What nonsense...

Spot on. I've still got a collection of 'Gunsons' tools for setting ignition timing and adjusting the mixture (remember the 'colortune plug'!). They're now just gathering dust on a shelf in the garage. Haven't had any need of them for years.

I can remember removing the cylinder head and doing a 'de-coke' and valve-grind on a couple of my early cars! I did a complete engine re-build on a Triumph Herald when I overdid it on the M6 coming home from Scotland once and the engine partially seized - locking the piston rings into their grooves. I replaced the pistons, rings, big end and main bearings etc. It started straight off when I put it all back together!

Modern cars are a doddle to service, although, of course, if there is a major problem with the ECU or other part of the electronics systems, that is beyond most diy'ers.

"Ret." gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

And, it might seem, beyond many franchised dealers.

Whereas a major problem in, say, the fuel system was easy to diagnose and resolve for even competent DIYers not that many moons ago.

It's all about built-in obsolescence and the throw-away society. You might think that a step forward, and a laudable long-term goal for humankind. I don't.

If by dealers you mean main dealers, they've always wanted to fit new rather than re-conditioned parts, or attempt to fix it. Due to their high labour costs it could be cheaper anyway.

As would, say, be fixing a worn out Solex carb. You'd just have to replace it.

You can fault find most car electronics with basic test gear - and of course the know-how. Service exchange ECUs are available at a fraction of the new cost. Most faults on engine electronics are are caused by a failed sensor of one sort or another. ECU failure is pretty rare.

I agree. There was a serious problem with early 75s because the ECU was housed within the plenum chamber - and the drain holes in the plenum chamber had a habit of clogging up with dead leaves etc. Before long you had a couple of gallons of water sloshing around in there and soaking the ECU.

Regular 'poking out' of the drain holes avoided the issue - and it was fixed in later models with a re-design of the drain holes - but many early 75 owners found themselves forking out for new ECUs through no fault of their own.

"Ret." gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

How... totally... unforeseeable...

Triumph Acclaim springs to mind.

If that argument was true they'd be scrapped at lower ages & mileages nowadays.

I agree - and it was outrageous that owners were expected to fork our for new ECUs when it was a design fault that lead to the problem.

The difficulty was that as soon as the problem became apparent, MG/Rover issued a tech advice sheet to dealers to clean out the drains during a service. They would argue that there would not have been a problem had the owners had their vehicles serviced properly...

"Duncan Wood" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

The average car is certainly scrapped for much more trivial faults these days than they used to be.

"Ret." gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

It's not something I'd have said _needed_ to be in the schedule. It should be routine.

Rolls Royce , bentleys for a start

Which in many cases are well out of the range of most diyers

The kit to fully diagnose and reset the ecu on my citroen van (which is the same as the fiat and pugs) cost around £5000.00 and as of last year thier are no third party tools that will fully read , diagnose or reset

Not on the latest citroens and pugs , you need the factory supplied toys

Not according to the main stealers

Which plenum chamber would that be? The heater one? On my SD1 - one of the first UK cars with EFI - it's situated behind a plate which acts as the passenger footrest. Even with a leaky windscreen, it didn't get wet - even if the floor below it was swimming in water. ;-)

So much for out of warranty claims. ;-)

Interesting. So not Lucas electrics? Lucas had all in one alternators - at least in the smaller sizes - by the early '70s.

Well they used to be scrapped for going rusty, that's pretty trivial

Blimey where on earth did you look to buy it from? It was about £300 from most places

This was an 82.