Built like a Mercedes (?)

Jan 29, 2006 725 Replies

"Canadian Winter" is a joke so far this year. Can't see ANY snow here, where we would generally have several feet at this time.

230 and 250 cu inch sixes were not made before 1963. The cars I dealt with most in the early years were no older than 1959. By then they were 10 years old - and 10 year old cars in southern ontario were generally pretty well scrap then.

MANY are, but there can be a whole lot in that MANY and still be a very small fraction of the trucks in use here.

Certainly not, but I can assure you, I'm not very hard on my truck comparitively speaking.

Ahh yes, thats called ANECTDOTE, just because all you saw was good, doesn't mean it all is good.

Factless stories tend to be short. Like yours.

Fair enough, it's barely sweater weather here right now. But that hasn't stopped the salt minions - we may actully have more salt and sand in the front yard right now that snow.

I aint pulling the good cars out of the barn until salt season is over, snow or no snow.

Someone else here said that there were more longer journies and *that* hammered the oil more.

In fact your average use is little different to anywhere else in the World. Some vehicles travel a few hundred yards to a few miles to the shops and school while others hammer up and down the freeways while others deliver stuff door to door and there is every kind of variation in between.

What really strikes as being rather odd is that some [rather loud] Americans [some of whom are here] insist that theirs is "worse, bigger, badder, better" than anyone else's according to the point they are trying to make at the time. In this context the car use in America is certainly average. More cars per head of population than most places, yes but the use, varied as anywhere, is only average. The conditions are similarly average, ranging from bad to good and from cold to hot. No particularly special conditions except Alaska and Arizona. Even these are duplicated in many other regions of the world outside N. America. An Irish farmer went to see a big ranch in the mid West of America and fed up with all the bigger/better stories that he heard every day out there replied when the rancher said "it takes me three days in this pickup to travel round the perimiter fence back to my start point" "I'm so sorry things are so bad, I once had a pickup like that"

Huw

I see. Well maybe next time when you want to use sarcasm in a written conversation, you can try to let people know.

************************* Dave

Are you taking this skit on the road soon?

************************* Dave

I don't doubt it. Read back a few posts and recall what we're talking about- whether the engines were CAPABLE of running 200k with proper care. They were. I'll bet you if I had a time machine I could go back and pull any random Chrysler or Ford v8 off a 1968 dealer lot and run it for 200k miles. Every single one that I or my family had back then did so. Of course we knew people that used Quaker Sludge and changed it every 5 years whether it needed it or not, and wore out their engines in

50k miles back then too. My point is that oil has changed a LOT more than engine mechanicals have changed.

No, no, Clare, there is no way you know what you are talking about. Steve's 3 examples are clearly a far better statistical sample than your hundreds of "actual" repairs.

************************* Dave

omg, you have to be kidding. rallyed it all day long? no way man.

Proper trimming makes the reasons for bottom posting weak as well. It all comes down to personal preference. Why get bothered by something so simple either way?

Most in the UK or much of Europe do not have personal needs for hauling heavy loads as is common in the USA. 10,000 lb+ RV's are very common in the USA. They tow them for recreational purposes. They don't want a commercial grade truck to do so. They want something that is comfortable for a family. In the UK recreational trailers are typically much smaller and lighter and thus little need for a high towing capacity family vehicle.

Well Miles, please allow me try to answer you. When you have nothing else to do and you become a anal twit, bitching about where people respond to a friggin' mindless thread may soon be the high point of your life. Rest assured Miles if I had more time to devote I could probably come up with more bullshit just like these idiots. Please play nice with them.

Roy

Trim this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you have been here in Summer or in rural areas any time you will know that there are a far higher proportion of vehicles towing over here than in the USA. Yes both vehicle and load are lighter but the towed load is proportionate. The loads are heavy for the towing vehicle type and that is the cruicial comparison. Pickups of the hilux type commonly tow 6600kgs legally and a bit more on the sly. Cars of the Ford Modeo class tow caravans up to a ton and slightly more on dropside compact trailers. I regularly tow 4 tons behind my Land Cruiser and old Land Rover, sometimes over long distances and this is *very* common. There are rather stringent rules for towing that kind of weight though and apart from certain excempt occupations it needs the fitting and use of a tachograph and all that goes with it.

Huw

Huw

lol Roy! Usenet is full of people that will argue anything.

I have been over there. I also personally know several that live in the UK. I do not believe there is anywheres near the proportion of recreational towing that there is in the USA. When traveling in the rural country of England I saw a few RV's here and there but they were very few. Everywhere I drive here, day, night, winter, summer there are numerous RV's on the highways. Sometimes bumper to bumper. Try driving from Palm Springs, California to Los Angeles on I-10 on the last day of a holiday weekend. It's bumper to bumper for over 50 mile stretch of RV's. Pretty much the same all over the USA. Until shown otherwise I'll stand by my statement that there are FAR more RV's being towed in the USA than in the UK.

A variation of a joke told in the U.S. about a Texas rancher.

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

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