Should "Beaters" Be Taken Off the Road?

upstatedoc

What's an "oil bather carb"?

lemko

I remember these two girls from a poorer neighborhood who had a 1984 or so trashed Lincoln LSC with a crapped-out air suspension on both the front and back. The car looked like a lowrider.

andre1969

What's an "oil bather carb"?

There's a paragraph in this Wikipedia article that explains it better than I could. Basically it was a type of air filter setup that had oil in the base of the assembly. It was common in cars until around 1955-56 I guess, and it offers superior engine protection in dusty climates. They pretty much went away as more and more of America was paved over, cutting down on the dust, but they're still common on off road equipment and such. They also have their downsides, such as being messy to clean, and they have to be overtly huge if you want more airflow. They also increase the amount of pollutants a car puts out, because oil does get sucked, at small quantities, into the combustion chamber and burned.

upstatedoc

10-4

bumpy

There is no way a lifted truck or a lowered car is as safe in an accident avoidance situation as the stock vehicle.

Lifted truck yes; lowered car no. A properly lowered car has a lower center of gravity, stiffer springs, and better shocks, all of which improve handling. :shades:

Car lowering gets a bad name from the bozos who cut their stock springs, ride around on the bumpstops, and blow their struts in a month. :sick:

andys120

Actually the K&N Filters sold today use oil to keep particles in suspension. They are recyclable and work pretty well unless they are over-oiled which will screw up the MAF sensors.

Mr_Shiftright

You should be able to bust those nose-up Lincolns for improper headlight alignment then. That should be part of the safety inspection.

Inspections don't really "punish the poor". What they do is punish people doing something wrong who happen to be poor. Not the same thing.

lemko

What's even scarier are vehicles that appear to be fine, but have all kinds of underlying issues not visible to others. Stealth beaters could be that beautiful mid-80s Benz with pads so worn down the rotors have grooves worn in them and the stress on the spindles causes the bearings to dry out enabling the wheels to literally fall off.

Mr_Shiftright

High mileage cars are always scary, since at around 250,000 miles they have really lived out their predicted (and engineered) lifespans. I personally find little merit in pushing a car beyond 250K or so. It's risky and the bragging rights don't justify the potential dangers. Ive had 3 catastrophic failures with high mileage cars, all suspension related, and all resulting in a loss of control----albeit at low speeds (thank you Higher Power).

fezo

Yeah, my 80 Accord ended its life as a stealth beater. Had I been aware of that staus sooner it would have been retired earlier. Mechanically it was fine and while the body had rust it wasn't bad and a Maaco paint job made it look fine.

Then I had it in for a checkup because I was going to be taking a long trip in it and it did, after all, have 167K on it. I get a call telling me the parts connecting the body to the chassis had serious rust. When I went to pick up the car they had written "NOT SAFE TO DRIVE" on the bill.

Didn't want to wait until I hit an emergency stop and have the chassis stop and the bodykeep going...

Mr_Shiftright

I actually saw (well ten minutes after it happened) an old beater broken in half after an accident. Rusted all over. If I recall, it was an old Audi 4000.

pickupman78

"When I lived in TN decades ago, the program was eliminated."

TN MVI

It seems that motor vehicle inspection is alive and kicking again in Tennessee.

joe29001

Oil bath air cleaners were used well beyond 55-56 (in trucks, anyways). I'm not sure when they were discontinued, but my '64 Ford has one and I've seen them in early '70s Ford trucks too.

stever

My mom hasn't complained about the new IM test in Chattanooga yet (maybe her '90 Mazda is too old to be subject to it?). Or maybe my mom is too old to put up with it, lol.

Hmm, maybe if we got her car to fail the IM, that would convince her to quit driving (she's managing ok at 86, but ...).

I wouldn't call her '90 a beater. It has some wear and tear but she's maintained it over the years. It has about 90,000 miles on it and I've thought about talking her out of it from her and driving it from Idaho (to use here as my beater and get her off the road :shades: ).

gagrice

Our 90 Mazda 626 still ran good. It had some noises in the front suspension, so I sold it. Did not want it falling apart on some relative that might borrow it. It only had 93k miles. Got $1200 for it. It just passed smog with flying colors.

nippononly

At least theirs was still level, LOL! :-P

lilengineerboy

Lifted truck yes; lowered car no. A properly lowered car has a lower center of gravity, stiffer springs, and better shocks, all of which improve handling.

Car lowering gets a bad name from the bozos who cut their stock springs, ride around on the bumpstops, and blow their struts in a month.

I second that. A lowered vehicle has a lower center of gravity which improves handling (which is why you hear about SUV rollovers and not tuner Civic rollovers). The spring rates on lowering springs are increased to compensate for the reduced travel, and those springs should be paired with shocks/struts that are either adjustable or designed to be used with the increased spring rate.
I also agree that there is a lower limit though. I wouldn't want to drop a vehicle more than an inch or so if I didn't want its chin spoiler to scrape on a bots dot.

lemko

My 1988 Buick Park Avenue might not yet qualify for beater status as it is defined here, but my neighbors sure seem to be determined to turn it into one. My Park Avenue is parked in front of my house whereas the other vehicles are garaged or parked off-street. I came home from work last night to see the grille busted out on my Park Ave. A baseball-sized hole is in the right center of my grille with two "teeth" missing. I have the pieces, but it'll probably take a pretty strong waterproof epoxy to fix it. Fortunately, I was able to find a grille on an internet parts site. It looks like an easy fix. I'll let you guys know how it goes when the part comes in.

imidazol97

If you have the pieces, I was going to suggest PL caulk. It's polyurethane. I buy it in the caulk tube at Lowes and it's meant for applications joining construction items. It would hold your grill pieces together and can be trimmed away and be almost invisible.

It works sort of like liquid nails. Only it remains somewhat flexible. I repaired the screw stub that holds a roller for the meat/cheese drawer on our Maytag refrigerator with it. Used it for construction of bottle rockets for the kid's Science Olympiad competition devices.

lemko

I found something that does work. It's called Elmer's Ultimate High Performance Glue. It claims to be 100% waterproof and appears to be working as we've had very wet weather here the past two day. The only bad things are it takes 4 hours to set and 24 hours to completely dry. They recommended clamping, but the break was in such a way, the pieces were held in place just by fitting them back together.

A crazy thing happened last night a few blocks away. Some bozos were firing a gun from a red 2000-2005 Chevrolet Impala for the hell of it. They shot up a guy's Hyundai Santa Fe and the bullets richocheted off the pavement into the fuel tank of a new Chevrolet Impala parked in front of it. There was nobody out there for them to shoot at, these idiots just wanted to try out there new weapon and shot up some poor old guy's ride. Looked to be at least a .40 caliber by the size of the holes. I hope they catch these idiots before they kill somebody.

Mr_Shiftright

Fools like that have a way of eliminating each other from the gene pool.

upstatedoc

Keep your head down!

aatherton

"... K&N Filters sold today use oil to keep particles in suspension..."

K&N filters use a waxy oil spray to impregnate the fibrous filter media so it will trap particles better than if dry. Particles are not in suspension - that term refers to particles in motor oil.

Once the spray dries for use, the K&N filters are essentially dry filters, completely different from the old oil bath air filters, whose media was saturated by sitting in a pool of liquid motor oil which collected the dirt and had to be changed periodically.

Car makers changed to dry filters because the technology of pleated paper filters developed to where they were almost as good as the oil bath. And they were cheaper, cleaner, required less servicing, and more compact. The oil bath filter was the size of a hatbox sitting on top of the engine.

I am not sure that reduced road dust was a factor in changing to paper filters. My parents took me on trips in our 1955 Buick Roadmaster and I learned to drive on it. This was an air-conditioned, top-of-the-line luxury car, and the highways then were as good as they are today minus the Interstates. The Buick had an oil bath air filter.

Mr_Shiftright

Oil baths were good, but expensive. Paper filters and their houses are cheap, cheap to make.

I saw a good candidate to be hauled off the road. It was a Nissan 4X4 pickup...all four fenders rusted, windshield cracked horizontally (!!) and the fumes coming out of the tail pipe were so impregnated with unburned hydrocarbons it actually made my eyes tear as I followed the car and the fumes got sucked into my fresh air vents.

I felt like ramming it. The driver did not look poverty-stricken either.

Probably his "beater" work truck. Can't imagine how he got through smog.

I call K&N filters "noise enhancers". :P

gagrice

I call K&N filters "noise enhancers"

My sentiments precisely. I wasted $400 on a K&N for my 99 Suburban. Made it a lot noisier and lost about 1 MPG. I complained and the truck shop said I needed a better breathing exhaust system. Another $450 down the toilet. No gain in power or mileage. I will stick with stock in the future. It did make the 5.7 sound like a big block Chevy.

bumpy

The filter alone won't do much. What you really needed was a good CAI.

Mr_Shiftright

A good beater wouldn't even have an air filter, or it would have one that hadn't been changed in ten years.

nippononly

last night - I was just behind a mid-90s Chevy junker (Lumina, I think?) with body damage on the two sides I could see, cracked glass and glued-on taillights.

Just as I noticed him and made preparation to get as far away as possible, he dropped his whole exhaust, muffler and all (and my fleeting impression is that it was hanging by thread and rubber bands before it let go, but I couldn't swear to it). With no time to react, I banged right into it. Oh boy what a noise that made! Now my Echo is leaking oil, so it is at the shop to determine what damage the collision caused. I have a nasty feeling it is going to be expensive...my best hope, I think, is that it just damaged the oil filter and $29.95 will send me on my way. But my luck is never that good. :-(

So I am beginning to think everything older than about 10, maybe 12, years just ought to be retired for good from street-legal status, unless they pass a very rigorous annual inspection. Could it be semi-annual...?

andys120

Ask your insurance company if they'll cover it, assuming you have collision.

fintail

That inspection idea is not much different from what exists today in Germany and I assume most of Europe.

nippononly

Yeah, I've got collision, and I hope they will cover it if it is that expensive. Thing is, collision is the only coverage I have at a higher deductible, $500. :-(

fintail: the more I think about it, the more I think the annual inspections should begin the same time as the smog checks do in California: when the car is six years old.

oregonboy

Do you have comprehensive coverage? I once got smacked by a "highway alligator", one of those semi-truck tire treads that you see along the roadside.

A pickup in front of me ran over it and kicked it up. He had just changed lanes in front of me, so I was closer behind his vehicle than I would ordinarily follow and had no time to evade the tread. It broke my Tacoma's grill and bent the radiator support.

When I contacted my insurance agent, she said "sure, that's covered under your collision policy, $500 deductible." I replied, "I don't think so. The tread hit me. It's no different than a truck throwing a rock and breaking my windshield. Comprehensive coverage; $50 deductible."

I paid the $50.

I don't know if your case can be interpreted that way. Was the exhaust pipe still in motion when you hit it? it hit you?

james

nippononly

Yeah, it was sliding along at about 50 mph when I hit it. You have given me food for thought - thanks! :-)

Mr_Shiftright

If you hit a moving object you are in "luck", so to speak.

andre1969

I was always under the impression that collision only covers when you hit something with your car AND it is your fault. Something unavoidable like a deer or loose exhaust system running out in front of you...things that aren't your fault, are covered under comprehensive.

I wonder, if you had been able to get the license plate of the car that dropped the exhaust system, if you could hold the driver accountable?

I also have to confess that I did something like this with my pickup truck back in 2006. First, early on that year I overloaded it, and the only thing I can figure is that the frame sagged down so far on that the tailpipes got caught between the underside of the truck and the rear axle, and that popped them loose where they came off the muffler (single exhaust, but two tailpipes coming off the muffler).

Well, they were wedged up in there pretty good, so I just left them there. Until one day I was on Route 50 driving into DC, and suddenly I hear this rattling sound. I pulled over, and the one support still holding those tailpipes on had finally torn, so they were basically dangling over the rear axle, dragging on the road. At that point I pulled them off and threw them in a nearby dumpster once I got into DC.

A couple months later, I was driving into Baltimore with that truck, and all of a sudden I heard a dragging sound. Pulled off in front of the Ravens' stadium, looked up under. I guess, since the muffler was no longer supported at the rear, it was too much stress up front, so the pipe leading into it started to break, letting the muffler drop down until the trailing end of it dragged on the pavement.

Stupid me, I my first instinct was to try to grab it with my bare hand. Warning: those things are hot! I ended up kicking it loose with my boot, grabbing a rag out of the truck, and using that to pick it up and throw it back in the bed until I could dispose of it properly.

I'm just thankful that, both times, I was able to catch the parts before they actually came loose!

I ran the truck like that for awhile...hey, it still had a catalytic converter on it, so it's not like it was polluting any more without a muffler! :P And oddly, it wasn't any louder than it had been with a muffler. In contrast, when the exhaust from the muffler back came loose on my '79 New Yorker, it suddenly sounded like a musclecar, even though it still had the converter on it.

Unfortunately, the emissions test was looming ever nearer, so I did put a new exhaust system on the truck. They replaced everything from the catalytic converter back, for something like $240.00.

oldfarmer50

"...Now my Echo is leaking oil..."

Congratulations! You now drive a beater.

Mr_Shiftright

Somehow the idea of holding accountable the driver of a car whose exhaust system just fell off in its entirety just doesn't sound like a Happy Ending to me. :shades:

nippononly

Nope, they have already ordered the oil pan and various other internal bits, and this time tomorrow it should be restored to its original condition! ;-)

upstatedoc

I think the "beater" driver should be accountable. What if that muffler bounced up and went through his windshield? The driver needs to have control of his vehicle and he clearly did not. This borders on vehicular assault IMO.

Mr_Shiftright

He SHOULD be but if he drives a beater, I doubt he has anything you could squeeze out of him. Most folks in old bangers are judgment proof I would suspect.

andys120

Most folks in old bangers are judgment proof I would suspect.

I found that out the hard way when I was hit from behind. Funny thing is she wasn't driving a real beater but an old Dodge Dart about 15 years old that appeared functional (perhaps the brakes were shot!). It was easy to get a judgement for the $500 cost of my deductible but collecting was another matter.

I thought about having the Sheriff seize the car but I had zero desire to acquire an old Dart (in Boston they're Daahts) .

andre1969

He SHOULD be but if he drives a beater, I doubt he has anything you could squeeze out of him. Most folks in old bangers are judgment proof I would suspect.

Yeah, but if that old beater has insurance on it, couldn't they be made to cough up some compensation? Or, it could be covered on your insurance and then they in turn would go after the beater owner's insurance?

Or I wonder if the laws are written that it's not the beater owner's fault. I mean, if he slammed on his brakes and you rear-ended him, they'd get you for following too close, and not being in full control of your car. I guess the same thing could be argued if a part fell off the car and you hit it?

Mr_Shiftright

Oh he's responsible for the damage to your car but it would be very interesting to see if his liability insurance would cover such a claim.

One thing I'd do is confiscate his muffler if I could. You could always bring it to Allstate if they didn't believe you.
:P

nippononly

After that muffler gutted my engine, I left it sliding across lanes at 40 mph. There was no chance for recovery and confiscation in the middle of six busy lanes of interstate.

Andre, the 'if' in "if he had insurance" is a big one in some parts of the Bay Area, including Oakland, where I was at the time.

andre1969

Andre, the 'if' in "if he had insurance" is a big one in some parts of the Bay Area, including Oakland, where I was at the time.

Do they have an "uninsured motorist" clause for California insurance? They do in Maryland, and it covers situations not only where an uninsured driver hits you, but also cases of hit and run. Maybe you can argue that the Lumina driver hit you with his exhaust system and then ran! :surprise:

IIRC, in Maryland at least, there's no deductible on it either. Back in 1992 I got run off the road in my '69 Dart GT and hit a traffic light pole. Even though I only had liability coverage on it, I was covered under the uninsured motorist, since the guy that ran me off the road kept going. I held onto the carcass for parts, so they gave me something like $150 less than they would have if I let them take it

Mr_Shiftright

don't think it's quite as you say Andre---to collect on uninsured motorist in California, you have to identify the person who hit you. So hit and run might not qualify. They won't pay on a mystery assassin.

I am genuinely surprised they paid you off on that.

After all, who's to say you didn't run off the road yourself and made up the story (( mean I KNOW you didn't, but how can you prove it? Or how DID you prove it? Eyewitnesses? License plate? ??)

andre1969

After all, who's to say you didn't run off the road yourself and made up the story (( mean I KNOW you didn't, but how can you prove it? Or how DID you prove it? Eyewitnesses? License plate? ??)

Well, in my case, I guess I lucked out because someone did call the cops. My Dart was still running, despite being smashed in about a foot on the passenger side and facing backwards more or less, and the traffic light pole thrown about 30 feet out into the intersection. I was almost at my destination, and planned on calling the cops when I got there. Got caught by a red light at the next intersection, maybe a mile up the road, and by then I heard a siren off in the distance, so I just sat there and waited.

The cop wrote it up as hit-and-run. Only description I could give the cop was that it was a dark blue 1987-91 F-series, regular cab, 8-foot bed, with a construction rack on the back for ladders and such. It happened to quickly to get a license number.

I guess maybe, because I had the police report, the insurance company accepted it as hit-and-run and paid out? I really lucked out, because I only had liability on that Dart.

I did get into a battle with the state of Maryland, for about 5 years, over who was going to pay for that traffic light. They kept threatening me, I kept referring them to the insurance company, and it would keep going around in circles, with the bill going up every time I heard from them. At first it was about $850 (which I thought was actually cheap to replace one of those things), but it finally escalated to about $1200.

Finally, they threatened to attach any state income tax refund I might receive. No problem there, just change my W-2 so that I end up owing on my state taxes! :P They also said, finally, that I could appeal it (why didn't they do that in the beginning?!) They asked for the police report, saw that it wasn't my fault, and finally dropped it.

I also remember, the day of the accident, having one of my friends drive me back to that intersection so I could get one of my hubcaps, which fell off. The construction crew was already putting up the new light pole, and I saw my hubcap sitting there at the curb. I asked one of the guys if I could go get it, and then said I was the guy that did all this. They just looked at me like I was a ghost or something...they had asked the cop if someone got killed taking out this light! While the things are designed to break, to a degree, they're still not something you want to run into!

I guess eventually, they got tired of replacing that light pole, because years later, they took it out completely and replaced it with a suspended light. You still had the big, massive poles at all four corners of the intersection, but they did away with the smaller left-turn light poles that were sitting out on the islands.

oldfarmer50

"...why didn't they do that in the beginning?..."

Because if they did how would all those gov't workers justify their jobs for all that time. They probably had a 12 man task force working just on your case.

andre1969

Because if they did how would all those gov't workers justify their jobs for all that time. They probably had a 12 man task force working just on your case.

Oh, how silly of me...the answer was there right in front of me all along. Of course that's it!

Actually, back then, I was insured through Maryland Auto Insurance Fund (MAIF), which was run by the state and mainly for bad drivers who couldn't get insurance anywhere else, but also for poor saps like me whose parents wouldn't put me on their policy when I got my license, so I had to get a policy in my own name...at the age of 16! My friends and I had always figured that since I was insured through MAIF, and that traffic light was on a Maryland state road, that essentially it boiled down to the state of Maryland suing the state of Maryland, and that wasn't good enough for them, so that's why they kept harrassing me.

nippononly

I am seriously jinxed, folks beware of me!

I am driving back from that lovely town, Sacramento, today. I am headed west down highway 50, going 65 or so. This POS Civic, about 15 years old, comes speeding up and cuts me off in my lane. This thing is completely caved in at the right rear, and the bumper cover is half hanging loose. It's flapping in the breeze, bending way back, as it only appears to still be attached on the left side of the car.

Well it takes me about one second to decide I don't want to be anywhere near this heap, but I am going to have to slow down to get out of the lane, as he has boxed me in. He is trying to get into the merge lane to exit, and has slowed down right in front of me as a result.

Well, the couple of secs it would have taken me to get out of the lane were fateful indeed, as half the stupid cover ripped off and came straight for me. Well, there was nowhere to go, so it bounced under my front wheels and got stuck there. I dragged it about half a mile trying to get into the emergency lane to clear it, and just as I managed it the thing finally came loose and fell away to the left. However, this did not happen before it ripped a big chunk out of the plastic under-engine tray on my car, which connects to the inner wheel well skirt, which of course is now hanging loose at the bottom and rubbing on my left front tire every time I crank the wheel over for a right turn. :-(

The missing chunk I could have lived with, but I know the rubbing is going to annoy me before too long. And I am so stupid: I should have gathered a plate number or something, but I was so busy trying to get over to the shoulder I never thought of it. :sick:

I am SURE that car must have been totalled by insurance when that accident occurred, it looked bad. I wish it were law to haul all totalled cars straight to the recycling yard. Way too many of them get resurrected titles without ever being repaired, and this is the result. Sigh.