I got a deal on an 01 (pretty new at the time) which promptly broke down a zillion miles back up in the woods. There was nothing I could do with it- "check engine" was on and would not let the motor start. It took me 2 days to hike out, another day for a buddy and me to go get the thing (he only charged me 1/2 day for the wrecker), and then I got whacked $675 to replace a $12 crank sensor (or some such).
Considering I completely rebuilt the 350 that's in my current truck for a bit more than $450, and I guarantee it would drag that 01 around the yard without even breathing hard, and get better mileage doing it, you can understand where my butt got a little sore. :D
There's no way I will go back to something I can't fix right here out of my garage.
Yeah... remind me to not let you near any of the toys I play with.
Or for that matter, anything made after 1970.
Seriously, what’s so hard about plugging in a scanner and reading the information there? It’s a lot easier than figuring out why your Edelbrock 1405 suddenly started going super-rich for no apparent reason.
And on some cars, the car will actually display the problem, in ENGLISH, on a dashboard display if you ask it.
Also, you do realize that most of these “old tech” 350s don’t make more than 300 horsepower, while that’s where most of the new-tech engines *start*.
Of course, you *did* buy domestic, so I suppose you have a reason to think that “all new cars are too hard to fix and are crap.” They’re not, really.
“There was nothing I could do with it- “check engine” was on and would not let the motor start. It took me 2 days to hike out, another day for a buddy and me to go get the thing (he only charged me 1/2 day for the wrecker), and then I got whacked $675 to replace a $12 crank sensor (or some such).”
Wow, what a story! You must have been a zillion miles back in the woods.
Same here... I had a '92 Eddie Bauer Explorer that ran really well, was actually easy to work on, and I got 500k miles out of it without any major problems, although the body and interior was a rattlebox and the factory paint job was S-H-I- you know wha-T...
After several friend recommendations on the new models, I balked and got a clean, old '69 pick-up, sold the problem laden V-8 LX Mustang rattlebox (GTs were just plain ugly accessorized plastic) and went back to the later '80's BMW M3 and M5.
Finding QUALITY parts is extremely tough and the parts distribution folks also deserve to fail because they purposely refuse to carry QUALITY replacement parts for a lot of things and they don't have knowledgeable staff.
If I see something that says "Made in China" or "Made in Mexico," I just hand it back and go somewhere else (like the internet).