Low Tec Car

Fuzzy-felt bloke · #1 (**permalink**) 09-01-2010, 01:58 PM

Reading the tread ‘Old vs. New Land Rover’ had got me thinking about my own car ownership, the cost and carbon footprint. When I was younger with my Ford Escort Mk 1 and Cortina I could and did all my own repairs and servicing, now I own a modern Mondeo, and everything has to be done at a garage.

So great wise ones, what would be the best low tec car to buy where the running costs are cheap, the car will last a long time and easily repairable at home.

I do drive Landrovers at work and I'm not a fan!!!!

Fuzzy-Felt Bloke

Hobjob · #2 (**permalink**) 09-01-2010, 03:46 PM

Tata nano?

Doggle Avaddit · #3 (**permalink**) 09-01-2010, 04:04 PM

How about this one?

https://www.myretrobaby.com/item_ima...20Car%20Lg.jpg

Fuzzy-felt bloke · #4 (**permalink**) 09-01-2010, 04:08 PM

That’s an electric car, not really low tec and I doubt not repairable by a DIY person. Made in India, wonder what the quality would be like!!

Cost in Europe £25,000!!!!!!!!!!!

I was thinking more of a classic car like the Landrover, but not a Landrover.

Fuzzy-Felt Bloke

Meta menardi · #5 (**permalink**) 09-01-2010, 04:30 PM

I once had a Citroen Dyane with a 435 cc engine, took me, the wife, the 2 children and the dog over Honister once. It was approaching 80,000 miles on the clock but seemed to still have it's original tyres. Most of it could be bolted on and off the main ... chunk, and when it was hit at the front once and the bonnet ended up in front of the passenger seat, one mighty heave with a very big pipe wrench straightened it all back to normal. In a winter that was as cold as we are having now (1975?), it could always be started with a kettleful of boiling water over the inlet manifold. It could be driven on ploughed fields and in snow it was magnificent. Only the youngest had to wear a hat when it rained and the fuel gauge was so predictable that I coasted onto the forecourt of a filling station twice when I knew I was chancing it. As we lived in the woolly bits of Shropshire at the time, it fitted in well. We moved to Devon in the beast, and with a head wind going down the M5 we were down to 3rd gear and considered tacking to progress. You could drive it round a roundabout almost till you took the doorhandles off on the tarmac, and you could fit a large 3 seater settee in the back (not so you could sit on it, you understand, just to move it.

I understand that the 2CV family is not very green in terms of emissions, but given the choice of a post-apocalpyse car it would come quite high up my list. I have driven such a range of cars from the very old to the new, and from the could hardly move to the change your pants frequently, but the Citroen gave more laughs and was more sortable than many others.

david156 · #6 (**permalink**) 09-01-2010, 07:56 PM

I had a MK3 escort. not too low tech but I remember the distributor cap was held on with cable ties and the dash board lights didn't work without a thump. (the dash board eventually broke with all the thumping!!) The sunroof would leak so you needed to wear a rain coat or take a change of clothes.
It was easy to service and repair when needed not like the car I have now which I leave to the garage to sort out!

David

Doggle Avaddit · #7 (**permalink**) 09-01-2010, 08:59 PM

Although it seems that modern cars are not fixable by the DIY mechanic, I don't think this is strictly true.

What a modern car is, is a computer and a whole bunch of sensors. When something goes wrong, the computer will generate fault codes that you can read with a reasonably cheap fault code reader.

The skill is in interpreting these fault codes. For instance it may tell you that the O2 sensor is faulty. (the O2 senssopr measures the amount of Oxygen in the exhaust pipe)
What this fault code means is that the computer thinks the reading from the O2 sensor is way out from what it should be, considering all the other data the computer is reading.
It could actually be a faulty O2 sensor, but what might actually be happening is you have an air leak in the flexible hose from the air filter to the fuel injection system. There is a Mass Airflow Sensor before the air filter that measures how much air is being drawn into the engine. The computer assumes this is accurate, but because of the air leak, there is actually more air being drawn into the engine than the computer is measuring. This makes the engine run lean, which the O2 sensor measures acurately. It tries to compensate by injecting more fuel, but still doesn't get the result it wants. The computer then thinks there must be a problem with the 02 sensor because this can't be happening, and flags up an eror code and your engine management light comes on.

Modern mechanics have simply adopted this new way of working.

Unfortunately what you tend to find in reality, is that most modern mechanics are clueless, and will simply read the codes and replace the O2 sensor at your expense. When this doesn't work, they will find another error code and then replace the Mass Airflow Sensor, also at your expense. After replacing lots of other stuff at your expense, they eventually will give up and if you are lucky, a seasoned pro will come along and find the air leak by spraying Carb Cleaner or Butane around all the hoses and noting the engine speed increases as he does so.