Cars have gotten very complicated in the last century, but they’ve also gotten more reliable and generally require less maintenance now than ever before. Today we asked you what one-time motoring headaches you’re glad have become less common over the years. Here were your responses.
Tuning and sync’ing carbs. Its not that its particularly difficult if you know what you’re doing. I just have no idea what I’m doing. I was raised on fuel injection. Bosch K and LH jetronic. I could write a book about those. Diagnose a failed fuel distributor or AMM (MAF) from across a parking lot.
But carbs? Wizardry. And I’m not a wizard.
Lots of people chimed in with their own stories of carb repairs, and everyone pretty much agreed: They’re rocket science. Ancient rocket science.
Submitted by: OldManMcKenna
Manual transmissions. There, I said it, and I’ll happily turn in my “enthusiast” card. Clutching in stop and go traffic was a literal pain in the ass that I’m perfectly happy never experiencing again.
This is a brave take but one that I’m glad someone had the courage to vocalize. Driving stick is wonderful in the right circumstances and the total opposite in the wrong ones.
Submitted by: theart
Rust.
Ok, modern cars can/do and still rust but no where as bad as cars from 70s-80. Now it is an edge case or something that is fixed 5+ years later. Even cheap cars, and I am not talking just fenders and under-components exposed to salt.
I mean, when was the last time you saw the windshield frame rust out of a modern car less than 5 year old. Sometimes they rusted from the top down in the NON-Salt South. See Datsuns.
As an East Coaster, I couldn’t agree more.
Submitted by: FutureDoc
Geez... where to start. Since it’s currently winter, I’ll go with cold starts. Back in the day when 100,000 miles was almost unheard of for a car, everything got worn out well before then. So on a day like today (it’s 0F where I am today) that meant that your car would prefer you just didn’t use it. If you wanted to, you were under the hood with a can of ether based starter spray.
Spray into the intake of the air cleaner, run back into the car, crank, crank, crank... back under the hood, fuck it, remove the top of the air cleaner and spray it right into the carb, run back into the cabin, crank, crank, crank, rumble...
Now, your hands are frozen so you need to be careful not to drop the wingnut down the carb throat and you and the interior of your rumbling car REEK of starter fluid.
I’m so incredibly thankful I cannot relate to this problem at all.
Submitted by: NegativeEd
Putting a key in the door to unlock it then putting the key into the ignition to start it. The car I drove 14 out of the last 15 years at least had keyless entry but now that I’ve experienced the life of just walking up to the car door, having the doors automatically unlock when I put my hand in the handle, then starting the car with a tap of the button...I’m not sure I want to go back.
I think I’d be just fine going back to keyed ignitions, but then I also thought I’d be able to live with a dumb phone again a few years ago and that didn’t go so well.
Submitted by: -Tom-
Thank God I don’t have to run a car charger to my portable CD player, connected to my tape adapter that needs wiggled the right way into the car’s tape deck. The portable CD player needed to sit level on the center console, and even with shock protection would from time to time skip over speed bumps and other bumps in the road. Now: Alexa, crank that JoJo Siwa for my three tax deductions in the back seat!
Anything audio, navigation or entertainment-related is approximately a million times less of a pain today.
Submitted by: Bavarian19
Automatic transmissions. They were so bad back in the day. Especially the 4 speed autos or even the 3 speed. What insane animal thought 3 speeds is good enough for the highway?
People complain about CVT’s but they’re marvelous transmissions. Either way you slice it, todays’ transmissions are better than ever and the ones that come with paddle shifters are actually kinda fun even on cheap econo-boxes.
It’s easy to forget that automatic transmissions are a hell of a lot better than they used to be, too. And that includes CVTs, which are totally inoffensive and helpfully efficient in basic commuter cars.
Submitted by: KlingonKinja
I think that the expectations of longer term reliability is near the top of this list. I look at the list of items that we expect to service during the life of the car in the 1980's that we no longer look at.
- Ignition service (Plugs, Wires, Cap and Rotor) was generally done at 50,000 miles, my Ford Fusion recommends 150,000 mile internals.
- Transmissions are sealed. Hell, you used to be lucky if a GM 700R4 made it out of warranty for a 1980's GM C/K Truck.
- Speaking of 1980's GM C/K Series, we now expect that an engine is going to last the life of the truck, and you used to be lucky if a 305 V8 made it 75,000 miles before it was using 2-3 quarts between oil changes. Thanks to the LS series, we now expect that the engine will go 150,000 to 200,000+ miles before replacement.
- Air Conditioning is now expected to last the life of the car, and that was something that was considered to be serviceable.
Going to rattle off this list every time somebody complains to me about planned obsolescence.
Submitted by: mhoppy74
Crank windows. I do not miss the years of reaching across the front seat to get the window down and can’t imagine doing that again.
I completely forgot about this. Thank goodness for buttons.
Submitted by: engineerthefuture
Brake lock.
I used to drive a 1987 Corolla that was made of aluminum foil, and on at least three separate occassions I hit the brakes only to have them lock up at speeds where the (airbagless, crumple zoneless) car was 100% guaranteed to have rear ended the car in front of me if I weren’t expecting it and able to take emergency measures (which once included turning off of a limited access highway onto the grass median).
You could also say as much for standard stability control, too. You never know when you’ll need it.
Submitted by: neverspeakawordagain
Having to worry about buying gas, oil change, exhaust pipes, sparkplugs, etc.
[drives smugly in a EV]
Let’s revisit this question again in 10 years when more of us have them and see what happens.
Submitted by: Maaatth