New old car reliability

[Bwana]

This just came up on Drivers Source here in Houston but is not yet listed on their inventory page. $73k. Supposedly a very reputable group. This looks like a beautiful car and appears to have had all the mechanicals gone thru.

So how reliable are these brand new old cars? Anyone have experience with something similar? Obviously the tune up intervals are much more frequent but are there chronic electrical or mechanical problems we have all forgotten about?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/72485679@N02/sets/72157701509517095/

 

[dave v. in nc]

Pretty car. I'd want the wood grain on my Kuhlmeister to match the Zebrano of the dash for $73K, though.
Mom had "Pearl", a lightly-used 72 280se 3.5, when I was whipper-snapper, so I have a warm place in my heart for that body...What a lovely vault. Made some great noises when shifted manually, as well.
Seems like dad sold it because of valve-sleeve wear/with a little smoke. That could have been from letting their 16-year-old-never-gonna-be-a-supreme-court-justice/president son drive the thing...
I do not remember it ever being in the shop for anything else. I think the vacuum for the central-lock was an issue on later cars, but doubt this earlier model had such.

 

[adawil2002]

Old cars can be reliable if they are very well maintained. Older cars are more expensive to use as daily drivers, one should have a second car as a backup vehicle.

 

[teahead]

Would never DD an old car unless my commute is less than 10 minutes and had a safe place to park.

 

[Ohmess]

So, with a really old car, I start from the general proposition that I need to identify the critical stuff in the car, and then either know when the critical stuff has been replaced or I plan to replace it.

With a car like this one that is really good cosmetically, it is highly likely that the mechanical aspects of the vehicle were attended to; review the records to determine when critical items were last addressed.

I use Rob Siegel's Hack Mechanic book to help me identify the critical stuff. The two major take-aways I can recall from Rob's book were: (1) check the components of the vehicle electrical system (including the ignition system) and (2) review the cooling system. If critical items within these systems (like the battery) have not recently been replaced, replace them or, if you are like me, have a plan to deal with them.

With a car that looks this good, you are going to have some judgment calls to make. For example, if this car has its original alternator and it has been tested and is still working well, you have a tough call to make. The car should warn you if it begins to fail, and most such failures occur gradually. So, you could leave well enough alone. Or you could consider picking up a working backup, refurbish it over time, and then swap it in before the one in the car fails. This is what I did.

After these two big areas are addressed, move on to other items that could leave you stranded. Rob mentions fuel delivery as a possible "leave you stranded" item. Go over fuel hoses and lines and filters and fuel pumps. And don't forget the gas tank.

Suspension ball joints and tie rod ends also come to mind as leave you stranded items, although these usually give you warning if you pay attention to the signs. Here again, with a car like this you might leave well enough alone.

And, while brakes rarely leave you stranded, I always evaluate the braking system any time I buy a used car. (Actually, assuming I was able to drive the car home, this is the first thing I do. I have a thing about brakes).

One final overlay on top of this. While the car may look great, consider the useful life of the materials that originally went into the car. For example, my car came with the original seat belts, but the useful life of the webbing used to make them was 25 years. Counting on them 45 plus years later would not be wise.

 

[DWMBMW]

Counting on them 45 plus years later would not be wise.

Uh- oh!

 

[Mike Goble]

Old cars can be reliable if they are very well maintained. Older cars are more expensive to use as daily drivers, one should have a second car as a backup vehicle.

What? More expensive to use as daily drivers? You may not get modern fuel mileage, but other wear items don't cost any more. If you are creative you can get by very inexpensively. The most expensive single part I've purchased for my Bavaria is the power steering hose at $180. That cost more than my engine, rear axle, brakes, wheels, tires, carburetors, anything. They tend to appreciate as you drive them. My $2000 investment in a daily driver 72 Bavaria in 2006 is worth much more than that now. I do have a newer backup vehicle - a 73 Datsun p/u...

 

[Ohmess]

What? More expensive to use as daily drivers? You may not get modern fuel mileage, but other wear items don't cost any more. If you are creative you can get by very inexpensively. The most expensive single part I've purchased for my Bavaria is the power steering hose at $180. That cost more than my engine, rear axle, brakes, wheels, tires, carburetors, anything. They tend to appreciate as you drive them. My $2000 investment in a daily driver 72 Bavaria in 2006 is worth much more than that now. I do have a newer backup vehicle - a 73 Datsun p/u...

Yeah, an old car may not be more expensive as a daily driver. Obviously, the cost to get into an older car will likely be less than a newer one, and so your annual depreciation on an older car should be much less than on a newer car. This is the largest single cost of owning a car, and many people don't give it much thought.

And with newer cars, many of the required repairs would be out of my hands because I am dependent on someone with the software to talk to the software in the car. This makes buying newish cars more risky. In addition, it seems like newer cars have far more parts than older cars, and entire new categories of parts that can be a source of trouble have been introduced (sensors and circuit boards come readily to mind).

All that said, even if you are attentive cars can break down unexpectedly, and with everyone in the country relying on just in time parts shipped from far off warehouses, down time cannot be avoided. If you intend to rely on older cars to get around, I recommend having two (or more).

 

[rsporsche]

i look at this a couple of ways - years ago when i got my '73 bavaria, i paid 2000 for it ... it had 150k miles on it. i drove it for 10 years and put another 150k on it. just changed the oil, replaced the brakepads, replaced the oil pump, the rear wheel bearings, alternator + hoses ... and tires. the car was rear ended twice, the first time there was a trailer hitch on the car (from the PO). the car that hit me bent the rear bumper, pushed the trailer hitch down which pivoted up in the trunk ... bent the floor of the trunk and cracked a seam in the gas tank - straightened out the floor a bit to fit a new gas tank. the car was hit in the rear a second time ... collected again for the messed up bumper and the bent floor. collected over 4,000 bucks from the 2 accidents ... which means i had a substantial profit in the car ... then gave it to charity w/ 300k miles and took a 500 dollar tax deduction. first old car that i made money on. it was a super reliable car.

shift gears to the current era. cars are a lot more expensive so the depreciation is significant. i bought my porsche as a certified car - 3 years old with a 38,000 reduced price and still had more than 3 years of warranty. a leak showed up in the pdk tranny. porsche put a new pdk in it. very glad i had the warranty as that would have been a 12k maintenance bill. 20k mile service bills are 1000 for the small services / 2000 for the big ones ... and that is if nothing is wrong. my thought is, when i retire ... so does my porsche, i will drive my coupe or maybe a mini cooper s