And What's GREAT About Today's Cars?

[norgeway]

5th Avenue

I thought these had beautiful upholstery, ...I wish I could find one that cheap, That would be a good daily driver, you cant beat a 318!

 

[joelippard]

I've had a love affair with cars since I was 13

And I've spent lots of money on them down through the years.  I'll list them all here.  I started out at 17 in a 1986 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale Brougham that floated on a cloud and had this pinky effort steering that Hans mentioned.  I traded that in for a 1991 Cadillac Eldorado Biarittz.  I loved that car but it had a very different feel to it than the Olds, in retrospect I should've got a Sedan de Ville.  While I had the Cadillac I also owned two Buicks because I became so finicky with Cadi that I didn't want it driven in the rain.  So, back to an '86 but this time it was a Buick Park Avenue, I kept it a few years and sold it when I bought a 1990 Buick Park Avenue Ultra, this car was an absolute dream and I should have kept it.  Running strong at 260,000 miles I traded it in on a 1995 Pontiac Bonneville SSEi with the supercharged 3800.  This car had the best seats in it of any car I've ever owned but it also was the car that took me away from GM for a period of time.  It had many "stupid" problems come up and at 83k the transmission went.  It was going to cost $3,000 because it tore itself up so bad it had to be completely replaced.  I traded it with the bad tranny on a 2003 Mazda 6s.  This was a nice fully optioned and custom ordered vehicle and was the first brand new car I have ever bought.  It was a good car but ate CV joints every 30k and brakes ever 40k.  That crap got old and it finally started running poorly at 130k, it nearly quit on me on the interstate.  That was enough for me and was when I got into my present car.  Returning to GM and Buick was a good thing for me with the 2010 LaCrosse CXS.  This car is as close of a modern interpretation of the old style as you can get in my opinion.  It has light steering, cloud like ride, and a feature list a half mile long.  I can't think of any feature among any of the modern luxury sedans that is not found in the Buick.

 

However, I do have a love for the classics, particularly the 50's cars and more concentrated with GM's line.  I am particularly in love the 58 model year of Buick and Cadillac, this was the first years of dual headlamps and Buick had more chrome on their cars in '58 than any other GM or Big 3 car of that year.  This was the age of excess and how I wish our economy, morals, and personal pride would return to those glorious days, the likes of which I'm not old enough to have known.

 

[norgeway]

RE Oil Changes...

I still change my oil every 3000 miles! I thought most people still did!

 

[joelippard]

.

 

[carmine]

I like them because they have one foot in the past (it's a 1976 design) and one foot in the present ('89s had airbags, upgraded electrical, and a few other improvements). Into the early 90s, it always seemed any supermarket-sized parking lot would always have a least one Dodge Dart. Into the 2000s, that shifted to be these vintage 5th Aves. Now I can't really think of any one type of "cockroach" car (seems to never die). Maybe it's just because everything newer is so anonymous.

By the way, I do wash the salt off as often as I can

 

[norgeway]

I Also like

REAR WHEEL DRIVE..the steering feels so much better to me, and of course Chrysler always had better PS anyway,,,They invented it!LOL...That 58 BUICK would be something else! Triple Turbine Dynaflow!LOL

 

[hydralique]

Carmine . . .

Surely that '88 Chrysler has fuel injection! I didn't think any carburated engines were still being sold here as late as that. If it has a carb I'd sure hate to try to get it smogged. Even with port injection cars of that era are hard to deal with, I had trouble with an '87 Saab 900 Turbo and a '92 Eagle Premier in the late '90s. Both were very well maintained cars and passed the idle test with flying colors but the 15 mph and 25 mph dyno tests are killers. The Saab propitiously got rear-ended while the Eagle was finally donated to charity in '04 in spite of being in excellent condition; it just wasn't worth the double whammy of meddling every other year with the vacuum EGR system to get past smog and also having to deal with Jeep-Eagle's incompetent parts department if any new part was needed.

 

It seems like injection systems from about 2000 are way better than even those from the '80s, possibly because they also control ignition timing (although the Eagle system did that as well and it didn't help). I think I recall reading that the average modern car has vastly more computing power than was used to put men on the moon in '69!

 

[norgeway]

If I could choose two

Cars I have had, And could have them new...I would choose my very favorite car of all first, a 68 Fury 3 sedan, I loved it, it was nothing special as cars go, but it just drove and handled like nothing ive ever sat down in since....most people who were used to Fords or GM cars didnt like it, my cousin said it didnt have any " Feel of the road" Which is exactly why I loved it, I dont want to feel the road!LOL my next favorite was a 72 Dodge Polara Custom that Mothers cousin bought new, just a great car, and pretty economical for a 360, it got around 20 mpg on a trip, which was quite good for a big car....and cOLD COLD air!Neither of these EVER gave any problems, even though they were old when I got them...I cant describe the Furys steering, except to say it was totally effortless..After getting used to it, everything since feels like turning a wagon!

 

[neptunebob]

Retromania, I have the Toyota Tacoma and so far I have been pretty happy with it even though it is only 2 wheel drive (no, it does not go good in snow and gets stuck in the driveway but the truck tires do help). To get a Tacoma with automatic transmission and 4 wheel drive was a $10,000 difference. Oh, and with some of the roads here, I am glad it has 10 airbags. Feel free to ask me about it.

Carmine, aren't you worried that your car is based on a Plymouth Volare? Back then, nobody had a nice thing to say about Volare or Aspen.

 

[hydralique]

What I like about modern cars in addition to the aforementioned modern engine management systems:

-Really good, fast and reliable power windows. I use my windows a lot and don’t like hand cranks. Old power windows often worked painfully slow, especially if the engine wasn’t running, plus needed careful adjustment. Modern windows just seem to work.

-Really good air conditioning. A/C in cars has actually been around since shortly before WWII, but even in the ‘70's it still wasn’t great on really hot days. Modern systems are vastly better.

-High capacity cooling systems. This goes along with the A/C, it means not worrying if you have to drive in 110 degree weather in stop and go freeway traffic.

-Common availability of glass sunroofs, these make an interior so much more pleasant even with the glass closed plus nice to have open in good weather.

-Well placed factory speakers. Head units usually aren’t too hard to replace but if speakers aren’t in the right location the sound won’t be what it should be.

-Sound insulation, new cars are usually much quieter than old cars!

-Common availability of tilt/telescopic wheels, makes for a much nicer driving position in many cars.

 

[norgeway]

Power Windows and AC...

What kind of old car were you driving?? AC in the 50s and 60s was much much colder than todays cars,A good friend in lenoir had a 55 Desoto that , if turned wide open, blew fine chips of ice!!! my 53 Chrysler had power windows that were too fast, if you were not careful they would catch a finger!!

 

[danemodsandy]

Old A/C:

Yeah, the old A/C systems were capable of some seriously cold air.

We had a '62 Oldsmobile Dynamic 88 Fiesta nine-passenger wagon for a long time. More glass than your average greenhouse, and the A/C could frost it up in the middle of August. I mean you could probably have hung meat in that car.

One of my teachers had a Studebaker Lark Regal with air, and she refused to use it because it got the car so cold.

 

[hydralique]

Hans . . .

There are always exceptions but in general I find modern A/C and power windows to work much better than the old stuff on average. Part of good A/C is being able to control it without freezing you out on a moderately warm day. I don't have a lot of experience with Chrysler products but both the windows and climate control on my mother's '92 Eagle Premier worked very well, pity the rest of the car wasn't as good (engine aside, that was a good one, let's not talk about the tranny . . .).

 

Fastest power windows I've ever seen were on a classic '60s M-B 600 Grosser. This came out in '63 and was M-B's competition to Rolls-Royce: completely hand built to order and costing more than most modest homes of the day. IMO it's a huge and vulgar looking car but they went to the trouble to design a low-pressure hydraulic system to operate the windows and trunklid, I think it operates at about 300 psi. One touch and the window becomes an instant guillotine that is dead silent, and you don't want to have your hand anywhere near an open trunklid if someone pulls the tiny little chrome switch on the rear of the car.

From what I've seen GM did the best and most reliable power windows in American cars though I'm no expert there. Ford wasn't so good; I will always remember my Aunt Carol's '60 Mercury Colony Park four door hardtop wagon. Totally cool car but by '68 to get the right rear window to go up usually took pushing both the door and master buttons and banging on the door. The solution was to not put it down but her stepson always managed to hit the button on a trip to the beach . . . the Colony Park was replaced in ‘68 by a new Chevy wagon without power windows.

I've meddled with power windows in '70s Citroens and de Tomasos and ‘80s Alfas and Fiats. The Ducellier regulators used by Cit and de Tomaso are well made and reliable but very slow, while Fiat used Bosch regulators that are slow and not as reliable. All demand careful adjustment. Things improved during the '80s, my parents had a pair of Peugeot 505s and those worked well, I don’t know who made them. Ditto for my ‘87 Saab 900 Turbo, reasonably fast and reliable. My ‘02 VW is better still aside from the one-touch switch being a maintenance item, but than again VW electrical stuff is famously hit or miss: the English may joke about Lucas being the Prince of Darkness but I think possibly it’s Robert Bosch in disguise, probably why M-B didn’t use electric motors for the 600 Grosser windows in the '60s!

 

Thinking back to the A/C for a moment, my Alfa did have a damned good A/C system, as did my sister's de Tomasos. Since the latter used a Ford V8 the compressor was Ford but the rest was Italian. The condenser sits below the rear license plate and is often mis-identified as an oil cooler. It's not large but has a Fiat radiator fan motor to get adequate airflow from the rear of the car. Still, I'd take the A/C in my VW over any of those.

[this post was last edited: 3/5/2014-20:44]

 

[xraytech]

I haven't seen one of those 80s Fifth Avenues in ages, even when new they weren't a popular car here, it was more Caprices, Fleetwood Broughams, and Grand Marquis.

Joe your Buick is gorgeous, and I too love the Buicks of the 50s and 60s, that 58 is lovely but my favorite is the 59 Electra 225 pillarless hardtop sedan

now, some of my favorite things:
electronic traction control
heated and cooled seats
heated steering wheels
rain sensing wipers
panic button on the key fob for locating your car

here is my newest car, a 2008 Buick Lucerne CXL
I also have a 2000 Park Avenue that is my daily driver and a 2000 Taurus wagon since I couldn't find a decent Buick wagon

 

[carmine]

No FI on these 5th Aves, even though Dodge Trucks with the same 318's were injected by the mid-80s. It would have required a costly EPA certification, and these RWD cars weren't supposed to stay around so long. The only thing that kept them going was:

1) The non-fancy Dodge/Plymouth versions pretty much owned the police market.

2) High profit margins (and demand) on the Chrysler versions.

3) After Chrysler bought AMC, they found themselves with an ancient factory in Kenosha WI that was well-suited to build this old-school platform. With that problem solved, they kept it in production long after anyone expected it to run.

As for being Volare/Aspen based, the main problem with those cars was:

A) In a fit of stupidity, all engineers that weren't dedicated to emissions/regulation were laid off for months during a critical period before the launch. (This was when the company was barely meeting its payroll)

B) They were rushed to market and not "fully baked" for the launch in '76. By '78, the "bugs" were resolved. Production then moved to a MUCH better plant in St. Louis, MO. So really, no worries with this model.

 

[xraytech]

this is my daily driver, a 2000 Park Avenue, it has probably one of the last colored interiors in navy blue.
It has 93,000 miles on it, unfortunately the doors are all rusty on the insides, hope to slow that down some come spring

 

[danemodsandy]

Hydraulique:

Ah, your tales of woe regarding your Eagle Premier bring back some memories.

I had an '89 ES Limited. When it was new and working right, what a dream. A Lexus for half the money.

When it was about a year old, more problems than you could shake a stick at, and you are SO right about the incompetence of the Eagle parts system. Having the car out of commission for three or four weeks over a part was nothing.

 

[carmine]

Eagle Premier

Those were re-badged Renaults that Chrysler was obligated to sell for a few years as a condition of buying AMC. The only way I would imagine parts could have been harder to get would have been if they'd remained serviced only at AMC dealers.

I remember having an automotive electrical class and one of the students asked about troubleshooting an Eagle Premier. The instructor suggested 3 diagnostic tools; comprehensive insurance, a gas can and a match.

 

[hydralique]

Sandy . . .

You are so right about the parts problem: nobody in my family will ever own a Chrysler anything again, they were so awful! My mother bought the Eagle new in late '91 in Texas, thank goodness she kept her old Peugeot around for when the Eagle was again awaiting parts. The engine was a gem, made in France and like most French stuff pretty stout although the Chrysler injection and emissions system always had trouble at smog check once the car came to California in 2000. The German ZF tranny was a disaster, dying at 65,000 gentle miles. Chrysler wanted $5000 for a rebuilt and $7000 for a new one plus installation in '99. We found someone who was able to fix it, difficult because few shops wanted to touch it - no doubt they had also dealt with Chrysler's parts department.

 

The sad thing is that my mother liked the car a lot but by the end was totally burned out on it. She actually tried to replace it with a new Lexus but the dealer couldn't deliver a car with both a sunroof and cloth interior (she dislikes leather interiors) so I advised her to buy a Camry for reliability. She ordered a TOL Camry XLE in 2000 and is still happily driving it - Toyota made a customer for life with that car. The Eagle ended out here with my sister, I figured that between Eagle and Dodge dealers I could keep it in parts but was dead wrong, they were as bad here in LA as in Texas. People used to gripe about Fiat parts in the '80s but I had far better luck with Fiat, Saab, Alfa, anyone other than Chrysler.

 

Carmine, what you are saying about the Eagle being a rebadged Renault isn't actually true, it was made only in Canada. The engine was Renault but the rest is not. Thus parts can't be sourced from France for anything other than the engine as it had no direct French equivalent. You may be thinking of the Eagle Medallion, that was sourced directly from Renault.

 

[dustin92]

What is so great about new cars? How about reliability! My Dad has told me several times, way back when (50's and 60's) you were lucky to get 100,000 miles out of a car, now you are regularly seeing cars with 200,000-300,000 miles and still going. A good friend of mine has a 96 Nissan sedan with about 240k on it, and it drives like new, everything still works and it doesn't burn a drop of oil. My 2003 Chevy Impala has 175k and also runs/drives like new. I plan on keeping it until 200,000 miles at least, maybe 250k. But then again, I had a 2000 Mazda that was worn out at 120,000. It ran terrible, and burned more oil than gas. The issues started at about 105k and it just started falling apart.