Even in a season of busy weeks, this has been one to remember. Next week won’t be any less hectic; as some of you correctly predicted, my A/C unit is shot thanks to cracks in the copper pipes.
So let’s all get clicking on the stuff I wrote this week so I can cover at least a minor percentage of what a new Trane is going to cost, okay?
Bark had a chance to write about the Ford Flex and explain the origin story of most used cars.
I had four articles for R&T: I enraged the “W124 mafia”, looked at the bright side of distracted driving, offered some advice to new-helmet buyers, and compared the Fiesta ST to the BMW E30 M3.
The biggest thing that I wrote for TTAC this week was obviously the 2017 Fiat 124 Spider review, but I also discussed independent leasing agents and what happens when a mass transit provider asks riders to stay away.
No wonder that at the end of the week I abandoned Ohio like a sinking ship and ran to the West Coast to watch the sun set from behind the wheel of a truly bad-ass Mustang. Stick around; next week I’ll have a full review of that for you, as well.
My SRT-4 was a prime example of a reliable car which was not durable. It was reliable because it never gave me a reason to believe it couldn’t get me where I needed to go, when I needed it to do so.
On the other hand, it was not durable because the fucking suspension was obviously made from Tinker Toys and bubble gum. I threw so goddamn many control arm bushings, outer tie rods, wheel bearings, half shafts, and god knows what else at that car. never mind the heater core which started seeping at 60,000 miles.
I will never (never) buy a German car after how thoroughly Daimler savaged Chrysler. I don’t care how much you talk up your BMW E-whatever. Stick it.
Daimler took the money, and the rapid prototyping expertise, and left Chrysler holding the sack. That’s the irony of the Neon project: it went from show car to show room in 18 months - a historical record for a new car and a major efficiency coup - and it ultimately hurt them in the end.
I am glad you are beating the drum on distracted driving. If it really was as dangerous as drunk driving, there should be ~12k-15k* more deaths on the highways compared to 10 years ago.
*Ballpark, but prior to the rise of “distracted driving” there were ~33k highway deaths, of which about 40% were drunk driving and 60% were not. So there should be ~45k highway deaths now, but there just isn’t.
I hadn’t thought of the math that way but of course you’re right
hey Jack, whenever I am driving my company bus, and someone is driving erratically, inevitably, they are on their smart phone.
Did you died?
Sorry I didn’t see the post about your son before I wrote that.
Durable+reliable = my NA Miata. 26.5 years and the only things that have needed replacement beyond routine maintenance/wear items are some clutch hydraulics and valve cover gasket. Never failed to start or get me somewhere. Golden age of Japanese cars
Neither durable nor reliable: B8 A4 Avant. Rings at 30k, valve train work at 60k and the DI injectors are a ticking bomb. 3 of 4 so far. Flatbed
Durable and surprisingly reliable: E46 touring with 130k miles. Only left me stranded once, with a power steering hose failure. I’ve spent plenty on maintenance , but everything works at 16 yrs old. My pitch for reliability: my wife hates it, but asked me to drive it rather than the far newer and fewer miled Audi on a trip across the desert to Vegas this weekend. I may be tempting fate by mentioning this publicly before the trip back to San Diego tomorrow though.
For anyone who enjoyed the W124 piece, Jack’s previous writing on durable v. reliable is also quite good http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/02/avoidable-contact-who-wants-to-last-forever/
Thanks for that.
Is it still Road & Track or Baruth Digest? Jesus.
I had my mind opened by your piece on distracted drivers, who I’ve been railing against for the last couple years. As a bicycle rider, I’m with you on preferring a placid, slow driver over a raging, swerving lunatic. I felt much more comfortable on my ride to the coffee shop this morning with this in mind.
Well, I think I’m the cheapest guy they have in the stable.
Rightly or wrongly, as well, I can generate more relatively readable copy from my morning commute than most freelance autojournos can from an all-expenses-paid trip to Molsheim.
I was only fucking with you man, I was actually excited. You’re the reason I go to Road & Track. And you’re right about generating readable copy, to which I would add interesting and thought provoking.
Because you’re a writer first. The journalism bit sort of just happened. Also, experience.
That also explains why the skimming instinct that usually kicks in when trying to read everything everyone wrote everyday doesn’t normally kick in on your articles. Seriously, I’ve begun to judge books and movies these days depends on whether I skim or go through the whole thing. Bad movie - done in 20 min. Average movie - about an hour. Good movie - whole thing.
Or maybe I’ve been ruined by the internet and have no attention span…
As a W124 owner… How were the mafia enraged? And where may I observe the enragement? I didn’t see a comments section for the link to the article.
I agreed with the article for what that’s worth, and have experienced both sides of that distinction myself. It certainly applies to any of the older German cars I tend to rebuild.
My college years involved my driving around Minnesota in an ’87 Integra that I loved, and my buddy had a GTI 16v of the same vintage… He always had little things go wrong, unlike me. Also unlike me, he did not have the drivers side torsion bar mount rust completely through by late ’94.
Most of the anger came from Facebook. A variety of people posted on the R&T FB page that I was an utter moron. I’m not saying they are wrong, but I am saying that there’s nothing in that particular text to support the conclusion.
keep in mind that it’s likely most of those people have never even seen a W124 in the flesh. life is full of people who think they know stuff because it’s what “Everybody Knows.”
“Everybody Knows” a W124 will go for six million miles with nothing more than oil changes and fuel. It doesn’t matter if that’s not actually true, “Everyone Knows” it’s true, therefore how dare you say it isn’t.
Plus, even the people who may have actually owned one in the past are prone to only remembering the good stuff. Like some Subaru owners. They’ll tell you how they’ve had 250,000 trouble-free miles, and if you pry a little bit it’ll go from “only oil changes and gas” to “oh, there was that head gasket once, oh and when I brought it in for service they said I had to replace the half-shafts, oh and that one time I found a big oil spot under the car…”
Kinda like Volvos… PITA with constant repairs, but gee, there are lots of old V-Boxes still on the road… again, durable but not reliable… same for the five BMW’s we have owned…
In the early ’80s I recall someone, maybe David E. Davis, writing about his choices for personal automobile. One was a 9C1 Chevrolet.
It inspired me - and I actually factory ordered two over the years. It was the best combination of durable and reliable I could find. But sadly both were terrible gas hogs. So while relatively cheap to buy and maintain they were costly to run.
I guess you have to pay one way or the other.
A 9C1 Nova is on my lottery list.
I had a ’88 Caprice 9C1 with the last of the LM1 350 4bbl in front of a 700R4. Sold it to one of my staff who put it in a container and sent it to Greece where I believe it’s still running today.
I also had a rare ’99 Tahoe POC (short-lived equivalent of a 9C1 or current day PPV). Traded it in on a Cruze diesel which my wife now ferries me around in.
Sadly I can no longer drive - and so my ’96 Impala SS garage queen is for sale. And I’ll keep the Cadillac stored for now.
“A 9C1 Nova is on my lottery list.”
Make that a 9C1 80’s Malibu or 96 Caprice + LS1FTW (Sajeev gets the copyright on that last one).
While I never owned a 9C1, I came to love GM’s big BOF sedans and wagons for precisely that reason: when discussing various rides with the occasional gas station neighbor, I simply stated how little I spent on maintenance and repairs and closed with “I pay my penalties at the pump; it’ll pass anything but a gas station.”
I told you that you probably (90%+ chance or greater) had a veeeerrry slow refrigerant leak due to cracked couplings.
My best friend from high school inherited a huge HVAC company from his father. He took the ball and advanced it.
Get an American Standard unit with a SEER Rating of at least 16 (17 is better).
It’ll be less expensive than a Trane with as good or better warranty, and they’re both made by Ingersoll Rand.
You also could get a Rheem.
If you want to take a chance on a much less expensive unit with a much longer warranty, Goodman will be 60% of the price and has the best warranty standard, and its quality has improved dramatically since Daikin Industries Ltd. (a Japanese company) bought its NA operations. Some HVAC guys have become huge believers in bang-for-the-buck with Goodman despite a poor reputation it had before Daikin took its fabrication over, and the warranty is no questions asked. I know contractors who are top notch who never would have used Goodman just 5 years ago, and now recommend them with confidence (a combination of the big names getting more cheaply built, Goodman dramatically upping its game, and Goodman having an awesome warranty all with a much cheaper price tag).
Whatever you do, DO NOT oversize your unit. You want the least tonnage to do the job efficiently. Oversizing the ton vs the sq footage leads to massive inefficiency because of short cycling.
IIRC your house is between 2400 and 3000 square feet. If so, do not go over a 3.5 ton you it, and ideally (this brings to another important point), if the installer is really good (and if they’re not, you’ll be sorry) 3 ton should be adequate and even ideal in Ohio.
You also want to spend the bucks now and get a good General (brand) dehumidifier and also make sure your system is a 5 stage variable, and if you really want to make sure your temperatures balance nicely both downstairs AND upstairs, do a zoned system (3 to 5 degree higher temperatures, and even wider discrepancies, are one of the most common complaints in colonialist, with the upstairs being much warmer than down, and proper balancing, a zoned system
Right now I think we’re looking at a Trane with SEER18.
Agree with you on the American Standard; our installer prefers Trane but we’ll see what he says.
SEER 18 is good.
Ohio’s (Columbus’s) climate is pretty similar to SE Michigan’s in terms of temps & humidity.
I am unsure as to whether your energy code is roughly the same, but imagine that is probably is.
Just go with the Trane if you have a competent HVAC guy and that’s what he sells and services (it’s made in the same factory as the American Standard), and the install is as important as the unit (this is even more true if this was a new entire system, with insulated ductwork, humidifier, zoned system, 4″ to 6″ pleated plenum filters, etc.
The one thing I’d pay extra for if I were you is a dehumidifier that is whole house (it will drain captured water into basement floor drain via PVC) but can be operated independently of HVAC system being on or off based on ambient temperature.
Our house is pretty small, brand new, and very tight. We had a massive mold problem because the (small) unit was too big for the house and it was short cycling. The builder had to rip out the nicely finished basement and redo it. I don’t know if they could have replaced the pump with something smaller but they ended up putting in a dehumidifier. So much for energy efficiency.
It’s more energy efficient to run a undersized AC unit for longer continuous periods, which will also keep dehumidifying the air, than running an oversized unit that will short-cycle, continuously clicking on and off, and not dehumidying the air while off (obviously).
Ideally, a unit should be goldilocks right-sized based on the size of the house, whether one or two floors, sunlight exposure, amount of solar heat gain in the house due to total glazing (glass) area, etc.
On the helmet advice column, I would assume most of this also applies to motorcycles, I see a lot of people out there with either no helmet or a minimal half helmet, I have been on the ground once, not too much was left of the chin bar. On the distracted driving issue, we have had too many drivers fired or suspended for having electronic hand held devices in view of the drive cam, even when they knew they could be fired!
My son was wearing a helmet when he died on his CBR 1000… cos if you hit a tree, and your collar bone severs your carotid artery, you will bleed to death in seconds… helmets won’t change the fact that bike riders have 17 times the accident rate of auto drivers (NHTSA statistic).
I think we all understand that there are circumstances where you’re done for regardless of how much gear you’re wearing, but that doesn’t mean it’s pointless to gear up.
and based on how I’m nearly constantly hearing the scream of sportbikes rocketing up and down the freeway near me, I tend to believe the claims that the highest crash rates for motorcycles are:
1) drunk people on Harleys, and
2) reckless kids on sportbikes.
What’s with $THE_CURRENT_OBSESSION with $THE_CURRENT_YEAR?
I read a lot of positive comments on many w124 forums about the article. I can not argue with your sentiments. I have a 1995 E320 wagon with a 3.6 AMG engine swap. The rest of the car has been completely redone to 500e specs.
My buddy and I have done all the work on the car ourselves. We talk all the time about how the cars are infinitely serviceable. The values of the w210, w202, and newer are quite poor relative to the w124 because no one spends the money to fix them. They are throw away cars in comparison to the w124- even the AMG variants. My buddy daily drives a 5 speed w124 2.5 diesel wagon that he imported from the UK. It is quite fun for being so slow. If it had my suspension and brake set up, it would be even more so.
The cars have a special feeling to them that oozes Rolls Royce (or at least what I imagine a Roller to feel like).
As DiCaprio said… sir, you have my interest!
It’d actually be fascinating to see what a 96 Camry would look like today if it had lead a life similar to your 993. Drive it a limited number of miles in limited situations, keep it in the garage and devote Porsche levels of money to yearly maintenance (if those funds are not need in the early years, they are placed into the Camry Maintenance Trust Fund for future repairs). Of course, nobody in their right mind would do that, which… is probably why you don’t see many 96 Camrys on the road today.
I suspect it would be in very good shape. The biggest issue you would have would be sourcing NOS parts.
Jack, this is a thread jack, but anyways. A few months ago I had asked your thoughts on an Accord coupe vs., among other things, a Dodge Challenger and WRT STi. I ended up picking up the Accord (V6 Touring 6MT) and couldn’t be happier with the purchase.
Driving to work this morning, while on the fast part of Mount Pleasant in Toronto (you may be familiar with it) I ended up beside an older gentleman in a fairly new Porsche 911 – base convertible with a stick. We both took off from a light and he tried very hard to pull away, but amazingly I was able to keep up with him. This seemed to annoy him quite a bit and he continued to try and emphasize the superiority of his vehicle’s speed, without success. Clearly I was trying harder than him, but his car sounded like it was working quite hard as well.
You lucky son of a bitch… Touring trim AND the stick? Arrrrgh.
I’m not surprised you could keep up with what was probably a 320hp Carrera 3.6 Cab. Power to weight is very, very similar.
Oh no I’m eating the bait on quality rather than doing my job.
It seems like there’s ‘airplane’ quality where nothing really fails but a lot of the maintenance is prophylactic. This is what we want our track cars to be - fresh, precise, accurate, and all that good stuff.
Then you have your English sport coat quality - the fundamentals are strong but from the first day you’ll have threads coming undone.
And then you have your cars where everything is designed to fail at about the same time. I think GM actually does a really good job with this, especially on the W bodies. At around 160k miles, the transmission, suspension, steering, and interior just start dying.
I’ve never owned a German car but I have owned a BMW motorcycle and a string of Japanese motorcycles / cars. And I like the parts support of German OEMs but the machines seem needlessly complex and they seem to make expensive parts into wear parts. Like the cooling system on a BMW - that isn’t a wear part for anyone else. But it is for them.
And I sincerely think that BMW/Mercedes/Audi use their engineers and factories to make the best possible car come out of the factory. The boys at Honda and Toyota seem to design cars in such a way that the car that leaves the factory is very similar to the car that’s 10 years old with 120k miles.
My bias is towards Yamaha / Honda / Toyota because I’ve been working on them and they make the most sense to me and the cost of operation is pretty favorable.
I think generally Toyotas hang together after 100k miles better than most other vehicles and those are the cars I tend to drive.
I don’t know whether a 6k Toyota is going to give me less trouble than a 6k Chrysler, but I’ll keep choosing Toyota/Honda until I get burned.
It’s a shame that no other manufacturer can hold a candle to the carefree 100k+ mile ownership that Toyota and Honda have. If BMW made an E46 that was as cheap to own and as carefree to own as a Camry, everyone would drive one.