RADwood: celebrating recent "vintage" cars for nostalgia, resistence
May 5, 2019 7:56 PM Subscribe
RADwood touts itself as "the premiere automotive lifestyle event celebrating the 80s and 90s," now a world-wide collection of gatherings, where old-ish cars, both fancy and "normcore," are on display (Instagram). Folks revel in the rides (YouTube), and participate in what they see as an expression of resistance (New Yorker). Those are likely members of the Human Driving Association, who see increased computerization in cars, particularly autonomous vehicles, as "the war on driving."
Where's the Oldsmobiles? 87 Cutlass Supreme? 89 Ciera? Those were the Normest of Normcore.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 8:24 PM on May 5, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by fluttering hellfire at 8:24 PM on May 5, 2019 [5 favorites]
Motocompo! All my dream vehicles look like they were lifted directly from the Useborne Book of the Future.
posted by q*ben at 8:28 PM on May 5, 2019
posted by q*ben at 8:28 PM on May 5, 2019
We had a '75 Gold Duster at one point. And an 81 Dodge Ram.
You could examine the engines and understand them.
They were so cool.
posted by hippybear at 8:29 PM on May 5, 2019 [4 favorites]
You could examine the engines and understand them.
They were so cool.
posted by hippybear at 8:29 PM on May 5, 2019 [4 favorites]
This hurts. The Civic Hatchback I'd been driving since 1992 died last November because of a shitty timing belt installation. I hadn’t made a car payment since 1995. The down side was that it only had a driver side airbag.
posted by bonobothegreat at 8:46 PM on May 5, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by bonobothegreat at 8:46 PM on May 5, 2019 [1 favorite]
I gotta say, I definitely relate to this group. I’d give anything to have my E30 318i back. Such a simple, uncomplicated car. I think the only “automated” thing on it was the Bosch jetronic fuel injection. Heck, even the sunroof was hand-cranked.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:47 PM on May 5, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by Thorzdad at 8:47 PM on May 5, 2019 [4 favorites]
The down side was that it only had a driver side airbag.
Passengers? Pffft. What are you, married or generous or something?
posted by hippybear at 8:55 PM on May 5, 2019 [7 favorites]
Passengers? Pffft. What are you, married or generous or something?
posted by hippybear at 8:55 PM on May 5, 2019 [7 favorites]
I can't fave hippybear's (first) comment hard enough.
They have the long and short of it.
I'm only 27, but when I was a kid in a rural area, it was a known known that keeping a pre-80's car running was vastly simpler than keeping anything newer running in the long term. Uncle Mike used to keep his truck that he worked to death running with a hammer and screwdriver, I will never forget him pounding on the air intake butterfly valve or whatever (I am not a car person, I just watched the end of the true car person) and getting that 70's chevy hunkajunk running again, and hauling weight too.
You used to be able to push your tools to the limit back in the day, and while I understand why we've moved away from that societally, I still can't emotionally get totally on board. Used to be able to fix a basic problem wherever you were you are if you had the smarts and the tools, and now that's less true, and that is lame.
posted by neonrev at 9:44 PM on May 5, 2019 [1 favorite]
They have the long and short of it.
I'm only 27, but when I was a kid in a rural area, it was a known known that keeping a pre-80's car running was vastly simpler than keeping anything newer running in the long term. Uncle Mike used to keep his truck that he worked to death running with a hammer and screwdriver, I will never forget him pounding on the air intake butterfly valve or whatever (I am not a car person, I just watched the end of the true car person) and getting that 70's chevy hunkajunk running again, and hauling weight too.
You used to be able to push your tools to the limit back in the day, and while I understand why we've moved away from that societally, I still can't emotionally get totally on board. Used to be able to fix a basic problem wherever you were you are if you had the smarts and the tools, and now that's less true, and that is lame.
posted by neonrev at 9:44 PM on May 5, 2019 [1 favorite]
I drive an '85 VW Westfalia. I am putting off reading the instructions for replacing the water pump. It is a three hour job. If I think I can, I will back one side onto the curb, in front of my house, and get to it. I hate getting under that van, but I do to change the fuel filter. I already changed out some of the coolant hoses, but the pump was going, seized, and chewed up my alternator belt. Well and the widgit arm has come loose from the framiscate latch.
posted by Oyéah at 10:14 PM on May 5, 2019
posted by Oyéah at 10:14 PM on May 5, 2019
Shocking lack of Saabs.
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:14 PM on May 5, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:14 PM on May 5, 2019 [3 favorites]
Yet again, the move to fully autonomous driving vehicles is presented as a fait accompli, when it’s anything but; perhaps we’re looking at a future with commonplace level 3, which stops accidents and fatalities the way that airbags does. I’m not sorry about these guys fragile masculinity.
posted by The River Ivel at 10:55 PM on May 5, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by The River Ivel at 10:55 PM on May 5, 2019 [2 favorites]
Increasing appetite for regulation is going to slowly make modification harder or even illegal. Some things I can think of...
1. Emissions - governments mandate automakers spend $1000-$2000 per vehicle on pollution controls. There is an inverse correlation between fuel efficiency / performance and emissions, there will be increasing incentive for people to "cheat" and mod their engine, removing pollution controls to gain better fuel economy and performance.
2. Pedestrian safety - governments mandate companies spend hundreds of dollars on pedestrian impact protections - ensuring the geometry and materials are soft yet strong enough to prevent injury - primarily centered around ensuring the hood is soft enough, yet firm enough to prevent the pedestrian's head striking the unyielding engine block. Rural customers install metal bull bars that have zero pedestrian safety qualities, or modders install lightweight hoods that don't offer sufficient protection
posted by xdvesper at 2:07 AM on May 6, 2019
1. Emissions - governments mandate automakers spend $1000-$2000 per vehicle on pollution controls. There is an inverse correlation between fuel efficiency / performance and emissions, there will be increasing incentive for people to "cheat" and mod their engine, removing pollution controls to gain better fuel economy and performance.
2. Pedestrian safety - governments mandate companies spend hundreds of dollars on pedestrian impact protections - ensuring the geometry and materials are soft yet strong enough to prevent injury - primarily centered around ensuring the hood is soft enough, yet firm enough to prevent the pedestrian's head striking the unyielding engine block. Rural customers install metal bull bars that have zero pedestrian safety qualities, or modders install lightweight hoods that don't offer sufficient protection
posted by xdvesper at 2:07 AM on May 6, 2019
I learned to drive in the early 80s, and I've driven a broad range of Big Four passenger cars made in the 80s, from Cadillacs to K-cars to subcompacts, and I can't think of a single one of them that I wouldn't have happily dumped in the ocean if it wasn't for their tendency to destroy themselves without frequent human intervention. For example: One came out of the factory with a horribly sticking first gear which multiple repairshops just shrugged at, until the burr on the gear or whatever finally got milled off by somebody trying too hard to jam it on a panic shift. It was finally smooth shifting for a while but all the newly-introduced free metal in the system led to the transmission slowly grinding itself into a fine oil-borne slurry.
My current eight year old Japanese econobox gets ten thousand miles a year and has never needed more than routine maintenance. It's cheaper to own, gets better mileage, is safer and more comfortable to drive; getting sixteen years out of this is going to be simple and easy. Getting merely six years out of a car from the 80s required iron will, gritted teeth and a skint bank account.
These cars were badly designed and badly made and I harbor the same nostalgia for them that I do for antiquated methods of dental surgery. You can have the car you can repair under a shadetree. I'll have the car that doesn't need the repairs.
posted by at by at 2:39 AM on May 6, 2019 [13 favorites]
My current eight year old Japanese econobox gets ten thousand miles a year and has never needed more than routine maintenance. It's cheaper to own, gets better mileage, is safer and more comfortable to drive; getting sixteen years out of this is going to be simple and easy. Getting merely six years out of a car from the 80s required iron will, gritted teeth and a skint bank account.
These cars were badly designed and badly made and I harbor the same nostalgia for them that I do for antiquated methods of dental surgery. You can have the car you can repair under a shadetree. I'll have the car that doesn't need the repairs.
posted by at by at 2:39 AM on May 6, 2019 [13 favorites]
I used to do all my own car work, but those days are decades past. The next big wave of removing driver participation is upon us, in the form of safety features like "lane-keeping assistance." The feature is truly disturbing to experience, at least for someone who's familiar with steering feedback (another disappeared feature). When it engages, lane-assist feels like you've just driven onto glare ice.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:25 AM on May 6, 2019
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:25 AM on May 6, 2019
I knew I should have kept my '82 Renault Fuego, despite the clutch completely failing on me in 1991.
posted by kuanes at 4:39 AM on May 6, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by kuanes at 4:39 AM on May 6, 2019 [1 favorite]
Oh boy. Seems I spent a good part of the 80s and 90s listening to antique car people complain about how awful the newer cars were.
Speaking of which, I’ve got a 1947 Packard Clipper Custom Super 8 available at this moment to anyone with a handful of cash and a tow truck. Spectacular car but a horror to drive—bias-ply tires, gets about 9 miles per gallon on the highway, burns oil, no power assist anything, is hot in summer and cold in winter, and is impossible to stop at the bottom of a long hill even if you use two feet on the brake.
There was a lot of transitional stuff happening in the 80s and 90s that made for chronic problems. Spent a lot of money during those decades on catalytic converters, bad accessory motors and fixing rust on cars in those days. Now I’ve driven a 2010 Ford, a standard-shift Fusion, for eight years with almost no mechanical issues and there’s still no rust.
No car nostalgia from me.
Seriously, anybody need a Packard?
posted by kinnakeet at 4:51 AM on May 6, 2019
Speaking of which, I’ve got a 1947 Packard Clipper Custom Super 8 available at this moment to anyone with a handful of cash and a tow truck. Spectacular car but a horror to drive—bias-ply tires, gets about 9 miles per gallon on the highway, burns oil, no power assist anything, is hot in summer and cold in winter, and is impossible to stop at the bottom of a long hill even if you use two feet on the brake.
There was a lot of transitional stuff happening in the 80s and 90s that made for chronic problems. Spent a lot of money during those decades on catalytic converters, bad accessory motors and fixing rust on cars in those days. Now I’ve driven a 2010 Ford, a standard-shift Fusion, for eight years with almost no mechanical issues and there’s still no rust.
No car nostalgia from me.
Seriously, anybody need a Packard?
posted by kinnakeet at 4:51 AM on May 6, 2019
kinnakeet...These folks might be able to find you a buyer.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:27 AM on May 6, 2019
posted by Thorzdad at 5:27 AM on May 6, 2019
I work on my cars less than I used to, but that has at least as much to do with the increased value of my time and my ability to afford cars in better condition in the first place, as it does with any changes in the technology. I drove a bunch of $300 beaters into the ground. Last time I went car shopping I dropped over $5k! Can you imagine spending so much on a car?! So there just isn't as much to be done.
There's still a lot of routine mechanical work one can DIY. In the last couple of years I've replaced various brake parts, struts, spark plugs, changed fluids and adjusted valve clearances. I'm reliant on web searches to interpret CEL/OBD codes to know what gizmo to replace, but my excellent neighborhood mechanic approaches some diagnostic problems the same way.
I do not miss having brake calipers lock up 200 miles from my home and toolbox, or changing a fuel pump on a gravel parking lot in below-zero temps, or smooshing epoxy putty into a leaking radiator in hopes that it seals a leak. Those were desperate, miserable situations, and yet I miss the feeling of having navigated such situations successfully. The frequent failures sucked, but they set the stage for almost-as-frequent triumphs. Now my car is dependable, and I have to find some other problem -- something less slippery, olfactory, tactile, painful and scary -- to wrestle with, and the differences between success and failure are harder to discern. When I open my toolbox drawers, the Snap-On wrenches I inherited from my uncle twinkle at me like the wet eyes of a dog that wants to go for a walk but is stuck in the house.
posted by jon1270 at 5:33 AM on May 6, 2019 [3 favorites]
There's still a lot of routine mechanical work one can DIY. In the last couple of years I've replaced various brake parts, struts, spark plugs, changed fluids and adjusted valve clearances. I'm reliant on web searches to interpret CEL/OBD codes to know what gizmo to replace, but my excellent neighborhood mechanic approaches some diagnostic problems the same way.
I do not miss having brake calipers lock up 200 miles from my home and toolbox, or changing a fuel pump on a gravel parking lot in below-zero temps, or smooshing epoxy putty into a leaking radiator in hopes that it seals a leak. Those were desperate, miserable situations, and yet I miss the feeling of having navigated such situations successfully. The frequent failures sucked, but they set the stage for almost-as-frequent triumphs. Now my car is dependable, and I have to find some other problem -- something less slippery, olfactory, tactile, painful and scary -- to wrestle with, and the differences between success and failure are harder to discern. When I open my toolbox drawers, the Snap-On wrenches I inherited from my uncle twinkle at me like the wet eyes of a dog that wants to go for a walk but is stuck in the house.
posted by jon1270 at 5:33 AM on May 6, 2019 [3 favorites]
A while back there was a complicated back-and-forth group shuttling of cars (seriously, it was like one of those terrible story problems they used to have on the SAT) and I ended up driving someone's late 80s/early 90s Honda Civic. On the one hand, it was in impressively good shape for its age and drove great. But it also brought home how much better cars are now -- doors have more crash protection, engines have more power, brakes are better, cars have AC... Even basic interior stuff like the dash switches are better now.
I also spent the drive trying not to think about the total lack of modern safety items like side curtain airbags and offset front-crash crumple zones.
I have a fairly modern vehicle, and other than the computers and maybe something complicated like variable valve timing, I don't think there is actually that much I couldn't repair myself. The difference from the old cars and trucks I used to own is that I haven't had to repair almost anything, unlike the old days when you were picking up parts at the auto parts store almost weekly. It simply wasn't possible to drive a 1980s car from new to ~100k miles without it spending plenty of time in the shop, but that is now routine with modern cars.
I especially don't miss having vehicles with carburetors and manual timing -- those seemed to take constant fiddling and you just plain got used to them being quirky, like stalling at lights when it was cold.
The question raised in the New Yorker article is interesting -- if self-driving cars eventually become perfected and ubiquitous, should human driving still be permitted? I'm not sure it is a totally relevant question since there are so many situations where a human driver remains the only possible option. But assuming that it is and self-driving is perfected, I would be totally fine with taking human drivers out of the occasion. There is pleasure in driving, but nothing worth saving at the expense of safety and efficiency.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:29 AM on May 6, 2019 [2 favorites]
I also spent the drive trying not to think about the total lack of modern safety items like side curtain airbags and offset front-crash crumple zones.
I have a fairly modern vehicle, and other than the computers and maybe something complicated like variable valve timing, I don't think there is actually that much I couldn't repair myself. The difference from the old cars and trucks I used to own is that I haven't had to repair almost anything, unlike the old days when you were picking up parts at the auto parts store almost weekly. It simply wasn't possible to drive a 1980s car from new to ~100k miles without it spending plenty of time in the shop, but that is now routine with modern cars.
I especially don't miss having vehicles with carburetors and manual timing -- those seemed to take constant fiddling and you just plain got used to them being quirky, like stalling at lights when it was cold.
The question raised in the New Yorker article is interesting -- if self-driving cars eventually become perfected and ubiquitous, should human driving still be permitted? I'm not sure it is a totally relevant question since there are so many situations where a human driver remains the only possible option. But assuming that it is and self-driving is perfected, I would be totally fine with taking human drivers out of the occasion. There is pleasure in driving, but nothing worth saving at the expense of safety and efficiency.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:29 AM on May 6, 2019 [2 favorites]
I think we will get back to repairing cars. Mostly because we will not have any choice; the steady increase in the (inflation adjusted) price of a car means that people simply cannot afford to replace them with the regularity they might have once chosen, and even if some richy-riches keep buying new every few years, somebody has to keep the ones at the end of the long tail going.
Cars—at least, for the most part, American cars—made prior to the mid 80s were relatively easy to maintain and repair because the American automotive industry was by-and-large very conservative. It's the flip-side of them being behind the Germans and the Japanese in terms of incorporating new technology and new production processes. Japanese cars became obnoxious to repair earlier than American cars did, for the same reasons that they became more fuel-efficient earlier than American cars did (an EFI system gets you better mileage and performance than a carburetor, but the latter is vastly easier to fix). A body-on-frame car is easier to work on, but (generally speaking) less safe than a well-made unibody car that will crush and absorb energy on impact. A car with nothing but straight steel pipes from the exhaust headers to the muffler and thence to the tailpipe is easy to work on, but once you start mandating emissions controls you end up with catalytic converters and obnoxious EGR systems and sensor networks and a million wiring harnesses and computers to run the whole thing. (And don't get me started on modern US-market diesels, good christ.) Tradeoffs.
They're all valid tradeoffs though, and when you step back from the perspective of somebody who just wants to keep their goddamn car going with the same set of Craftsman tools that they've always used, there are (mostly) good reasons for the changes. The car companies didn't fuck the shadetree mechanic, we collectively fucked the shadetree mechanic; the (American) car companies mostly would have been happy producing ladder-frame, steel-body, V-6 and V-8, naturally aspirated, death trap cars forever, if regulators and market forces would have let them.
If we get to a stabilization point where things stop changing so quickly, the repair market will catch up. There's already a nascent market for Tesla repair tools, even though Tesla tries to keep everything in-house, and the number of Tesla cars in existence is relatively small (compared to the number of gasoline or diesel vehicles). Computers and sensors are only opaque and difficult to diagnose and repair if you don't understand them and don't have the right tools—gasoline engines in general were once mysterious and opaque, if you were used to horses. People figured them out, and the knowledge of how to keep them running became part of the cultural background, something that you grew up (assuming you were of a particular gender from a particular social class) just knowing. There's no reason the same thing can't and won't happen with modern vehicles, maybe battery-electric vehicles, but there needs to be an opportunity to play catch-up.
Car companies are inherently conservative, and once they figure out a formula that works for whatever form cars are going to take, they'll probably stick with it, and if it sticks for more than a few decades you'll see the ability to do repairs trickling down to the guy down the road with three trucks up on cinderblocks in his yard. And since vehicles are only getting more expensive, and their lifespans are consequently getting longer (how many people have a 10+ year old car now, vs. how many people did you know with a 10+ year old car in the 70s? It's a lot more common now), the rate of change must consequently slow down.
posted by Kadin2048 at 6:57 AM on May 6, 2019 [1 favorite]
Cars—at least, for the most part, American cars—made prior to the mid 80s were relatively easy to maintain and repair because the American automotive industry was by-and-large very conservative. It's the flip-side of them being behind the Germans and the Japanese in terms of incorporating new technology and new production processes. Japanese cars became obnoxious to repair earlier than American cars did, for the same reasons that they became more fuel-efficient earlier than American cars did (an EFI system gets you better mileage and performance than a carburetor, but the latter is vastly easier to fix). A body-on-frame car is easier to work on, but (generally speaking) less safe than a well-made unibody car that will crush and absorb energy on impact. A car with nothing but straight steel pipes from the exhaust headers to the muffler and thence to the tailpipe is easy to work on, but once you start mandating emissions controls you end up with catalytic converters and obnoxious EGR systems and sensor networks and a million wiring harnesses and computers to run the whole thing. (And don't get me started on modern US-market diesels, good christ.) Tradeoffs.
They're all valid tradeoffs though, and when you step back from the perspective of somebody who just wants to keep their goddamn car going with the same set of Craftsman tools that they've always used, there are (mostly) good reasons for the changes. The car companies didn't fuck the shadetree mechanic, we collectively fucked the shadetree mechanic; the (American) car companies mostly would have been happy producing ladder-frame, steel-body, V-6 and V-8, naturally aspirated, death trap cars forever, if regulators and market forces would have let them.
If we get to a stabilization point where things stop changing so quickly, the repair market will catch up. There's already a nascent market for Tesla repair tools, even though Tesla tries to keep everything in-house, and the number of Tesla cars in existence is relatively small (compared to the number of gasoline or diesel vehicles). Computers and sensors are only opaque and difficult to diagnose and repair if you don't understand them and don't have the right tools—gasoline engines in general were once mysterious and opaque, if you were used to horses. People figured them out, and the knowledge of how to keep them running became part of the cultural background, something that you grew up (assuming you were of a particular gender from a particular social class) just knowing. There's no reason the same thing can't and won't happen with modern vehicles, maybe battery-electric vehicles, but there needs to be an opportunity to play catch-up.
Car companies are inherently conservative, and once they figure out a formula that works for whatever form cars are going to take, they'll probably stick with it, and if it sticks for more than a few decades you'll see the ability to do repairs trickling down to the guy down the road with three trucks up on cinderblocks in his yard. And since vehicles are only getting more expensive, and their lifespans are consequently getting longer (how many people have a 10+ year old car now, vs. how many people did you know with a 10+ year old car in the 70s? It's a lot more common now), the rate of change must consequently slow down.
posted by Kadin2048 at 6:57 AM on May 6, 2019 [1 favorite]
I used to work on cars because in the '80s and (I guess earlier, I'm not that old) you had to. They were giant pieces of crap. Getting a car to 100k miles was a real feat. My first car was a 1991 Ford Tempo, that only made it to 1996 before a headgasket blew driving down a long straight highway at 65mph. You want to know what cars were like back in the day and want to spend at least 10% of your time repairing them? Get a boat.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:25 AM on May 6, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:25 AM on May 6, 2019 [5 favorites]
Every car seems painfully complicated when compared to older cars today, and painfully simple ten years later compared to the newest cars.
At least, until you spend several hours of several weekends trying to figure out why a 2009 VW Golf will. not. reset. one. ready. monitor. so you can't smog the car in California even though it passes the tailpipe emissions test, so you end up giving a perfectly good car away to relatives in a state that doesn't care so much about the ready monitors.
I'm still cranky about this, and it wasn't even my car!
At the same time, I have a lovely 80s scooter sitting in my garage and a temporary carburetor sitting in my living room waiting to be transplanted in so that I can get the original carb rebuilt, and I'd much rather be dealing with a MAF sensor or injector replacement.
Perhaps it comes down to preferring what you know.
posted by davejay at 7:32 AM on May 6, 2019
At least, until you spend several hours of several weekends trying to figure out why a 2009 VW Golf will. not. reset. one. ready. monitor. so you can't smog the car in California even though it passes the tailpipe emissions test, so you end up giving a perfectly good car away to relatives in a state that doesn't care so much about the ready monitors.
I'm still cranky about this, and it wasn't even my car!
At the same time, I have a lovely 80s scooter sitting in my garage and a temporary carburetor sitting in my living room waiting to be transplanted in so that I can get the original carb rebuilt, and I'd much rather be dealing with a MAF sensor or injector replacement.
Perhaps it comes down to preferring what you know.
posted by davejay at 7:32 AM on May 6, 2019
hippybear: It's not the war on driving. It's the war on the shade tree mechanic.
That's another aspect covered in the New Yorker article, and one I skipped over in this post, but it's a really good point.
The problem with computerized everything is two-part: first, you need something to read the error codes (assuming the sensors are working properly), and some places charge $100 just to tell you what the codes say.
Second is Right to Repair, which includes both the legal right to tinker with and fix (and maybe even improve) technology (including vehicles) you own, and also obtaining official repair guidance or manuals. The latter was improved for vehicles thanks to the Massachusetts Right to Repair Initiative of 2012, a ballot issue that was supported by voters, then signed by the governor on November 26, 2013 (Wikipedia), following which Automakers agree to 'right to repair' deal in January 2014 (Auto News), a boon to repair shops across the country.
But computerization brings its own options, which is great if you have the capacity and support to make changes. With John Deere tractors, neither are officially offered, which is why American farmers are hacking their tractors with Ukrainain firmware, which are traded on invite-only, paid online forums (Vice Motherboard).
Tesla is similar in this aspect, which is why Rich Benoit had to work from two salvaged Teslas to learn how they worked, and in the end make his own (previously). Limited access to parts and repairs in the name of "company security" = limited options for "owners."
posted by filthy light thief at 8:10 AM on May 6, 2019
That's another aspect covered in the New Yorker article, and one I skipped over in this post, but it's a really good point.
The problem with computerized everything is two-part: first, you need something to read the error codes (assuming the sensors are working properly), and some places charge $100 just to tell you what the codes say.
Second is Right to Repair, which includes both the legal right to tinker with and fix (and maybe even improve) technology (including vehicles) you own, and also obtaining official repair guidance or manuals. The latter was improved for vehicles thanks to the Massachusetts Right to Repair Initiative of 2012, a ballot issue that was supported by voters, then signed by the governor on November 26, 2013 (Wikipedia), following which Automakers agree to 'right to repair' deal in January 2014 (Auto News), a boon to repair shops across the country.
But computerization brings its own options, which is great if you have the capacity and support to make changes. With John Deere tractors, neither are officially offered, which is why American farmers are hacking their tractors with Ukrainain firmware, which are traded on invite-only, paid online forums (Vice Motherboard).
Tesla is similar in this aspect, which is why Rich Benoit had to work from two salvaged Teslas to learn how they worked, and in the end make his own (previously). Limited access to parts and repairs in the name of "company security" = limited options for "owners."
posted by filthy light thief at 8:10 AM on May 6, 2019
...the knowledge of how to keep them running became part of the cultural background, something that you grew up (assuming you were of a particular gender from a particular social class) just knowing.
Vastly overstated. Even with HS Auto Mechanics classes, the knowledge to keep cars running was not somehow obtained by osmosis. It took instruction, or poring over service manuals, or at least hours and hours of trial-and-error tinkering.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 11:52 AM on May 6, 2019 [3 favorites]
Vastly overstated. Even with HS Auto Mechanics classes, the knowledge to keep cars running was not somehow obtained by osmosis. It took instruction, or poring over service manuals, or at least hours and hours of trial-and-error tinkering.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 11:52 AM on May 6, 2019 [3 favorites]
The 1980s was the nadir of visual design for American cars. Most everything from around that time was uglier than what came before or what came after. I think Detroit designers were struggling with addressing the increased demand for Japanese cars by creating a transitional style that was kinda unsatisfying. So of course, most of the candy in Radwood's photos are European cars, which weren't quite as ugly.
(In related, I saw a DeLorean drive down my street yesterday. Rare where I live.)
posted by ovvl at 12:45 PM on May 6, 2019 [1 favorite]
(In related, I saw a DeLorean drive down my street yesterday. Rare where I live.)
posted by ovvl at 12:45 PM on May 6, 2019 [1 favorite]
xdvesper: Increasing appetite for regulation is going to slowly make modification harder or even illegal. Some things I can think of...
The problem with vehicle regulations is as it has always been -- enforcement. We already have trucks cosplaying as old-timey trains and "rolling coal," in the face of emissions regulations.
davejay: Every car seems painfully complicated when compared to older cars today, and painfully simple ten years later compared to the newest cars.
Very true -- my 17 year old Prius has some "fancy" features, but it feels pretty quaint compared to new cars, and not just because my car has a tape deck.
The River Ivel: perhaps we’re looking at a future with commonplace level 3
I agree -- while Tesla has walked back its offer to sell "Full Self-Driving" package, at least as of March 6, 2019 (Ars Technica), PC Mag rounded up their picks for driver-assist cars, as of October 5, 2018, featuring:
posted by filthy light thief at 2:02 PM on May 6, 2019
The problem with vehicle regulations is as it has always been -- enforcement. We already have trucks cosplaying as old-timey trains and "rolling coal," in the face of emissions regulations.
davejay: Every car seems painfully complicated when compared to older cars today, and painfully simple ten years later compared to the newest cars.
Very true -- my 17 year old Prius has some "fancy" features, but it feels pretty quaint compared to new cars, and not just because my car has a tape deck.
The River Ivel: perhaps we’re looking at a future with commonplace level 3
I agree -- while Tesla has walked back its offer to sell "Full Self-Driving" package, at least as of March 6, 2019 (Ars Technica), PC Mag rounded up their picks for driver-assist cars, as of October 5, 2018, featuring:
- Blind Spot Detection/Assist
- Lane Departure Warning/Prevention
- Forward Collision Warning/Prevention
- Active Cruise Control -- Using a radar sensor, active cruise control (ACC) can tell when a car ahead is moving slower than your car and reduce your speed accordingly, and
- Automated Parking
posted by filthy light thief at 2:02 PM on May 6, 2019
Getting a car to 100k miles was a real feat.Indeed. My favorite response to "Cars were better back in my day" is that automobile manufacturers didn't even bother to include a sixth digit on the odometer until the mid-1980s.
posted by Hatashran at 4:00 PM on May 6, 2019 [4 favorites]
automobile manufacturers didn't even bother to include a sixth digit on the odometer until the mid-1980s.
And even then, they only sort of did. My 1989 Mercury Cougar's "digital dash" odometer had digits similar to an old school digital watch. The 6th digit could only display unlit or a 1, so it rolled over from 199,999 to 100,000.
posted by superna at 7:04 PM on May 6, 2019
And even then, they only sort of did. My 1989 Mercury Cougar's "digital dash" odometer had digits similar to an old school digital watch. The 6th digit could only display unlit or a 1, so it rolled over from 199,999 to 100,000.
posted by superna at 7:04 PM on May 6, 2019
It took instruction, or poring over service manuals, or at least hours and hours of trial-and-error tinkering.
Well, sure, nearly everything takes instruction. I mean, reading takes (a substantial amount of) instruction. Within much of the population though, it is assumed.
Similarly, within certain subsections of the population—admittedly delineated, as I noted, fairly narrowly by socio-economic strata and gender, and often tied up in fairly toxic ways with ideas of masculinity, so I am not saying it was an unalloyed good by any means—a certain level of automotive knowledge was likewise assumed. And (American) cars remained a largely fixed target onto which that knowledge could be employed for decades, up into the 80s.
Where I grew up, if you were a boy and made it to highschool and didn't know how to change the oil in a domestic car, even if not to the point of actually being able to do it but at least identify the tools one would need to do it and hand them to the person lying under the car in roughly the correct order, there would have been a certain general feeling that your father (again, highly gendered role here—topic for a different time) had somehow failed in conveying an Important Life Skill. Same also with changing a headlight bulb, adding coolant, and changing a tire.
You didn't need a service manual to do any of those things, for most vehicles. They were similar enough that the same general process and the same basic set of tools would probably work, and if it didn't, the car was probably "weird" and you would be forgiven (e.g. the guy my dad knew who had a '68 Saab two-stroke and enjoyed asking people to change the oil on it). Simultaneously, cars were unreliable enough that these things were a reasonably valid Important Life Skill. A car with natural rubber hoses, bias-ply tires, cotton-reinforced belts, engines with pistons that rattled in their cylinders, etc., could and would leave you sitting by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere.
Several things conspired to change all this: cars became much more complex, especially electrically; they became much more reliable, such that the odds of one breaking down on any given journey were much reduced; cellphones made breaking down less high-stakes; the changes from year to year also became much greater, so knowledge and tools useful on one car would leave you scratching your head on the next.
Overall, I think the net is positive: modern cars are cleaner, more reliable, more performant, safer (well, for drivers/occupants), and a hell of a lot more comfortable. It's pretty cool that you can drive a car for a quarter-million miles with nothing but 5,000 or 7,500-mile oil changes, brakes, and tires.
And in the long run I think we'll probably see car design stabilize again, probably with battery-electrics, as the manufacturers converge on a winning formula. And when that happens, the repair and DIY market will catch up and you'll see shadetree and independent mechanics become more capable again. Hopefully this time, only because they want to be, not because they have to.
Or climate change will kill us all. That's possible, too.
posted by Kadin2048 at 7:49 PM on May 6, 2019 [2 favorites]
Well, sure, nearly everything takes instruction. I mean, reading takes (a substantial amount of) instruction. Within much of the population though, it is assumed.
Similarly, within certain subsections of the population—admittedly delineated, as I noted, fairly narrowly by socio-economic strata and gender, and often tied up in fairly toxic ways with ideas of masculinity, so I am not saying it was an unalloyed good by any means—a certain level of automotive knowledge was likewise assumed. And (American) cars remained a largely fixed target onto which that knowledge could be employed for decades, up into the 80s.
Where I grew up, if you were a boy and made it to highschool and didn't know how to change the oil in a domestic car, even if not to the point of actually being able to do it but at least identify the tools one would need to do it and hand them to the person lying under the car in roughly the correct order, there would have been a certain general feeling that your father (again, highly gendered role here—topic for a different time) had somehow failed in conveying an Important Life Skill. Same also with changing a headlight bulb, adding coolant, and changing a tire.
You didn't need a service manual to do any of those things, for most vehicles. They were similar enough that the same general process and the same basic set of tools would probably work, and if it didn't, the car was probably "weird" and you would be forgiven (e.g. the guy my dad knew who had a '68 Saab two-stroke and enjoyed asking people to change the oil on it). Simultaneously, cars were unreliable enough that these things were a reasonably valid Important Life Skill. A car with natural rubber hoses, bias-ply tires, cotton-reinforced belts, engines with pistons that rattled in their cylinders, etc., could and would leave you sitting by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere.
Several things conspired to change all this: cars became much more complex, especially electrically; they became much more reliable, such that the odds of one breaking down on any given journey were much reduced; cellphones made breaking down less high-stakes; the changes from year to year also became much greater, so knowledge and tools useful on one car would leave you scratching your head on the next.
Overall, I think the net is positive: modern cars are cleaner, more reliable, more performant, safer (well, for drivers/occupants), and a hell of a lot more comfortable. It's pretty cool that you can drive a car for a quarter-million miles with nothing but 5,000 or 7,500-mile oil changes, brakes, and tires.
And in the long run I think we'll probably see car design stabilize again, probably with battery-electrics, as the manufacturers converge on a winning formula. And when that happens, the repair and DIY market will catch up and you'll see shadetree and independent mechanics become more capable again. Hopefully this time, only because they want to be, not because they have to.
Or climate change will kill us all. That's possible, too.
posted by Kadin2048 at 7:49 PM on May 6, 2019 [2 favorites]
Fine, but that's not my understanding of "just knowing."
posted by Kirth Gerson at 5:44 AM on May 7, 2019
posted by Kirth Gerson at 5:44 AM on May 7, 2019
They were giant pieces of crap. Getting a car to 100k miles was a real feat.
An older friend, for whom cars in the 1980s were a big improvement on what came before, was laughing at how much it used to take to get a car to 100k miles. There would be a couple of engine rebuilds and possibly an entirely new engine, plus one or two transmissions, and an endlessly long list of minor stuff like the heater motor dying or a brake seizing.
Around here there are small shops that specialize in hybrids, with cheap battery replacements and whatever else is unique to a hybrid. The more that hybrids become the norm, the more that working on them will become normal and expected.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:35 AM on May 7, 2019
An older friend, for whom cars in the 1980s were a big improvement on what came before, was laughing at how much it used to take to get a car to 100k miles. There would be a couple of engine rebuilds and possibly an entirely new engine, plus one or two transmissions, and an endlessly long list of minor stuff like the heater motor dying or a brake seizing.
Around here there are small shops that specialize in hybrids, with cheap battery replacements and whatever else is unique to a hybrid. The more that hybrids become the norm, the more that working on them will become normal and expected.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:35 AM on May 7, 2019
Radwood is a lot of fun as an idea. I found out about it from a friend I sold a car to recently, which is itself a story.
I did the local version of the dot-com boom. It was fun. I got lots of cool experiences out of it, in addition to some more stereotypical things -- and that last category included a Porsche. I grew up loving the 911, and always wanted one, so in 2000 when I came across a '95 base model with known-good service history, I bought it.
It was my daily driver for years and years. The car was insanely reliable and troublefree, which is contrary to most people's expectations. (It was terribly impractical for other reasons -- for example, with that car it's possible to buy too many groceries.) Porsche had made great strides since the somewhat temperamental 70s and early 80s; the version of the 911 they started selling in 1995 was the culmination of the basic car's evolution that started in the 60s. It was still an air-cooled, fundamentally kinda primitive car, just optimized out the wazoo (& obviously absurdly powerful).
The interior of the '95 car is spartan. The dash is a hard black plane across the front of the cabin. Literally nothing is ergonomic as we understand the term. The climate control, while effective, is baffling to operate. It's an enthusiast car, with all that implies -- it always smelled of oil, and the engine is loud and RIGHT BEHIND YOUR HEAD, etc. Modern traction control made it harder to shake the tail loos, so it wasn't quite as lively as the 911s of old, but you still also were very aware of where the car's center of gravity was.
In 1998, though, Porsche changed the car completely; the most reviled edit was the introduction of a water-cooled engine. I mean, I get it; you can only go so far with what is basically a hopped-up VW Beetle. But it still sucked. The newer car was also super luxe inside -- all curved leather and plastic, very cushy, all of which appealed to a broader market and helped Porsche survive as an independent carmaker for a while longer. But I always thought something was lost.
Until a few months ago, I still had that car. I hadn't driven it in years, owing to an injury-imposed interregnum in 2014, but I met someone who was interested in helping me get it running again to enjoy or sell, and that sounded good to me; she'd also shared that in my years "away" from the sports car world, the market for late air-cooled 911s like mine had basically exploded. This is hilarious; at one point Blue Book on my car was under $20k in great condition. Now, a well-maintained 1995 model like mine could, in the right context and with the right upgrades, go for more than I paid for mine in 2000.
Anyway, D. came and looked at the car, and she fell in love. Would I be interested in selling it to her, AS-IS, instead?
Uh, yeah.
So she paid me about 75% what I paid for it 18 years ago for car that was not in fact drivable, and we both went away super happy. She promptly put a bunch MORE money into it -- she's into autocross -- and took it to Radwood in Austin, where it was well received (D. has a picture of it in a lineup with a bunch of other iconic 90s sports cars, all in red, but it's private to her FB so I can't link it here). It's her daily driver now, too.
It's a long story, but the tl;dr is basically the closest I'm gonna get in this life to "your beloved pet went to live on a farm."
(Plus, I get visitation.)
posted by uberchet at 8:38 AM on May 7, 2019 [3 favorites]
I did the local version of the dot-com boom. It was fun. I got lots of cool experiences out of it, in addition to some more stereotypical things -- and that last category included a Porsche. I grew up loving the 911, and always wanted one, so in 2000 when I came across a '95 base model with known-good service history, I bought it.
It was my daily driver for years and years. The car was insanely reliable and troublefree, which is contrary to most people's expectations. (It was terribly impractical for other reasons -- for example, with that car it's possible to buy too many groceries.) Porsche had made great strides since the somewhat temperamental 70s and early 80s; the version of the 911 they started selling in 1995 was the culmination of the basic car's evolution that started in the 60s. It was still an air-cooled, fundamentally kinda primitive car, just optimized out the wazoo (& obviously absurdly powerful).
The interior of the '95 car is spartan. The dash is a hard black plane across the front of the cabin. Literally nothing is ergonomic as we understand the term. The climate control, while effective, is baffling to operate. It's an enthusiast car, with all that implies -- it always smelled of oil, and the engine is loud and RIGHT BEHIND YOUR HEAD, etc. Modern traction control made it harder to shake the tail loos, so it wasn't quite as lively as the 911s of old, but you still also were very aware of where the car's center of gravity was.
In 1998, though, Porsche changed the car completely; the most reviled edit was the introduction of a water-cooled engine. I mean, I get it; you can only go so far with what is basically a hopped-up VW Beetle. But it still sucked. The newer car was also super luxe inside -- all curved leather and plastic, very cushy, all of which appealed to a broader market and helped Porsche survive as an independent carmaker for a while longer. But I always thought something was lost.
Until a few months ago, I still had that car. I hadn't driven it in years, owing to an injury-imposed interregnum in 2014, but I met someone who was interested in helping me get it running again to enjoy or sell, and that sounded good to me; she'd also shared that in my years "away" from the sports car world, the market for late air-cooled 911s like mine had basically exploded. This is hilarious; at one point Blue Book on my car was under $20k in great condition. Now, a well-maintained 1995 model like mine could, in the right context and with the right upgrades, go for more than I paid for mine in 2000.
Anyway, D. came and looked at the car, and she fell in love. Would I be interested in selling it to her, AS-IS, instead?
Uh, yeah.
So she paid me about 75% what I paid for it 18 years ago for car that was not in fact drivable, and we both went away super happy. She promptly put a bunch MORE money into it -- she's into autocross -- and took it to Radwood in Austin, where it was well received (D. has a picture of it in a lineup with a bunch of other iconic 90s sports cars, all in red, but it's private to her FB so I can't link it here). It's her daily driver now, too.
It's a long story, but the tl;dr is basically the closest I'm gonna get in this life to "your beloved pet went to live on a farm."
(Plus, I get visitation.)
posted by uberchet at 8:38 AM on May 7, 2019 [3 favorites]
There would be a couple of engine rebuilds and possibly an entirely new engine, plus one or two transmissions, and an endlessly long list of minor stuff like the heater motor dying or a brake seizing.
Let's not forget the 15 or 20 sets of tires, 10 or 15 mufflers, probably a couple of radiators, and a bunch of headlight bulbs. And if you weren't in the desert Southwest, you'd be driving a pile of rust.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 10:33 AM on May 7, 2019
Let's not forget the 15 or 20 sets of tires, 10 or 15 mufflers, probably a couple of radiators, and a bunch of headlight bulbs. And if you weren't in the desert Southwest, you'd be driving a pile of rust.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 10:33 AM on May 7, 2019
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