What nonsense...

Many new cars now have access to the engine compartment 'sealed' all you can do is check the fluids unless you have the correct bits to remove the fixings from the cover , same with all the electronics you may be able to service the vehicle but you cant turn off or reset the service light indicators or reset the engine management system f you have repaired any of the sensors

The problem with the third party software it cant perform al the functions of oem stuff , you may be able to diagnose some problems but any ecu resetting or user inputs is not always possible

Name one.

Ah - you mean you can't do it with a pair of pliers.

Again, you just need the correct tools.

Andy Cap gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Find me a single dead-tree-edition periodical that isn't. Apparently, there's some new-fangled thing called a t'internet.

That's one advantage of my sloping drive. When it's time for an oil change I reverse the back end of the car into the garage and that leaves the front end sloping downwards with the drive. I then jack up the front and put it on axle stands which returns the car to level - but leaves me plenty of room to get under the front of the car to remove the under-engine tray and sump plug etc.

-- Kev

>

There's invariably a way around it. On my 75, you could reset the service timer by shorting out two of the pins in the OBD socket for a number of seconds. To make the job easier I bought a blank OBD plug and fitted a 'push to make' button switch in the top of it, wired up to the appropriate pins. To reset the service timer all I had to do was push in the plug and then press the button for the requisite number of seconds (IIRC it was 8 seconds to reset for oil service and 11 seconds to reset for inspection service). It worked a treat.

[...]

How many is "many"? I don't know of any that can't be accessed with normal hand tools. Care to name and shame?

I'm old enough to remember the introduction of alternators. There were grim tales of doom and gloom in the motoring mags foretelling the end of DIY repairs.

Ask anyone from that era if they would like to go back to dynamos and electro-mechanical regulators!

Chris

Most of that unreliablty came from having to have them serviced or failing to have them serviced.

If ignition timing is out on a modern car then something is wrong. Most likely due to the cam belt being changed.

Nissan sorted that in the 70's. They copied a Merc OHC engine so it outlasted the rot away body. In 1995 I gave a L18T from a SSS with

125K miles on it to the local college. They were somewhat upset as the student assignment was to strip it to find out what was wrong with the engine. There was nothing wrong, everything was within service limits. Why did the kit car makers love to use crapy 50K life Pinto and didn't use the Nissan "L" as the basis for a kit car instead?

Chris Whelan gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Umm, I quite like electro-mechanical VRs. Damn sight more reliable than the electronic replacements that you get now - just dismantle, clean and adjust the points inside, rather than lob away and replace.

With an alternator.

But had a very poor performance. You can improve a dynamo based system dramatically with a solid state regulator. Made one for my Austin 1800 in the '70s.

"Dave Plowman (News)" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

I've never owned anything with a dynamo. But plenty of cars with external electro-mechanical regulators. Not all alternators have internal VRs.

[...]

You apparently quite like 2CV's; need I say more?

:-)

What a pointless idea!

(Proper) charging systems often outlast the economic life of the vehicle these days, so I'm not sure how they can be considered unreliable...

Chris

Chris Whelan gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Only if you consider the vehicle throw-away at ~100k miles.

Like, umm, Vauxhall do with their "lifetime" warranty.

My 1800 had a dynamo. They stuck with them rather later than many due to the power steering pump being part of it.

An alternator with an electro-mechanical regulator? Never seen that. Alternators became practical with the availability of silicon diodes. Which were some time after transistors were invented. The first car I owned with an alternator was a '69 Rover P6 3500. That had an external regulator - but solid state. It did use a relay to isolate the field windings and an electro-mechanical device for the warning light. But the regulator itself was solid state.

I would imagine that the average vehicle lifetime is somewhat less than

100k, when you take into account accident write-offs, the increasing number of folk that have low annual mileages, and the high cost of major repairs to older cars.

(Note to indignant Volvo, MB, et al owners; *average*!)

VX seem to be increasingly desperate to me; I wonder if they will go the way of Rover?

Chris

Chris Whelan gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Vauxhall, of course, only being the UK brand for Opel. Opel, of course, being one of the few bits of GM that didn't very nearly implode last year.

What was Vauxhall's performance like when considered separately?

Chris

I do remember a comment from Andy Hewitt, many moons ago, that the systems on cars were becoming that complex, that even dealers would soon have to return the cars to the manufacturer for some systems to be serviced.

Whether that situation materialized I do not know, I have insufficient knowledge to make a judgement.

Btw, whatever happened to Andy? He seems to be another old-timer, along with Dervman et al, who no longer grace the group.

John

Chris Whelan gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

You mean the UK importer? Irrelevant, really - unless GM would consider pulling out of one of Europe's biggest and most lucrative new car markets. And not at all comparable to Rover, where the actual manufacturer imploded.