Drink Driving in the UK

[spacesailor]

"They are nasty people who want the other party to die while they walk away. "

 

No we just Don't wish to die in a tin can, With crumple zones that don't stop !, crumpling you as you slowly die trapped by thin tin sheets that folded over your legs, then your lower torso.

 

spacesailor

 

 

[pmccarthy]

I would want my family to be in the safer car.

 

 

[spacesailor]

Sherman UK made a very strong vehical.

 

spacesailor

 

 

[onetrack]

Oh, yes - the Sherman Firefly is also ideal for settling road rage disputes, as well as rating very high on the crashworthiness index. 

 

It has been noted in road testing, as having a lack of highway speed, and excessive fuel consumption problems, though. 

 

 

[nomadpete]

They're  Basterds to reverse park.

 

And can be a little difficult to get into the underground carpark at Woolies. Nevertheless, it is a vehicle that is pleasantly resistant to all forms of road rage.

 

 

[facthunter]

All the little precious ones get taken to school in personal war tanks, that don't go far enough to get the engines warm. Nev

 

 

[ClintonB]

I love muscle cars like my charger, but I would hate to be in a bender in it. They collapse or go like an accordion with no pillars or crumple zones. Just watching you tube vids of that style of body in prangs is horrific

 

 

[facthunter]

 They frequently just break in halves in a prang with the front (with engine ) going one way and the rest another. Rusty FX Holdens did much the same.  Nev

 

 

[nomadpete]

I've also seen a Holden Torana 6 break in halves at the firewall (like the valiants). It is scarey when two halves of a car come sliding at you!

 

Oddly, the one I saw had run backwards into a truck after it did a 180 as it came towards us. There were two 4gallon drums of petrol in its boot (squashed) as well as his petrol tank, and he hit the 40 gallon diesel tank on the side of the truck, before the front half separated, spreading a mix of diesel and petrol on the road as the smouldering, wreckage slid to a stop in front of us trailing a shower of sparks. But no fire.

 

Back then, Crash testing was not much practiced on cars unless they were made for the wealthy. Eg, Rover, Volvo and Mercs seemed to be early adopters of more robust passenger capsules with crumpleable corners.

 

 

[facthunter]

It's a miracle it didn't burn.. The Valiants ( especially the later ones ) used to dance the bonnet and front guards when pushed. The Holdens with a bit of rust under the forward part of the floor and cill panel would just have the whole guards , engine wheels and sub frame part company with the cabin. . A lot of parts on those vehicles were non structural and you were just hanging TIN on sub frames..The Modern cars is an integrated structure where even the windscreen plays a part and the pillars really support an inverted car well as well as the crumple zones do their thing in accidents.. Only trouble with them is  they want you to have a new one too often for most people's budget capability. Nev

 

 

[onetrack]

Very little is repairable on todays vehicles, apart from a few outer panels. They utilise thinner section steel that is high-tensile, to obtain increased body strength.

 

When your car of today is hit, any little wrinkles or crimps in the body structure will immediately cause it to be declared a Statutory Write Off (SWO), which can never be repaired, as its structural safety has been compromised.

 

Even electrical damage will render one of todays vehicles an SWO, because so many of the vehicles safety features rely on satisfactory electrical condition and performance.

 

It's SOP to write off any vehicle that has had water inside it, more than 150mm deep over the floor level. This is because so many safety-related devices are located under seats, in the footwells, and on the floor, such as ECU's.

 

Below is a link to a handbook for evaluating a damaged vehicle as to whether it is repairable, or an SWO. It's a real eye-opener, it takes very little to write a vehicle off today.

 

https://www.sa.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/8922/MR1466.pdf

 

 

[facthunter]

I've had words (talk talk) with a lot of "realists" in the trade and what one could have seen as a minor repair mechanical or otherwise is a write off. If Rats chew on your loom in a Beemer  forget it . It's built into the car same as a (BIG) planes loom is .Some use fibre optics.. The thin high tensile steel is not generally repairable and complex engines  manual strip and rebuild just is not done (economically). Heads can't be planed or blocks decked. Plenty of plastic complex shaped, unique to a model, parts just become unavailable NEW in say 4 years. Get some sumo wrestler who overtightens everything and you quickly have a problem with threads and special clips damaged.. Get a 1965 Mustang V8 You can get everything new for it. They will probably ban them soon ( and Maybe the LADA Niva). too. And they wonder why the suicide rate is rising.  It's getting so as you'd be mad not to. Nev

 

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

I love muscle cars like my charger <snip>

 

I often say to my son, the most expensive and appreciating commodity on earth is nostalgia...

 

https://www.australianmusclecarsales.com.au/cars/1971-valiant-charger-bathurst-e38-big-tank-243754

 

Look at the price ?

 

 

[nomadpete]

I ask you, is that actually nostalgia, or is it driven by the sigh of older blokes who can no longer afford to buy a new disposable motorcar every three years? And they fondly recall a concept called "maintainable"

 

 

[nomadpete]

PS

 

"Maintainable" is also kinder to the environment, since replacing a minor component is more environmentally kind than throwing out an entire vehicle every time something minor goes wrong.

 

 

[Litespeed]

The Aussie car nostalgia is really perverse at times.

 

We have blokes throwing huge sums at cars that were very ordinary in their time just had so called grunt. They were just hotter up versions of very plain, poorly built Aussie car Jack and Jill could afford in the days of huge protection and duties for a quality Euro performance machine.

 

Euro speed machines like a fast Alfa or Porsche or BMW CSI coupe or SLC Marc were house prices. All great cars and worthy collectables that are valued overseas. But we pay stupid prices for the cars we could afford back then, when back then we wanted the real deal sports euro machine. Such machines in awesome condition are worth far less than a frickin Aussie taxi with a V8.

 

We are a mad bunch or just plain blinkered.

 

The money and hours spent on restored crap is generally the same as a Rare Porsche to make a as new car. That show quality paint costs even more on a rippled from factory and non optional rust Aussie car.

 

I had a 73 Valiant Charger 6 pack in perfect no rust, no dent condition. I thought it was awesome until I drove a bog stock Alfa two litre to blow the carbon out for a lovely lady owner, who understood italian  passion for speed.  It was night and day in contrast.

 

The real world ability rang rings around the charger and could do it all day and the next.

 

The problem with re living youth with cars is they forget about what was great, good, bad and plain ugly to drive and look at.

 

Penny wise and pound poor fools.

 

 

[Litespeed]

The crash ability of the Charger is legendary. Many have succumbed to its habit if swapping ends in a corner.

 

The Blue Mtns highway patrol was run by a friends dad in the 70s. They got new chargers to replace the fleet. In two weeks all were smashed, they had bugger all ability on wet roads and gravel or coppers going for a fang in the Megalong valley.

 

I discovered this habit myself with a normally fine corner someone had crashed at but left bits of headlight etc plus some drips of oil.

 

The small loss of grip unleashed the pendulum effect and we were headed for a big transformer pole. Fortunately the same instability and excess power allowed me to correct and change direction........

 

Into a rising embankment on the other side, in the air and smack into a older smaller power pole. All at speed, having used all available thrust to avoid the bigger pole.

 

Talk about Murphy coming to visit. Now as you can imagine things were not looking good as we charged the pole in the air. My twin brother was passenger, two days out of hospital from T boning a car that pulled out on my motorbike he was riding.

 

Amazing how fast the brain  works in the situations.

 

I still remember every millisecond of it. We are seemingly the luckiest buggers on planet earth that day. I had a few very close shaves but that was solid gold .

 

As we sailed majestically towards our destiny Dukes of Hazard style, the physics of the universe obliged with a lesson.

 

The pole was struck at about five feet in the air but was hit exactly in line with me the driver. It crashed through, missed the block and hit through the carbs until it slammed into the subframe. Then like the hands of Dog cut/snapped the pole clean through. The subframe acted a bit like a big blade. The screen smashed and corner of bonnet came through like a nasty spike.

 

The pole came down with lines still attached, we landed in long grass on a small farm. The lives live lines landed on the car and in front, I could see the fuel everywhere from shattered carbs. Sparks were flying in front of us.

 

Shitttttt....but as I am alive, luck and not touching anything meant we didn't become toast. The area  power went down within a very long seconds? .

 

We opened the doors easy as pie. Calmly got the hell away and waved down traffic if any came to slow for the corner.

 

Naturally first on seen was a pissed off farmer from hearing a loud noise and losing his evening soapy on TV.

 

Followed by the hotshots towtrucks, then cops, ambos firetrucks.  It took quite a while for them to believe the guys directing traffic for safety were not the corpses they expected.

 

Only injury sustained was some little bits of glass in my  forehead . My twin was unharmed.

 

The universe sure bloody must have helped because you could do that a thousand times and never survive to have a laugh and beer .

 

I still have a photo of the charger the roof had not a scratch. 

 

I do not think the charger a great thing in a crash,  in fact their are two types of Charger..... Those crashed and those that have not been driven enough for it to make a attempt on your life.   

 

That night we just won the galactic lottery, everything that could possibly happen in our favour did. A variation of a tiny thing would have been fatal.

 

I must have a lot more lives than any cat, I would have used at least ninety nine that night same for my twin brother. Bugged if I know how but we had twin superpowers that night.

 

Sorry for the length but unless you read it all you would not believe it.

 

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

I ask you, is that actually nostalgia, or is it driven by the sigh of older blokes who can no longer afford to buy a new disposable motorcar every three years? And they fondly recall a concept called "maintainable"

 

$220K for a car that has historically needed a lot of maintenance - oh and parts probabky have to be fabricated now....

 

Hmmm I think I will churn a $50K car every three years.. thanks...

 

 

[red750]

Every 3 years??? My car turns 20 this year.

 

 

[old man emu]

I was watching Wheeler Dealers last night. They were doing up a fairly recently made car and found that the brake control module was faulty. A new one would cost $US1400. They took it to a bloke who knew about the problems with the unit. The problem was a common problem - the relay switch had worn out due to normal wear and tear. $US10 later, the module was working correctly  and fit for another twenty or so years of service, until the same wear and tear made another replacement necessary.

 

It seems to me that a lot of expensive repairs to modern cars are due to the cost of sealed, serviceable components.  I agree that since they often contain electrical circuitry they need to be sealed, but sometimes it only takes someone who has tinkered with them to find a repair solution.

 

I'm glad kids these days don't have to drive around in cars with virtually no passive passenger protection features. Would you volunteer to be a crash test dummy in a VW Beetle, or an EH Holden?

 

I do notice one thing passive protection has changed. Remember the "10 to 2" position for holding the steering wheel? Student drivers are now told not to hold the steering wheel like that anymoe becasue if the steering wheel air bag goes off it will throw your arms into your face with great force. It would be like being hit with a 4 x 2.

 

 

[spacesailor]

5 to 1 & other. Holds are not good.

 

SO

 

HOW many are killed by those airbangers with perhaps a broken neck being the most humane. 

 

My daughters car ( Subaru ) is on the recall list, & she has been waiting a couple of years, without a date,  so now its up for sale, next owners worry.

 

My Delica is a 1998, 22 year old.

 

spacesailor

 

 

[onetrack]

There are two major repair problems with current model vehicles. One is, the amount of componentry that is built to NOT be repairable. Sealed components, and individual parts unavailable, stop items from being repaired.

 

Typical is the power windows in the Falcons. I owned a new Falcon Ghia Wagon once, and after 18 months, the drivers power window failed to go up. The problem was a stripped plastic gear in the window regulator gearbox.

 

But you couldn't buy the gear, you had to buy the entire power window regulator mechanism - the motor, the gearbox and the window lift arms - at a cost of about $180, back in the early 1990's.

 

The second repair failing is the need to buy vehicle-exclusive special tools and electronic repair equipment, that cannot be used on anything else. Every second component on a BMW requires special tools for removal and replacement.

 

The BMW's don't use a standard OBD code reader. They use the standard OBD plug, but unless you have the specific BMW code reader, you can't acquire the fault error information. It's just an ongoing bleeding operation on BMW owners.

 

The Falcon Ghia I owned had Climate Control fitted. It worked fine for 20,000 kms, then it packed up. I sent it to the Ford dealer for repair, and they told me what a fantastic device they were.

 

The service manager advised the CC microprocesser mounted in the dash was capable of fault-finding on a huge scale. You only had to press several buttons together in the right order, and it broke the circuitry up into 10 sections, and it self-tested every section, and found and identified the fault.

 

"So show me!", I said. He pressed the right buttons in the right order, and the dash display said, "No Error Found".

 

"Well, that's not right, because it's stopped working!", I said. The SM was perplexed. "O.K., we'll have to get it into the workshop and go through it with the big diagnostic computer", he said.

 

I returned later in the day to pick it up, and the SM said it was fixed. "We found the problem! It was a dirty fuse on the back of the A/C compressor", he said.

 

So, off I went. The CC was working fine - for about 4 hrs, then it stopped working again. I took the car back, told them it had stopped working again, and the SM said they would go through it again with the diagnostic computer.

 

I returned late in the day again, and it was fixed. "The problem was, the microprocessor itself was shot!", said the SM. "So it couldn't self-test and diagnose any faults! - it can't test itself!".

 

Then he goes on to say -"We'll fix this under warranty, even though it's just over the 20,000kms, and technically outside warranty. You wouldn't want to have to pay the cost of replacing the microprocessor, its listed at $930 retail!"

 

"Yes", I said, "and you and I know, that there's only $25 worth of silicon chips in the whole box and dice! It's a total ripoff, and I'll wager you can't repair the microprocessor, either!"

 

"You're right", he said. "We had one in here previously that crapped itself, and the car belonged to an electrical engineer. He wanted the old unit, so he could pull it apart and see if he could repair it!"

 

"He took it home and came back a week later, and said - 'I can replace all the smaller components such as the resistors, capacitors, transistors, etc - but at the heart of the device is a small sealed electronic component, that I have no information on, and it is marked 'VDO' - and obviously made by them - but VDO will not provide that sealed electronic component separately, and neither will they reveal what is inside it, nor will they reveal the wiring diagram for it!' - so that ended that repair attempt!"

 

This is just some of the typical design stunts, all designed to keep shafting modern car owners, and to ensure repairable items are not repaired, and you become obliged to purchase a complete new assembly - or another car.

 

I have seen older Hyundais scrapped simply because their main engine ECU failed - and Hyundai wanted $1500 or more to replace the ECU and re-code it. This was often nearly as much as the car was worth, so the car was scrapped.

 

 

[facthunter]

Cars get scrapped because you need a new ignition switch. All part of the steering column complexity and anti theft etc Out of stock and not being produced. end of operating the car Legally. You could put a push pull switch somewhere and use it for years if you lived in the sticks, cause the rest of the thing is fine.

 

 I worked in engine recoing for years Most of it needed a rebore and all after about 50,000 MILES 80,000 Kms .Today they will do 4X that. Labour is expensive and it's not worth overcapitalising some thing that's going to give you angst if you hang on to it for too long,.. The new stuff has great brakes handling and performance and occupant safety and economy and environmental creds.(to a point). Probably a better targeted Hire system is better than ownership but I look after my cars and everything else so don't want something someone else has just trashed and thrashed. Nev

 

 

[NT5224]

Wow!

 

That dashcam video was absolutely terrifying! I cringed just watching it. Stupid woman will doubtless carry the consequences of her recklessness for the rest of her life. Drinking and driving is ill-disciplined and selfish, and I really dont have a great deal of sympathy for those who are caught.

 

I own up to driving of those nasty ladder chassis 4WD's but am uttlerly unrepentent. 

 

But other than other outback residents and farmers, I'll agree most of the weekend warriors and recreational users of such vehicles are idiots..  I spend a lot of time and money fixing  the fences that they cut to break into my property, collecting their rubbish they leave their campsites and fighting the fires they light.  And occasionally rescuing them when they get bogged and dig huge impassable holes in my tracks. 

 

Alan

 

 

[ClintonB]

I often say to my son, the most expensive and appreciating commodity on earth is nostalgia...

 

https://www.australianmusclecarsales.com.au/cars/1971-valiant-charger-bathurst-e38-big-tank-243754

 

Look at the price ?

 

Lucky I’ve had mine since I was 17, when it was a $200 car. It is now a six figure car. People used to laugh at me liking wog chariots.

 

i don’t think I could part with it.

 

cheers

 

clint