… anecdote. Our pickup truck used to be a 1977 …
… We have since replaced it with two new trucks. One is a 2007 … The second is a 2005 … All I do is filter cleaning and oil changes, the rest is left to very skilled and highly paid people. … Both new trucks are MUCH MUCH better than the old …
My first car in 1994 was a 1965 Hillman Super Minx saloon, inexpensive and almost as old as me. Later purchases included a slightly more modern Hillman Super Minx estate with (wow!) overdrive from a Humber Sceptre; and Mercedes-Benz
S124 –
one early,
one late with (wow!) cruise control. My last car was a 2000
S210 purchased in 2014. Nowadays a roadworthy Hillman would be way beyond my budget …
… more realistically, I never stopped yearning for another S124 so after scrapping the S210: last weekend, I got another S124. It's a dirt-cheap thirty-year-old lemon, I could taste it before I handed over the money (failed rear shock absorbers were immediately noticeable) – and the subsequent free check at my local dealership revealed more of a lemon than I had suspected – but still, I think twice before getting rid, because it's so close to being what I
need from this type of old car.
Now I'm torn. Three options:
- brake discs and pads, shock absorbers and other basics on the lemon (I'll get ballpark figures today)
- maybe £3,000 for an apparently well-maintained slightly later S124 with cruise control etc.
- £3,900 for an S212 BlueEFFICIENCY.
BlueEFFICIENCY should be a no-brainer, after twenty-six years of gas-guzzlers –
MUCH MUCH better than the old
– still, I lean towards a 1990s alternative. It's not just nostalgia. Weird, huh?
Weirder, IMHO: I was cautioned against getting a Diesel BlueEFFICIENCY, because I'll most often make short journeys –
DPF concerns, more than anything. Weird, because the advice was
as if unexpected filter problems will occur … but hey, there's a warning system for the driver to take action
before things become problematic. So, what's the problem? (Do people ignore the warning system, or something?)