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I like the Dodge Sweptside pickups with the tailfins, but those aren't going to be found easily or cheaply anymore. The 55-63 Chevy/GM (wraparound windshield) are pretty decent too, and the Fords aren't bad either (although IIRC the 61 is prone to rot).
Maybe find an old heap that has been modified anyway so you don't ruin a nice original or a restored unit - take off the wrong bits and sell them, and make the truck look stock, but with a more powerful and efficient engine. Gagrice has money, he can do it :P
The TDI in the Volvo is a very slick package, though. You get the best part of a VW (the modern and reliable diesel engine) mated to the best part of a Volvo, the chassis and body.
Isn't the ranger a bit small for a Powerstroke? But if it had a diesel that was the right size you should be able to get great fuel mileage with one. Shoot my old F-250 was good for 20MPG loaded.
MY yes. I meant to sell the Ranger and buy a 1996 or older F250 with a Powerstroke. Just finding a super clean one is not that easy. I don't like the newer F250 trucks. I don't know if I have the patience for all the unforeseen problems in doing an engine swap.
My neighbor has a 1995 3/4 T Powerstroke with 300k miles and still looks great and runs great. He is picky about maintenance which he does all himself.
Since our lawmakers haven't bothered to consider the energy and pollution associated with replacing and scrapping vehicles prematurely, we can only guess. My perception is that driving it 'til the wheels fall off (figuratively speaking, of course, because no reasonable person wants unsafe cars on the road) is more environmentally responsible than the cash-for-clunkers program.
If properly maintained and driven with reasonable care, Lexuses and Acuras last virtually forever. That's the good news. The bad news is that they last forever.
True. Wife had an 01 Acura TL with 70K+ miles and was motivated to buy next gen 04 TL in Fall of 03 because of its new design, style, handling, etc. The 01 TL was perfect, never had a problem and she could have probably driven it to 247K miles like her 86 Accord.
She didn't really need the 04, but "wanted" it. No way, she says, that she will ever again drive a car litterally till the wheels fall off again. Incidentally, easily sold the 86 Accord privately through a newspaper ad.
That could be OK if it was like our 86 Accord that needed an auto trans replacement at 217K miles.
Depends. I had a 97 Maxima SE that I sold in Sept 07 with 191K relatively trouble free highway miles. Bodywork, paint, interior, engine, trans, ac, etc were all very very good. Exhaust system never touched and needed work. That Max was built in Japan and I believe, after test driving/looking at various later year models, that Nissan cut back on quality, etc after the 94-99 gen Max. We switched to Acura and have had absolutely no problems.
Wife now has an 07 TL and is in habit of buying new cars frequently. But, Acura will have to fix up styling of TL, especially beak, by 2010 or 2011. She will never ever drive a car again till the wheels fall off.
it wasn't fun to pay for, but it definitely runs better and it only took me a month or so to drop the cost to a dollar per mile.
Probably only worth about $1000. I just need it to last this month.
Well, don't jinx it like that! :P :lemon:
Also, could more domestic jobs have been created by a government program to recondition older cars that still had useful than by C4C? I'm not talking about saving total junkers here, but only the safe ones that have been taken care of. Think about it; maintenance and repair is more labor intensive than building and assembling new vehicles, and young people can be taught new skills with this work. It would also help the parts industry, and, as I alluded earlier, the work would be done within our borders by U.S. workers. This wouldn't violate any free trade laws.
Comments?
It all has to do with lobby money. I doubt the repair people have much influence in DC.
Depends on your definition of decent. My folks have one, they get about 17 mpg in town, maybe 19 on the highway. To me that is far from decent; I would refer to it as atrocious, as have my folks at various times. And there is nothing you can do to make a car "cleaner" than it was on the date of manufacture, without instituting a massive retrofit program that would cost WELL over $4500 per vehicle.
Plus for the safety mavens, the late 90s Explorer would provide chills: two airbags and ABS were it for safety features, and they were nice and easy to tip over.
However, hpmctorque is not wrong IMO: there is nothing "environmental" about the C4C program, it is just a cash giveaway to the middle class and car dealers/automakers. But hey, the middle class are always complaining about being put upon, well here's something they actually got.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
My brother in law traded his 96 Explorer on a 2006 Explorer and wished he had kept the old one. He got 22 MPG highway with the 96 model. Never broke 16 MPG with the 2006. Traded it on a 2009 Escape V6 that he loves. Just got back from a long trip and averaged 30 MPG when he kept it under 70 MPH. Still a bit small for my taste.
I am not willing to give up roominess & comfort to save a few shekels on fuel. That is the difference between us.
You are probably right on the retro fit smog crap. Though my 1990 LS400 is still very clean even by today's standard. Well below the average or maximum allowed.
You are in fact "keeping it til the wheels fall off", and that will lead to far less energy consumption and GHG emissions in the long run than if you bought a new car (which would require massive energy consumption and consequent GHG emissions in its construction). In general I am all for that.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
It still might pass by more modern standards, though. Maybe not 2009 standards, but then you never know. My 2000 Intrepid went on the treadmill test once, back in 2002 I think. I actually got a printout from that test showing the state standards, and what my car was putting out in comparison. Ever since then (2004, 2006, 2008), they just did the OBD-II test on the car, where they plug in and check for error codes, but don't actually take a reading of tailpipe emissions.
Well, that same year, I had to put my grandmother's '85 LeSabre through, and at the beginning of 2003, I had to put my '85 Silverado through. Both of them were old enough to still go on the treadmill test, same test that they put my Intrepid through that one year. Well, the state standards for 1985 cars were more lax than 2000, obviously. However, both the truck and the LeSabre were clean enough, that they would have passed by the stricter 2000 standards!
To use one example, for carbon monoxide, my 2000 Intrepid scored something like 0.03 gpm. The Buick scored 1.5471 gpm. The state standard was 30 gpm for 1985 vehicles, and 20 for 2000 vehicles.
Actually, this shows you how they use statistics to scare people. You can twist those figures I just posted around, and say that a 1985 Buick puts out 58X more CO than a 2000 Intrepid! But the simple truth is that both of those are probably negligible numbers compared to what cars were putting out back in the "good old days"
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
I have the one for the Intrepid, a couple for the Silverado, one for the LeSabre, and somehow I ended up with one for a late 80's Grand Marquis! :confuse:
It's kind of a shame that Maryland just does the OBD-II test now on newer cars, rather than take actual tailpipe emissions. One one hand, it IS easier and quicker, but I'd be curious to see how the car compares now, with 149,000 miles on it, compared to how it was when it was newer. And also, since they just do the OBD-II scan, there's no way to really know how the newer cars are doing compared to the older ones.
And yeah, it is good that they keep improving the emissions on cars, but it's getting to be like fuel economy and extra gears on transmissions...you get to a point of diminishing returns, to the point that it might just not be worth the financial cost to push it further. For instance, if your car already has a 6-speed automatic, is any improvement from going to a 7 or 8 speed going to be worth the extra cost? If you have a car that gets 40 mpg, how much would the technology cost to boost that to 50? And if your car is already putting out less pollutants than a family of four after Taco Night, is there really much more that can feasibly be done?
So yes, if cars are lasting longer (they are) and the fleet is growing in size a few percent every year, then if we don't reduce emissions by a few percent every year we will be increasing annual emissions. And from 100 million cars (200 million? I don't know the exact number) that is a lot.
gagrice: it's partly the gas, but it is also extra emissions equipment (which creates additional back pressure and is the reason that PZEV models in California always make a few less horsepower than their 49-state counterparts).
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
Also, replacing the aging fleet with cleaner cars keeps the air quality at least stabilized. We have really made some impressive improvements in air quality over our major cities.
We have, but I've always heard that, at worst, road-based transportation only accounted for something like 20% of all pollution. So, that doesn't take into account other transport methods like boats, trains, and airplanes...plus everything else that comprises that other 80%. Now I'm sure strides have been made in the components that comprise that other 80%, but I'm sure there's still plenty more to be done there, too.
I imagine that most of the progress has been made with cars. More good would probably come from people keeping their tires properly inflated, keeping their cars in tune, and getting the gross polluters fixed or off the road, than trying to get the manufacturers to stamp out that last remaining .03 GPM of carbon monoxide.
Just yesterday, following a loaded gravel truck, could see the rear axles hopping up and down. Actually, crashing down. Was on ashphalt paved 55mph rural road with tar strips sealing cracks that seemed relatively smooth to me in car. Got to wonder how much of a factor that semis and gravel trucks damage roads compared to 3000-4000 pound cars. Any research going on anywhere for breakthrough technology for large truck/trailer suspension/tire systems that would smooth out the ride and cut down on road damage.
Fully loaded semis do something like 20 times the damage of a regular sized passenger car. Even with all the extra tires the weight isn't spread out enough.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZlAdfgzPoc
I guess if you want to perform the fanatical level of maintenance that ol' Rachel does, you could take any car to that mileage. More power to her.
What probably got her to 540,000 miles is not durability but simplicity. Today, if a car's ECU burns up, or if a dohc, 16-valve engine bites the dust, you just scrap the car.
Rachel can fix her car with parts from Home Depot.
More parts = more systems = more things to go wrong.
For the most part though, I think Comets were dirt-simple. The early ones were just stretched-out Falcons, and the later ones were glammed-up Mavericks. The late 60's ones though, based on a Fairlane, might have had some level of complexity...well for the era at least!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZlAdfgzPoc
It's kinda cool that she's held onto the same car for so many years and so many miles, but I think I'm with Gagrice on this one. If I had to drive the same car, day in and day out, I'd get sick of it eventually, no matter how nice or reliable it is. Now, I'm going on 19 years with the DeSoto, and my '85 Silverado has been in the family 24 years now, but with the say I alternate driving cars, it helps keep me from getting too bored with any one..
But, whatever floats your boat...more power to her!