ALERT, ALERT! Thread hijack.
Easier to fix, but you have to do it more often. Set of spark plugs lasted 3000 miles 50 years ago. Now they last 100,000 miles.
I had a 64 Mini-Cooper that I had to tune up every weekend because it would shake itself apart during the week. I got pretty good at tuning and balancing the SU carbs. Took about 10 minutes once I go good at it.
You do realize that you can put modern platinum tipped spark plugs in a 1960’s car right?
(continuing with the hijack)
“Easier to fix, but you have to do it more often. Set of spark plugs lasted 3000 miles 50 years ago. Now they last 100,000 miles.”
I’m not even sure they were easier to fix. I’ll grant that the cars of today are vastly more complicated, but think about it for a bit. Back then, if the engine ran rough, you had a lot of possibilities to deal with (bad cap, bad wires, bad points, a bad plug, bad coil, clogged fuel filter, dirty carb...).
Recently, on my late-model car, I started the engine, it ran real rough, and 5 seconds later the light went on, and the code told me of a misfire in Cylinder #4*. So I took a look, and a little guy trying to make a nest had chewed through the wire going to the small coil on top of Cylinder #4. Easy to see in that case, but at least I had it down to only a few items (wiring, coil, plug, or injector...that’s about it).
Other stuff CAN be expensive to repair, but usually doesn’t break (unless the vehicle is built by the UAW). Stuff that often does need repair/maintenance (brakes, drive axles, front end bushings, struts, filters, etc.) are almost identical to the past. Now if it’s something ‘new’, like a computer module, you simply unplug it, give it a chance to reset, if it still doesn’t work, you replace it, just as the dealer would do (repair is obviously not an option). Most of the other new stuff is also plug-and-play. The only place where it can get rough, I think, is with the new data systems (CAN Buses, for example)...but I haven’t had to deal with that, and they typically have their problems after people mess with them, such as for installing new stuff.
*How did it know it was Cylinder #4? The computer actually looks for the crankshaft acceleration expected after each spark plug firing. It didn’t like what it saw after #4, so after a few cycles, it lit the light and sent the code. Amazing technology!
It was the leaded gas that ate the plugs