...that always has the most interesting cars on the lot. I thought about patronizing them until I read the online customer reviews, which are practically a uniform litany of horror stories except for one lone and vaguely sock-puppety positive review. Thank heavens for the intertubes.
As it is, I think I'll just continue driving by and looking at the cars without stopping.
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| '67 Pontiac GTO, '67 or '68 Mercury Cougar, and '69 Cadillac Coupe de Ville. A minimum displacement of 1161 cubic inches. The Cougar's probably pulling the average down. |
Well, older iron like that does not have a computer that tells you which fiddly bit failed. You need to know how to do things like timing, dwell, and flow volume. Not like today when any trained monkey can read the screen.
ReplyDeleteCourse if you don't get them just so, they run rough and start hard which could make for bad reviews.
Sometimes things do get better over time.
Paul,
ReplyDelete"Course if you don't get them just so, they run rough and start hard which could make for bad reviews. "
The reviews had nothing to do with that.
So, what where the reviewers complaints?
ReplyDeleteThey all alleged shady business practices, iffy billing, lousy customer service, et al.
ReplyDelete(You don't have to tell me about timing lights, I used to have to use one. Hell, I was still messing with carburetors up until car #6 or so.)
"There's no replacement for displacement."
ReplyDeleteV-8s Rule!
Yes, I recall some of your high lights on older iron. I've still got an engine or two that has a carburetor on it.
ReplyDeleteShady business practice and lousy customer service used to be the rage in mechanic shops. Some guys just never change.
Shoit, I still have my NEON timing light, which can only be used in damned near absolute darkness. it wasn't until I upgraded to the fancy schmancy Xenon deal with the auto advance feature that I realized you could do a tuneup without removing a fan first.
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing the cars in the lot aren't really classics, per se. It's just they've been waiting on repairs since the late '60s...
ReplyDeleteSadly there are quite a few like that in the 'old car' business...
ReplyDeleteI have to call bull***t,and stick up for fellow mechanics.
ReplyDeletePaul,computer controlled engines are a bug,not a feature-they are what prevent mechanics (and DIY,for that matter)from fixing things instead of replacing things.Todyas ECM's controls everything from engine settings to cruise cotrol and electric windows,and when any one thing fails,the bill is usually in the hundreds.You used to be able to fix your own car on the side of the road with common sense and a minimum of tools.Now if your car won't run,you need a tow truck to a dealer who has a diagnostic computer,and that only suggests which expensive part to try replacing first.
Re: shady business practice and lousy customer service:you will find these things in all kinds of businesses,I think the auto repair industry gets an unfair amount of complaints from people who search out the cheapest and complain the loudest.There are a lot of repair shops and dealerships that do good work,stand behind it,and suffer because of the few rip offs that get more attention.If you want to pay peanuts,you'll get monkeys.
billf, Paul,
ReplyDeleteThe name of the shop is clearly visible in the photos. If you plug it and "Indianapolis" into Google, you can read what I read and make up your own minds.
"Paul,computer controlled engines are a bug,not a feature-they are what prevent mechanics (and DIY,for that matter)from fixing things instead of replacing things"
ReplyDeleteKeep in mind the increased fuel efficiency, power, safety, and other bells and whistles that are enabled by those same "bugs".
I'm not a fan of not being able to work on my own car anymore, but I am a fan of a 30+ MPG in a midsized vehicle or van, cleaner air to breathe, and anti-lock brakes.
That being said, I'd buy an original Beetle new off the lot in a heartbeat. Or several other 60's-70's era cars. It's not like I need the acceleration or can even get to modern highway speeds between the combination of hybrid owners hypermiling and construction on 69.
Oh, I still pull a wrench on mine from time to time. The computer controls cannot change the mechanics of the engine so as long as you remember the old rules, you can narrow down what needs to be done for the new ones. Now you have individual coil packs that fire based on a hall sensor on the crank which is harder to tweak the timing on.
ReplyDeleteI am finding that I have less time to mess with stuff though, so I have had to break down and get some better cars, which takes some of the adventure out of driving.
All in all, I like newer cars and the maintenance schedule they have over the Model T and it 10k rebuild.
I know someone has a T that has gone 100k with out an oil change, but that would not be an example of the breed.
Some of the Cougars had 427 or 428 cid big blocks in them. I matched up with them on the drag strip up at bunker hill. They were in the same class as my 69 AMX because of there extra weight.
ReplyDeleteJust looked on google maps, bunker hill drag strip is still there after 44 years. It's just south of Bunker Hill town, east of Grissom AFB.
ReplyDeleteI once owned a '68 GTO. It got 9 mpg and was completely unreliable. But of all the cars I've ever owned, I wish I had that one back.
ReplyDeleteI don't mean to be picky and it's hard to see in the pic but the GTO looks like a '66.
ReplyDeleteMy floor for most excellent cubicness is 1650, but that's just a me thing. I do still have my xenon timing light. And dwell meter. And bendy allen driver thing that goes in the window in the distributor.
ReplyDeleteI'm no GTO expert (I owned a '70, but that was long ago), but I went by the two-row taillights.
ReplyDeleteTodyas ECM's controls everything
ReplyDeleteI'm really OK with that.
Never did have an ECM problem.
Since I started buying japanese, all I do is change oil and pick out which tires I want.
10 years now with this truck and I finally changed the fan belt - it didn't fail, just chunks were missing.
Gotta say, I'll trade the "easy to work on" for the modern "hardly ever goes wrong."
ReplyDeleteNowadays we're getting massive amounts of power from 4 and 6 cylinder engines with great fuel economy. That same engine (and the rest of the car) will be into six digits of mileage before you need to do anything more significant than an oil change or replace other wear items. It will likely go the life of the vehicle before the owner ever has to worry about head gaskets or anything timing related.
A modern Ford Taurus doesn't have the sex appeal of a Superbird, but then again, it will go farther on less fuel, be more comfortable, and with the exception of raw acceleration (may not apply if you get the SHO) it's going to be a better car in every single metric you care to name. As a matter of fact, anymore it's hard to find a car that won't go well over 100K miles without major repair; most cars for sale in the US market are just good cars compared to what was sold back in the late 60s/early 70s.
They don't build them like they used to, and boy I'm glad.
If you can't work on your modern car, it's because you haven't invested in the tools to do so. What's that you say, "Back in my day we only needed a screw driver and a timing light!" Guess what? My OBDII connector is my screwdriver and my timing light is a laptop. Tools maybe more expensive (not really though) but cars are still cars, they may have digital direct injection, instead of carburetor jets, but the same principles apply spark, fuel, air.
ReplyDeleteI've fixed plenty of modern cars and guess what? Sometimes they are EASIER to fix than my 1963 Mercury Comet, because they can actually tell me what is wrong with them.
And yes I own a carbureted V8 with a manual transmission and a direct fuel injected turbo 4-cylinder with a manual transmission and both make roughly the same amount of power. Any guesses as to which one is from 2010?
Also, the Cougar might not be dragging cubic inches down, they built a literal ton of 390 big-block equipped Cougars. Far more than they built Mustangs.
-Rob
Prophet: you reckon that Taurus will be worth north of 100 G's forty years down the road?
ReplyDeleteGet the modern tools. Work on modern engines. It isn't hard. I'm working out the details for an ls swap into a 67 le mans (essentially a gto without the gto badges) . 4 speed computer controlled automatic transmission with 300 factory fuel injected horsepower. Figure it will do over 20 MPG, be reliable for a couple hundred thousand miles, and still be able to roast a perfectly good set of tires in an afternoon.
ReplyDeleteI mat even tune it up to 330 horse with a computer flash and install a bolt on supercharger that will have it closer to 400 horse. And it will start every time I turn the key, hot or cold rain or shine.
And if that Goat is sitting on 24's as it appears to be, somebody needs their ass whupped.
ReplyDeleteI don't put a lot of faith in online reviews (Good or bad) Most keyboard commandos aren't inclined to write positive reviews. It also seems easy to game the good reviews.
ReplyDeleteLadder bars. They usually have a few full-on strip cars in the lot.
ReplyDeleteSide marker lights are pretty much all that distinguish '68 from '67 Cougars on the outside, IIRC.
ReplyDeleteSaw a '67 Cougar 'vert last weekend in Lenoir. Beauty, and it was even the right color. I would almost be willing to trade the GT/CS for it.
ReplyDeleteAlmost.
I think the only thing I'm driving these days that has fuel injection is also diesel. :D And turbocharged, for that matter! (Runs on it's own exhaust steam, donchaknow?)
ReplyDeleteI don't think cars were easier to work on "in the good old days" unless you are talking pre-1973 or thereabouts....and even then, I think those rose-colored glasses may be blocking memories of adjusting valve lash, points, plug gaps, and timing on delicate, temperamental engines that were already smoking, losing compression, blowing head gaskets, and leaking oil at 100K miles. Remember adjusting/rebuilding/swearing at carburetors? Or changing water pumps that required hours of work and unbolting every damn accessory on the engine just to get to? Locating and fixing intermittent vacuum leaks that caused stumbling and sputtering without any other clue to go on? Nobody seems to remember what a rat's nest of rubber hoses a late '70s/early '80s pre-computer "analog" car was, or how often engines had to be rebuilt back then and just how much pay-somebody-else-to work was involved in same.
ReplyDeleteThe car I drive now ('04 Acura) is *far* easier to work on than any of the old cars I grew up with, and it is faster and better handling than any of them.
benEzra:
ReplyDeletelets not mention water pumps on Japanese car engines. You STILL have to remove everything, including the timing and balance belts, to access the waterpump. Except now, the front of the engine has it's nose buried in the side of the car, so you can't make more room by removing the radiator, like before. My Talon is so tight, I can't make a fist in the little bit of space.