Proceedings of the Castle Aching Parish Council, 1905

[Hroth]

8 hours ago, CKPR said:

And a spare fuel pump and distributor arm stashed under the front seats if you are / were an MGB owner... my two GTs were usually carefully stowed in the manner of a LRDG / SAS jeep.

 

Those were the bits I couldn't remember for my list!  Not the fuel pump, but the emergency kit lists of the time all included a distributor arm AND a set of points.

 

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst!

 

[CKPR]

11 hours ago, wagonman said:

All I know is that my current 9 year old VW Passat is vastly better

 

How I wish I still had 'Florian', my  old VW Passat -  we drove over the Alps and the Apennines in it, through the Mont Blanc tunnels and all round Tuscany  and the length & breadth of the UK in it, all with practically no maintenance.  It was 25 years old with 340 000 miles on the clock when it expired due to a malfunctioning sun roof ! It's replacement, an anonymous Freelander 2, is fun to drive but the garage bills must now have exceeded the £10 000 that we paid for it about eight years ago.

Edited July 3, 2021 by CKPR

[Ian Simpson]

Well, anyone modelling a period before the 1980s now knows they have to include a vignette of a broken-down car with the bonnet up.

[Hroth]

9 minutes ago, Ian Simpson said:

Well, anyone modelling a period before the 1980s now knows they have to include a vignette of a broken-down car with the bonnet up.

Complete with bloke in shirtsleeves peering at the engine, wife standing away with tightly folded arms and kids watching the trains go by!

[Annie]

A well worn mechanic joke:

 

Foreman:  The customer says his engine is missing.

 

Mechanic:  No it's not.  I lifted the bonnet and there it was,

[alastairq]

Well.....I wonder what the stats from the breakdown services would look like today?  

What age groups  do they attend to the most?

 

Suffice to say, an awful lot of manufacturers today seem to have reliability issues with their products?

 

Google ''what car breaks down the most'' to see a frightening story if one is putting one's own hard cash into the fray?

 

{I noticed no signs of MGBs in that list?}

 

'What Car?', Autoexpress reliability surveys,  warranty surveys, all point to an astonishing level of 'unreliability' amongst new cars.

 

I think one is less likely to see a car parked with its bonnet up these days, simply because, the owner/driver isn't going to bother..not that they could 'see' anything amiss anyuway?  

Whereas 50 years ago, if something was amiss, or things simply needed precautionary checks, the bonnet went up!

I recall a snowy winters evening over a decade ago, having to be driving around the North York Moors in an 'old' Volvo 740 estate [with a load of logs in the back]....my route back home constantly being changed as folks managed to get themselves stuck...........there were  numbers of cars parked broken down, and numbers nose or backside into a hedge.

My son noted that all the broken down cars were BMWs....and that all the cars in ditches were Audis.

[wagonman]

3 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

Those were the bits I couldn't remember for my list!  Not the fuel pump, but the emergency kit lists of the time all included a distributor arm AND a set of points.

 

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst!

 

 

Has anyone mentioned the need to carry a can of Swarfega?

 

[CKPR]

An MG Owners Club 'joke':

 

Q - What does 'MG' actually stand for ?

A - Money gobbler !

 

[MG = Morris Garages; it was the brand used for specials from William Morris'  -no, not the wallpaper and Marxism wallah, the other one - original garage and showroom in Oxford in the 1920s].

Edited July 3, 2021 by CKPR

[wagonman]

34 minutes ago, Annie said:

A well worn mechanic joke:

 

Foreman:  The customer says his engine is missing.

 

Mechanic:  No it's not.  I lifted the bonnet and there it was,

 

I remember opening the bonnet of a 2CV looking for the engine. Eventually found it cowering at the bottom of the large under-bonnet void.

[Hroth]

2 minutes ago, wagonman said:

 

Has anyone mentioned the need to carry a can of Swarfega?

 

That and an old towel would be useful.

 

Trains.  Now trains are a very useful mode of transport.  No one ever asks the passenger to look under the bonnet or get their hands dirty. And no one ever has to get out and push!  Unless you're travelling on the Titfield Light Railway...

 

And another thing, I just found an old railway ticket for the Darjeeling Hill Railway, dated 28th October 1943.  It was from when my father was given a free passage to India, courtesy of HMG/RAF. I've no idea why he went on it.

 

 

 

[Regularity]

Land Rover: serious off-roading.

Because it’s being repaired in the garage.

(A joke told to me by a JLR employee!)

[alastairq]

49 minutes ago, Regularity said:

Land Rover: serious off-roading.

Because it’s being repaired in the garage.

(A joke told to me by a JLR employee!)

 I have to admit, Land Rovers are [or, were?] eminently repairable.

Which, in a way, may seem counter to the reliability questions mooted on here?

But, one has to ask, what might be the land rover's natural environment?

 

I doubt it was perceived as the ''High Street'', or the M4 [whatever that is.....?]

 

Out of sight of mobile signals, or user-friendly neighbours, being 'repairable' might be seen as an attribute, rather than a defect?

 

Things will alway go wrong with any vehicle...potentially. Much will depend on the user, no doubt?   

I read somewhere that the greatest number of attendances by the AA was to fix flat tyres!

 

I believe the 1950's saw the first signs of considering a car to be a ''throwaway'' object?  [In the UK, I should add]

Possibly as consumers were persuaded that 'value' and 'repair' should be inextricably linked, as they are today?

 

Do many people today consider having a worn-out pair of shoes repaired, when the same can be purchased from emporiums for not much more than the repair cost?

The same could be said of the Ford Pop?  [Where Ford would provide an overhauled engine for less than the price of a re-bore?}

 

 

Edited July 3, 2021 by alastairq

[Regularity]

A few years ago, the engine was failing on my VW Touran, and I had a reconditioned one fitted for less than the cost of a replacement car.

Also, worth buying decent shoes and having them resoled immediately by a good cobbler is an exceptional long-term investment. 

[Nearholmer]

54 minutes ago, Regularity said:

A few years ago, the engine was failing on my VW Touran, and I had a reconditioned one fitted for less than the cost of a replacement car.

I’m going through a regret phase now, because when my 15yo Passat Estate automatic needed many thousands of pounds spent on it to revitalise it, I bought a new car instead, another VW. Trouble is, I actually don’t like it very much, and wish I’d reconditioned the old one!

Edited July 3, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Nearholmer]

2 hours ago, wagonman said:

remember opening the bonnet of a 2CV looking for the engine. Eventually found it cowering at the bottom of the large under-bonnet void.

…… with the engine heads, and therefore the plugs, arranged in the most incredibly inaccessible spot, so that checking the plugs becomes a reall, really annoying act of contortion and bashed knuckles.

 

All because the engine design was revised, from a specially-designed one in the prototype, to what amounted to a copy of a BMW motorcycle engine in the production version. Very good engine, but the plugs are a bngger.

[wagonman]

9 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

…… with the engine heads, and therefore the plugs, arranged in the most incredibly inaccessible spot, so that checking the plugs becomes a reall, really annoying act of contortion and bashed knuckles.

 

 

On the subject of awkward plug access, the VW Beetle took some, er, beating. Unless you had a special tool you almost had to take the engine out to get at the wretched things. From memory the van was even worse – the present Mrs W had a VW van we called the yellow peril. The brakes were feeble, the gear change like stirring lumpy porage, and all the while you were acutely aware there was but one layer of metal between you and the mayhem on the road. And to cap it all it was LHD. Crumple zone? That was you, mate.

 

Ah, the stuff of nostalgia.

[alastairq]

2 hours ago, Regularity said:

Also, worth buying decent shoes and having them resoled immediately by a good cobbler is an exceptional long-term investment. 

 But, with the prevalence of mobile phones, and good signals, surely there is no longer a need for 'good' shoes, since one is unlikely to want to walk to the nearest telephone box after breaking down? 

[wagonman]

Telephone box? Now that is seriously nostalgic.

[Hroth]

23 minutes ago, alastairq said:

 But, with the prevalence of mobile phones, and good signals, surely there is no longer a need for 'good' shoes, since one is unlikely to want to walk to the nearest telephone box after breaking down? 

 

Many remaining telephone boxes are now local mini-libraries. You might luck out and find one with some spicy reading material to occupy yourself with whilst awaiting the recovery service...

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-56374012

 

[Nearholmer]

Our nearest one is now a defibrillator station, in case you have a heart attack when you realise that you can’t make that vital phone call.

 

 

Edited July 3, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Regularity]

9 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Our nearest one is now a defibrillator station, in case you have a heart attack when you realise that you can’t make that vital phone call.

Whereas you may have made that vital phone call all on your lonesome, you will need someone to help operate the defibrillator...

[alastairq]

7 minutes ago, Regularity said:

you will need someone to help operate the defibrillator...

 For example....what's the code......?

[Nearholmer]

For severe ischaemic pain, press Button B.

[alastairq]

I've been told not to use the village de-fibb for jump-starting my old cars.....Seems I get oil on the pad thingies, and the ladies don't

like the marks they leave behind...   

 

Also been asked to cease dialling 999 for the First responder to come out to help give my cars a push...apparently that's not what we're supposed to ask our neighbours to do these days?

 

Also, calling out the local  Police to an intruder [ooops, sorry, next doors cat!], and whilst they're at it, can they also fetch me some fish n chips?  No salt  or vinegar, please?

 

{ I pay over 100 pension-pounds a month council tax...if I don't get my money's worth, what price 3 bin collections a fortnight?  }

Edited July 3, 2021 by alastairq

[Welchester]

6 hours ago, CKPR said:

An MG Owners Club 'joke':

 

Q - What does 'MG' actually stand for ?

A - Money gobbler !

 

[MG = Morris Garages; it was the brand used for specials from William Morris'  -no, not the wallpaper and Marxism wallah, the other one - original garage and showroom in Oxford in the 1920s].

 

Despite being a successful businessman and receiving a peerage (Lord Nuffield), William Morris, the car manufacturer) was never fully accepted in Society. The story is told that, as he was leaving a dinner, he asked the servant who handed him his hat and coat, 'How do you know that's my hat?' 'I don't, my Lord,' he was told, 'but it's the one you came with.'