventions/fuel-injection
The “Electrojector” developed by Bendix in the United States during the mid 1950s was one of the first electronic fuel injection systems. From 1957 it was offered as an option by Pontiac, De Soto, Chrysler, Dodge and Plymouth.
However, it was not reliable and was only fitted to about 35 cars.
.
Bosch later obtained patent rights to Bendix’s Electrojector system and during the 1960s Bosch developed their own “D-Jetronic” electronic fuel injection system.
=====================================================
If I were playing the role of automotive critic (which I often do) I'd personally pick a far less formidable target, and not one so universally revered throughout the world. :shades:
Now where's that AMC Gremlin?
I think Chrysler was the first brand to come up with the idea of a rebate, basically paying somebody money to buy your car. Although I'm sure that, in the past, if a car sat around on a dealership lot for too long, eventually they'd cut you a deal to take it off their hands.
I think engineering innovation takes a substantial amount of time to translate into showroom impact, and sometimes it goes unnoticed. When most people open the hood in the showroom, they don't know exactly WHAT is under there but it had better look hi-tech and modern . Maybe the innovation of "engine covers" had more impact than the engines themselves.
I was objecting to fawning over all things European and specifically fuel injection because the Bosch fuel injection system of 1955 was a technological dead end while the one that did lead to modern fuel injection was based upon Bendix patents.
Since this is supposed to be a classic cars discussion board, there should be some discussion of true classic cars that had such things as front wheel drive, dual overhead cams, engine power that put the MB 300 SL to shame and a long racing history that included victories in both Indianapolis and Le Mans. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duesenberg
Unfortunately, the Commission of "historians" headed by Lord Montagu of Beaulieu only deemed four American cars worthy of the top 26 slots and did not include such cars as Deusenberg, Cord, Cadillac, Chrysler, Oldsmobile (the first mass produced car) or Packard on the list. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_of_the_Century
They have a sales contract from 1931 back when they were on Oakland - Pontiac - Something else dealer.
1931 Pontiac with a 1927 Chevy trade.
Financing was for 14 months and the total interest was $31.
Why? Because these early inventions were successfully used, and inspired improvements.
Yeah, sometimes it just takes years, or decades even, before some of those early inventions really catch on.
On the subject of fuel injection, I wonder if GM would've had the resources, if they really wanted, to put fuel injection on the downsized '77 Caprice et al? As it stands, that year you had a choice of a 250-6 cyl with a 1-bbl carb and around 105-110 hp, a 305-2bbl with 145 hp, or a 350-4bbl with 170 hp. They wouldn't come out with fuel injection until the TBI 4.3 V-6 of 1985, which had 130 hp. The 305 was a 4-bbl by that time, and put out 165 hp.
If they really put some effort to it, would TBI have been reliable enough that GM could have fielded it in 1977, and more or less made it work right?
Now, Cadillac offered fuel injection on the 425, and the Olds 350 used in the Seville had fuel injection, but I'm not sure what type of units those were. Were they just TBI, or something more sophisticated?
Seems like usually, whenever the domestics try something high-tech, it backfires initially, and they retreat back to the tried-and-true. Chrysler's first two attempts at fuel injection (1958 high-performance cars and 1981-83 Imperial) resulted in most of them being swapped out for carburetors. And even when GM first offered that TBI 4.3 V-6 with 130 hp, in trucks they used a 4-bbl carb instead, which put out 147.
Basically American automotive innovation pretty much stood still between 1941--1981 or so. It was 40 years of...well...some very interesting and legendary cars, but very little in the way of leading the world into the future.
If the Big Three were the US Navy, they'd have built more battleships right through the 1970s.
I think the turning point might have been the Aero T-Bird and the Corvette C4 and the Buick GNX----not big splashes, but definitely Detroit "crawling out of the hole".
Unfortunately Europe and Japan got such a head start, it took another 20 years for America to catch up and go head-to-head in technological innovation in the global automobile market.
and at least GM with out on a limb (not exactly new tech, but different) going with a clone (the Corvair), but in an American size.
Ford just went with a shortened big car to combat the new small car wave.
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
What would have been slick for the Big Three was to move right into FWD, and try to copy the MINI, but bigger, rather than try to copy the VW/Porsche setup or try to make big cars small. An American BMW 2002 would have been a home run, but we had no engines or transmissions for such a car. Our engines were too large and our transmissions truck-like.
I think the 1978 Chevy Malibu and its siblings actually deserve some credit. At the time, they were overlooked a bit because they weren't nearly the big turnaround in intermediate cars that the previous year's Impala/Caprice were to big cars.
But, look at the automotive landscape today. The most popular market segment is cars that are roughly 1978 Malibu-sized, with roughly 1978 Malibu interior volume. Sure, today they're FWD and powered by 4- or V-6 engines, rather than RWD and V-6 or V-8, but like it or not, today's version of the 1978 Malibu is the Accord, Camry, Altima, and Fusion. But oddly, IMO, NOT the current Malibu. It's a bit tighter inside, and I'd say more like a '78 Nova in interior room than a Malibu.
But, other than the trim size, good fuel economy and use of space, and decent handling, there wasn't anything really cutting-edge on the technology front about a 1978 Malibu. No fuel injection, DOHC, overdrive transmission, etc. They didn't get computer controls until 1981 and initially that was a shot in the foot.
In some ways, Chrysler was actually a bit cutting edge in that timeframe, for a domestic at least. All three 1979 R-bodies that I've owned have had digital clocks, computers, and lockup torque converters. Okay, so the computer was better known as "Lean Burn", and the lockup torque converter would tend to make the tranny shudder around 45 mph.
But of course. Why say it in a one syllable word when you can say it in four? Nothin but the best! :P
The '66 Toronado was like someone making a 40 lb. laptop computer. Not clear on the concept.
Maybe GM was trying to harken back to the magnificent Cord L-29.
Oh man I used to put snow tires AND chains on my Toro when I lived in Colorado---it didn't "go" through snow, it destroyed it.
I remember when I was 5-6 years old, I had a fascination with digital clocks, and those Chrysler clocks seemed really cool.
Yeah, but think about what the Toronado would have been like if it had been RWD. Just think of all the extra room freed up by not having a transmission or driveshaft hump. In fact, those Toronados had completely flat floors. Most FWD cars today actually have bigger humps than a lot of RWD cars did back in the day!
The Toronado was all about looks and style, not space efficiency. If they had tried to give it a bigger back seat, more headroom, a higher seating position, tighter wheelbase, etc, they could have. But it would have looked goofy.
As for ease of assembly/servicing, well, having the longitudinal engine and that special transmission meant that the same frame could be used for both FWD (Toronado/Eldorado) and RWD applications, so you had increased versatility. In 1971, the same basic structure was used for the FWD Eldorado/Toronado, RWD Riviera, and the entire B- and C-body fleet.
And that Toronado FWD layout was pretty durable, too. Much more so than the transverse layouts of the Citation, Celebrity, and all that 80's crap.
But I still like 'em because they were different.
Oh, GM still does that, with the current Impala!