Re: G M is still number one

Weight transfer.

Ever try to tow a trailer, even a small trailer, up a loose or semi-slippery slope with FWD? The same thing would happen with a loaded FWD pickup.

Go watch the boat ramp this summer if you don't believe me.

I guess we can assume you are not an Automotive engineer or tech, race car driver, insurance agent or physics professor, if that is what your believe, right? LOL

mike hunt

Can we assume you are a youngster that never owned a RWD vehicle? LOL

mike hunt

True.

However the rear tires wear very little, so a bit of rotation gives very high mileage per set. Having had FWD for 25 years, I'm seeing about 60,000 miles per set of tires, well if Michelin.

I'm sure he is talking normal legal street driving.

Racing and towing heavy trailers is not normal driving and the vehicle requires a design best suited for that use. I certainly wouldn't drive a race car to the ski hills in the winter.

That is because you are not an automotive engineer or tech, race car driver, insurance agent or physics professor and assume, as many mistakenly do, that because a FWD vehicle may have an advantage when driving in unplowed deep snow or mud, that it also HANDLES better in normal legal street driving on the plowed, wet or icy roads that one drives on much more often than they drive in unplowed snow or deep mud. ;)

mike hunt

While I agree with much of what you've posited, I feel a couple of disavantages are an overpacked engine compartment with less room to work, a tranaxle that is much more difficult to remove than a rear wheel srive transmission, and expensive and hard to repair axles & CV joints and front wheel bearings.

Wayne

I guess you've never worked on a Corvette, Firebird/Camaro with the Tuned Port v-8, or a Caddy SRX....XLR....CTS/V....etc.

a tranaxle that is much more difficult to remove than a rear

I guess you've never worked on a Dakota 4x4 truck....Astro van AWD....etc.

Ian

He never worked on a '95 Contour either :)

That thing is a real bitch to work on...

Waterpump driven by the timing belt?

(When I had that pump replaced, they had to change the pump itself, I told them to change the belt while they were at it, they had to change a pulley and a tensioner too. they had to take half the engine appart)

Any other great ideas like that Mr Blue Oval?

Was it that hard to have the waterpump driven by the _accessory belt_ ?

Geez, even my low-end '92 Cavy VL had its waterpump driven by the ACC belt. And its engine had a timing *CHAIN*, not a rubber belt...

I used to work on my 62 Vette. I guess the most complicated thing I did was pull the tranny, drop the pan, put in a new "rope" type rear main seal, then a new pilot bearing, clutch and throwout bearing. Had no help and it took maybe 4 hours or so. Plenty of room, compared to today.

I helped my son pull out an repair te 5 speed tranny in his 1982 Jeep CJ7 a couple of times. Plenty of room to work

I changed two front axles and 4 wheel bearings in my 1979 Honda Civic. It was a bitch of a job!!

Todays cars are getting too complicated Lots of gadgets that are not needed We need less expensive and better cars to just get from A to B

Let us know what you are willing to give up in today's cars.

Those gadgets are there because consumers have come to expect them. Less-expensive, less-complicated cars are available fo those who want them. Examples include the Chevy Cobalt, Dodge Neon, Ford Focus, Scion xA and xB, and offerings from Kia and Hyundai.

Geoff

My earlier cars used to have a lot of space around the engine

They were easy to maintain

It was easy to keep the engine clean and easy to fix

Some of my favorites were Volvo Amason, Chevrolet Impala, Willis Jeep

Most of my recent cars have been so complicated I have need to take them to a dealer who has a specialised computer with a program to find why there is a light somewhere in the panel

The trouble with my old cars used to be related to them being heavy with bad tires

I would like to get my old cars back with new materials and better tires

In a car I need reliability, heating ok the rest is obsolete

You want to go back to cleaning spark plugs at 5k, replacing points, rotor,and plugs at 10k, rings and bearings at 50k? How about the 2 speed Powerglide? Plugged heat risers for the choke? Flooded carburetors? How about cleaning the oil bath air filters every few thousand miles? Fading front brakes? Much as I love the older cars for styling, the running gear in today's car is far superior.

I do have fond memories of my '53 Merc Monterey, even if every fluid it held leaked.

Bullshit, Ed... Since the entry of CD ignition many years ago, and the systems that followed, you havent had to clean plugs for many tens of thousands of miles, and this has absolutely nothing to do with the onslaught of the electronic orgasm in cars.

Those systems can be stand-alone and pretty trouble free.

Neither does the life of piston rings and bearings. That has to do with better machining methods, better and harder alloys, and more precise fitting of the improved hardware together, but certainly not to the heated windshield washer, the air conditioning control computer, the lighting computer,and tons of other typically American come-on pogey bait.

Fuel injection, etc, works easier with electronic controls, but was available long before the ECMs came along.

Some of this crap is too much sugar for a nickle. Some of the integrated electronics control systems are troublesome, expensive, and not really necessary.

And some of us hate this dinky geegaw electronic overengineering of our cars.

MG. Not a happy car unless it's leaking oil somewhere.

Charles of Schaumburg