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cooter50 wrote:

Retrospect:

A brake replacement on my 1999 Ford truck with factory supplied rotors, disc pads(All wheels), and new fastening hardware is less than buying from aftermarket. I can replace those components in less than three hours using conventional tooling while flushing the full load of brake fluid to remove built up contaminants in the lines(brake fluid draws moisture).

My 2010 Impala came due for it's first set of brakes at 128,000 miles. To get the calipers off took more than an hour, to remove the caliper support structure took a acetylene torch to heat the fastener regions, and still require a two foot breaker bar aided with a three foot section of pipe to break 13 and 14mm fine thread fasteners loose. A half inch drive air impact wrench then a three quarter air impact wrench would not even budge the factory installed fasteners.
I spoke to a local garage(Ford dealer), the service rep spoke on how they have to replace these fasteners as they remove them due to over-torque at factory as well excess use of Loc-Tite compounds to retain those fasteners as also noted in my removal of my own hardware. This leads to excess costs by maintenance facilities to do the repairs while the common owner cannot perform said repairs due to lack of appropriate tooling.

Those factors lead us back into costs escalation where the common owner can seldom afford those costly repairs and defer those repairs until the machine just fails fully.

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mais oui wrote:

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Cars in all are still undependable

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but much better than they used to be, the days of decoking cyl heads are gone most engine gearbox units go for 100 000 miles with only routine maintainance.
 in 40 years of driving in which the family has driven hundreds of thousands of miles we have only once had a significant engine failure - a holed piston and that was in a car which used an engine that was basically 50 years old when they used it (BMC A series).

For a few years I drove around in an ancient 2CV6 (two cyl air cooled 600cc) when I sold it it had damn near 100 000 miles on it and apart from new brake pads, oil and tyres had never had a spanner laid on it - remember this was a 27hp 600cc engine that was working hard just to keep up with city traffic!

obviously the more complexity you build in the more chance that something will fail - if you dont have air con the air con cant fail can it?

we tend to buy bottom of the range cars -without aircon and all that other fancy stuff we dont need it so why pay for it its just something to fail.

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mais oui wrote:

Old cars were great werent they?
 who needs disk brakes, rack and pinion steering, pointsless ignition, seats that dont break your neck in an accident, steering columns that dont impale you or windscreens that dont turn you face into steak tartare and wasnt it fun having to fiddle with the choke only to flood the engine and have to wait until it dried out?

Any want to go down the line that model T fords did 100mpg and 100mph? - I have heard that claim made more than once

BTW whats the big deal about no dipstick on the atf filler - you just unscrew the filler if oil doesnt drip out it needs topped up!
(although auto boxes never caught on here)

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cooter50 wrote:

As to the bolts, I have been a mechanic, Certified by US ASE since 1975. I have NEVER had a bolt that on a car a impact wrench would not back out. I have never had to place a cheater onto a breaker bar on anything smaller than a piece of tracked machinery prior to this car and now I am told it is typical of New design.

I was disheartened by what I found as to the bolting. As noted M8 or M9 in 13 and 14mm thread diameter and required more to dislodge than 7/8" diameter bolting on a D8 Caterpillar.

The bolts had been 'Dipped' from tip to base of head in Loctite, that in itself is beyond idiocy, a few drops on the threads being enough to dependably hold them. Repair manual Torque on these bolts(US) was 75-105 foot pounds, by calculation it took almost 800 foot pounds to dislodge them.

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