"Forever Cars" No longer a thing?

In reply to yupididit :

Availability of alternatives. If a black box goes out in the house it's less than $500? To replace it. 
 Or we can do without or upgrade it.  If it goes out on a car it may be NLA , result in loss of the car. 
Take one of your older Mercedes.  Give it to a stranger down the street have a critical Black box fail. Result?  One less Mercedes.  
 Assume he's savvy and goes on line. Finds the defective black box.  Then calls the Dealer. Oops the price is higher than the value of the car.  
  

In reply to yupididit :

Irv Gordon's Volvo P1800 rebuilt the engine at 680K. After that it went another 2 million miles.

There are numerous Lexus LS400s clicking a million miles on the original engines.

The transmission in my Datsun 1200 came from a 210 with 180K on it. If I wasn't racing it you'd never know the 3rd gear synchro is worn. It shifts great below 6000 RPM. 

There are certain cars that wear better then others. 

In reply to NOHOME :

I should have mentioned my daughters new Saturn Ion I bought her in  2001. She recently traded it in on a new Honda Civic. With 331,000 miles on it . The original engine transmission and clutch had oil changed regularly. That's the clutch she learned on.  Neat thing is if she dented the plastic we'd pour hot water on the dent and it popped back to original. 
  The windshield wipers came loose twice in those 30+ years but that was the only repeat issue. 

I saw one of those 4 door Land Rover Defenders today in white. Did some research and looks like there is a company in South Carolina named Himalaya that builds these Defenders from the ground up pretty much to how you spec it. The builds look like they start in the $100k range!!

Would one of the aluminum chassis z06 c6 corvettes count?  Ls engines and the Trans should last forever.  

A mclaren f1 should also theoretically last as long as anything.

My 2015 silverado is do8ng pretty well.  170k miles and has only needed oil changes, a vacuum pump, and a new touch screen.  Still runs like new!

yupididit said:

In reply to Keith Tanner :

We (they) fear electronics/black boxes in their cars but not with every single thing in their home?

My desktop computer uses standard parts that I can replace or upgrade at any point. My Jeep requires a computer from the same year. Yes, I could open it and start replacing components on the PCB but that's scarier than pulling out a graphics card and installing a higher performing replacement.

Different view than Pete here because rust isn't so much a thing, at least not on cars <30 years old anyway.  80s and 90s cars are on the road everywhere.  But in many cases they are one minor repair from permanent retirement.  When you can no longer source wheel bearings, ball joints, bushings, etc. its easier to send it to the yard and move on.

I think the possibility of a forever car now boils down to manufacturer support, or the vehicle being so popular the aftermarket products for it are actually respectable..  Its shocking the number of cars that are only say 10 years old and a number of parts will be NLA for them. 

The state of local mechanic aftermarket repair parts (Autozone, Rockauto, etc.) has dropped dramatically in the last ~20 years.  and you certainly can not expect to keep a vehicle on the road long if those are the only parts available. </old man yelling at cloud>

buzzboy said:

yupididit said:

In reply to Keith Tanner :

We (they) fear electronics/black boxes in their cars but not with every single thing in their home?

My desktop computer uses standard parts that I can replace or upgrade at any point. My Jeep requires a computer from the same year. Yes, I could open it and start replacing components on the PCB but that's scarier than pulling out a graphics card and installing a higher performing replacement.

Counterpoint:  You don't have to worry about someone breaking into your computer, replacing its processor with another one to bypass the antitheft system, and driving it away.

Most of the reason electronics can be a pain to replace is because they have to be to keep the cars harder to steal.

And now the dumbasses are putting OTA updates in new cars, which is a big giant "Hijack me!" sign taped to the car.

buzzboy said:

yupididit said:

In reply to Keith Tanner :

We (they) fear electronics/black boxes in their cars but not with every single thing in their home?

My desktop computer uses standard parts that I can replace or upgrade at any point. My Jeep requires a computer from the same year. Yes, I could open it and start replacing components on the PCB but that's scarier than pulling out a graphics card and installing a higher performing replacement.

To be fair, home electronics DO go bad, and for most of them the expected lifespan is way less than that of a car (to people on this forum anyway).  The important, well supported electronics can be repaired, the others get trashed & replaced.

My take is, that it all depends on what features you want to keep, to make it a forever car. 

My 01 Sequoia has over 250k miles. Almost everything still works, parts are still plentiful thanks to sharing parts from the Tacoma, 4Runner, Prado, Tundra, etc. 

I've had to eliminate ABS and traction control because it would randomly go off down the highway and almost cause an accident in locking up a front wheel. I replaced every component in those systems from the yaw sensor, to the wheel speed sensors, etc and tried every trick in the book that a fellow GRMer that used to work for Toyota corporate passed on to me. I plan on driving that thing into the ground or until there aren't any replacement parts available. Even then, a LSx powerplant, an aftermarket ECU and harness, and a beefed up trans could still make the thing drivable. 

wvumtnbkr said:

A mclaren f1 should also theoretically last as long as anything.

At least for as long as the 30 year old laptops required to service them are still ticking

Apexcarver said:

Yeah that's a thing I mean the Ferraris they spend like $8,000 for an electrical engineer to pour over at existing circuit board to figure out why it stopped working to replace the transistor the transistors two cents but the work to figure it out is $7,999. The more popular vehicles like the Corvette they publicize or at least amortize the expense of figuring it out.

By the way I used to sit next to a guy that was big in the Ferrari world at work and those are actual numbers that I've heard to keep a 90s Ferrari running

Coincidentally, my most recent 360 service cost just over $8k.  Sigh...

To be 'fair', 40hr of labor were required.  It seems someone (ahem) changed the valve cover gaskets, a huge PITA, and managed to dislodge cam seals on both heads, leading to a massive oil leak and adding a ton of time.  I have no idea how I did it but the picture he sent me was scary.  One was about to eject itself completely.

I consider it my forever car.  12 years on, I've never considered selling it.  Last year, I probably could have sold it and come out even on the purchase price plus every dollar I've spent on it.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

Most of the reason electronics can be a pain to replace is because they have to be to keep the cars harder to steal.

It's not just that, there are significant differences in the design requirements for automotive electronics from generic home PCs.  Vibration, temperature ranges, humidity changes, voltage swings, none of these things are good for electronics but they happen far more frequently in cars than houses.  I am told that the only "rating" category for electronics that is more challenging to meet than automotive is space.

It's also worth noting that the "build it yourself" DIY home PC is a dying breed.  Fewer and fewer people are buying them, in favor of phones, laptops, tablets, and glued-together-no-user-serviceable-parts-in-here machines like an iMac.  PC gamers build them, but most other people don't want them any more.

STM317 said:

wvumtnbkr said:

A mclaren f1 should also theoretically last as long as anything.

At least for as long as the 30 year old laptops required to service them are still ticking

I remember reading an article about a company restoring a Group C prototype (something like a CLK GTR) and they were having to also restore the diagnostic equipment to service it. 

Worse comes to worse they can always put a Chevy 350 with a 4 barrel in it. :)

Appleseed said:

Forever cars exist as they always have. It is entirely up to the disposition of its owner

I disagree. Location can determine whether a car is a forever car. Our Sierra was meant to be a forever truck for us. Salt and the Midwest has determined otherwise. 

We're trying to make our current cars last another 6 to 7 years to get us to retirement (no road salt here).. 

Our 2016 Miata will be at around 110K miles by then, which I see no problem with.. Our 2017 Ford Escape will be at about 170K, which it may or may not make it to without major repairs.. (My outlook on car longevity is old school, from when cars were used-up crusher bait at 100K; I'm still mentally trying to adjust to the fact that modern cars last much longer than just 100K!).

When the time comes (2029/2030), we'll almost certainly buy an all-electric vehicle, which has fewer moving/ wear parts than ICE cars, so we'll look to that car/SUV/whatever it is to last us a very long time.

I have no real emotional connection to our current cars, but I am grateful that they're holding up as well as they are, which keeps us out of car payments (we HATE car payments!)..  They may not be forever cars, but instead, maybe they're 'Reliable, long-wearing' cars.. 

Not counting mechanical/electrical longevity, my forever car is my c5 corvette. Its the corvette paradox, as there is pretty much no other car that can do all the things this car can do for the same money. Sure, its kind of a piece of E36 M3, but it does all the important things very well.

STM317 said:

wvumtnbkr said:

A mclaren f1 should also theoretically last as long as anything.

At least for as long as the 30 year old laptops required to service them are still ticking

But at the end of the article, it says "The automaker is working on a new interface for the F1 that will allow the cars to speak to modern computers, but it’s a complicated endeavor. "  IOW - they are going to throw money at the problem until it goes away. Will it be cheap? Nope. But the owners of these cars will be willing and able to pay, so it'll get done.

It's a similar situation for the control modules in any car - the difference is in the cost-benefit for someone to create the interface to allow new hardware to work with old hardware.  In a way, we have a similar problem with early digital music equipment from the 80's and 90's.  An analog guitar pedal is fairly simple to diagnose and fix. Add a bunch of ICs to the circuit and make the board 10x the size and that diagnostic task gets a lot harder. It's not easy to find techs willing to work on old rack gear.

Not to disagree with any particular take, but I do think that whether extreme measures are needed to keep a vehicle running (scouring eBay for outdated laptop parts, sending discontinued electronic modules away to specialists for surface mount component diagnostics and replacement, or, say, building raspberry pi stand-ins) say something about how practical it is for a non-zealot.

Can you keep any particular car running indefinitely? Sure. Are many cars built to be serviceable beyond a relatively small window of time? Not so much.

I guess my point is that it's one thing to keep a vehicle running as a hobby, and a very different thing to buy a vehicle and expect it to be a practical device for the rest of one's life, depending on how long that is, of course.

Every project car can be a forever car, but that's not useful.

Ian F (Forum Supporter) said:

STM317 said:

wvumtnbkr said:

A mclaren f1 should also theoretically last as long as anything.

At least for as long as the 30 year old laptops required to service them are still ticking

But at the end of the article, it says "The automaker is working on a new interface for the F1 that will allow the cars to speak to modern computers, but it’s a complicated endeavor. "  IOW - they are going to throw money at the problem until it goes away. Will it be cheap? Nope. But the owners of these cars will be willing and able to pay, so it'll get done.

It's a similar situation for the control modules in any car - the difference is in the cost-benefit for someone to create the interface to allow new hardware to work with old hardware.  In a way, we have a similar problem with early digital music equipment from the 80's and 90's.  An analog guitar pedal is fairly simple to diagnose and fix. Add a bunch of ICs to the circuit and make the board 10x the size and that diagnostic task gets a lot harder. It's not easy to find techs willing to work on old rack gear.

McLaren have figured out (in the 6 years since that article) how to virtualize the machines needed to service the F1, so they no longer have to hunt down old laptops.  

In reply to red_stapler :

I figured as much. These are "throw money at the problem until it goes away" types of issues. The gray area is what cars will be worth that investment.  Obviously, the F1 will be worth it for the foreseeable future, regardless of current computer technology. 

I remember watching a Top Gear where they got to drive a private owner's Mclaren F1 LM that had been returned to street duty. They referred to it having just come from its 5,000 mile scheduled service, at a cost of $25,000. That's right, $5/mile for scheduled service. That's a forever car, as in you're paying out the nose forever to keep it on the road!

Right, at that price point anything is a forever car because you can have anything you need custom fabricated to keep it operational.  See also Jay Leno.

Many moons ago Peter Egan wrote an article or made a comment people wouldn't restore modern cars due to the electronics.

So after reading this thread I'm struck by a couple of things.

People like Frenchyd, and really myself as well, can make our old carbed cars run forever...........I will not contend that they are better but they do work. 

And my final thought.................I suspect in 40yrs they'll be more 140 year model Ts still running than 60 year old VW Touaregs. Not because the Model T was built to last but because enthusiast cars are run by people willing to do more to keep them going.  I'd also be willing to bet that in 2050 some clever folks will make parts to keep your 2019 Scat Pack Charger on the road.

bobzilla said:

Appleseed said:

Forever cars exist as they always have. It is entirely up to the disposition of its owner

I disagree. Location can determine whether a car is a forever car. Our Sierra was meant to be a forever truck for us. Salt and the Midwest has determined otherwise. 

owner did not possess the disposition to move to a less rusty climate.  owner was not committed to making that truck a forever truck.