My Ford Focus has nearly 230`000 miles on the clock…it had 8000 when I bought it!! 
bullitt:
My Ford Focus has nearly 230`000 miles on the clock…it had 8000 when I bought it!!
I bet theres some taxis out there with good figures on the clock!
Driveroneuk:
truckerjon:
Best Ford was the 3 series granada. I had a 2.3. then a 2.8, then a 2.8 estate and finally a 2.8 Injection. Comfort and build quality was wayyyyyyy above the Cortina, and the engines, especially the 2.8 were great. The 2.8I was ex police and had not been detuned! went like the proverbial off a shovel!I think you mean mark 2? The “squarish” one. Used to drive them brand new working at a main agents at the time, llovely cars.
Yep your right! my 2.8I had done 199K when I bought it, and that was in 2 years, but everything had been replaced before the police sold it 5 brand new michelin directional tyres, heavy duty battery, etc. i did another 100K on the same engine then sold it to a mechanic and god knows how many more miles he did.
I also had a vauxhall carlton that did 200K but I did rebuild the engine at about 100K.
my fh has done 1,223,899 kms at least maybe it has been round the clock another time in its 13 years and apart from only being a 380 it goes well and not much comes past it on the flat 
What you have to remember is that a vehicle built today has to conform to more construction regs that those built 20 years ago.
Euro 4 & 5 we all know about, & to conform to this you got to add electronic gigery pokery along side the extra mechanical hardware.
When it comes to cars, then there are even more regs to worry about. Crash safety. As well as that people expect far more toys than in the past. AC, leccy windows, air bags etc.
This makes for far more complex & heavier vechices. As as Scotty said. “The more complex you make the plumbing, the easier it is to bugger up the works.”
truckerjon:
mickyblue:
every ford car i have had have never let me downBest Ford was the 3 series granada. I had a 2.3. then a 2.8, then a 2.8 estate and finally a 2.8 Injection. Comfort and build quality was wayyyyyyy above the Cortina, and the engines, especially the 2.8 were great. The 2.8I was ex police and had not been detuned! went like the proverbial off a shovel!
Anything with RS thats RWD. 
The Toyota HI LUX must be a candidate. 
oatcake1967:
truckerjon:
mickyblue:
every ford car i have had have never let me downBest Ford was the 3 series granada. I had a 2.3. then a 2.8, then a 2.8 estate and finally a 2.8 Injection. Comfort and build quality was wayyyyyyy above the Cortina, and the engines, especially the 2.8 were great. The 2.8I was ex police and had not been detuned! went like the proverbial off a shovel!
Anything with RS thats RWD.
Had a 1980 2.8 injection Granny but my old 1974 BMW 3.0 SI would have blown it’s doors off although handling was about the same and both had more go than brakes 
. Cozzy was a four cylinder buzz bomb and it’s all out at 150 mph.A decent modified V12 Jag is turning over at around 5,000 rpm at that speed and can still pull like a train from that up to around 175 mph,better brakes and handling and don’t worry about the fuel consumption because they’re as cheap as chips.
orys:
Friend of mine started his transport company in 1984. He had Star and Kamaz, than Jelcz, than Liaz, and he used to complain that they aren’t reliable. Then he had Renault Major and old MAN and he was impressed how reliable it was.Now, many lorries later, he said to me, that modern lorries needs to visit service about same often, as he had problem with his old Star, Jelcz and Liaz… And it’s even worse, as with the old one he was able to fix everything himself during the weekend, on the street in front of his house. Now it’s all computers, and it costs fortune to fix it.
He thinks that they do it deliberately to make fortune on servicing.
He said that the best lorry ever was Soviet Made Kamaz - it was undestructable, it broke only once during several years, and he fixed the problem using some basic tools, hammer and a part for a Żuk polish van which was suitable after slight modification (by hammer).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gUMFN8JPpU
It’s obviously not a coincidental that they won Paris - Dakar rally so many times…
Until the East European stuff meets some decent yank powered opposition.
youtube.com/watch?v=AmOsj38I9EE
3.51-4.40
“The pinnacle of modern vehicle reliability”.
What a load of bollox, especially when it comes to diesel cars/vans. Back in the old days, a diesel motor would sound like a tractor, vibrate like one and choke you to death on the fumes, but as long as you kept the oil decent and changed the glow plugs regularly it’d never give you any trouble and the rest of the motor would be guaranteed to die before the engine. I speak from experience with an Astra 1.7 (Isuzu lump) and the engine was still going strong at the 250k mark when the rest of the car had fallen apart and went to the big scrapyard in the sky. You could put just about anything in the fuel tank too and it’d run without any fuss.
Compare that to modern diesels and well, there is simply no comparison. To pander to the desires of the customers wanting mega mpg but quiet engines, they kit now kit them all out with DMFs (dual-mass flywheels) to dampen the natural tractor-ness of a diesel engine and get rid of the vibrations to make the engine smoother. This is all well and good for engines with a lowish output, but even many small cars now are putting out 150hp+ from a 1.9 lump and the DMFs just aren’t strong enough to handle the immense torque and they are failing on a very regular basis costing min £500 to replace, plus labour. 
Then there’s the poor quality injectors they stick in them these days. Put anything other than Shell Optimax (or equivalent) in the tank and a few years down the line you’ll be getting a bill for ££££s to replace gunged up injectors from filling up on cheapo supermarket fuel.
Then we come to the biggest failure of them all, the EGR valve. 
Whoever invented this piece of [zb] should be shot. To pander to the tree-huggers and make flowers come out of your exhaust pipe instead of NOX we have these piece of [zb] vacuum valves that take half of our sooty exhaust gasses and shove it back into the engine to supposedly lower the temperature in the combustion chamber, make the fuel burn properly and make sure only flowers come out of the 'zorst. Not surprisingly, shoving a load of oily soot down some thin tubes and through some valves and solenoids is bound to cause problems and guess what, it does, big time. Unless you drive in 2nd gear everywhere or do major motorway miles to keep things flowing, you can virtually guarantee at same point in the not-too-distant-future that your spanner light will come on and the car will go into limp-home mode and then require a new EGR valve fitting at a cost of several hundred quids.
All these problems can be evidenced on a near-daily basis if you take a look at any of the car manufacturer enthusiast forums - pages and pages and pages of them… DMF, injectors, EGR, DMF, injectors, EGR etc etc. Modern diesels are a pile of [zb]. The lure of fast, torquey engines and mega mpg is what attracts people to them (like it did me at one time 
) but the reality is unless you’re doing 1000-miles-a-week motorway mileage to make some savings on fuel, you’re better off sticking to a petrol motor as diesel motors will give you far more headaches than having to spend a couple of quid more on petrol. 
Rob K:
“The pinnacle of modern vehicle reliability”.What a load of bollox, especially when it comes to diesel cars/vans. Back in the old days, a diesel motor would sound like a tractor, vibrate like one and choke you to death on the fumes, but as long as you kept the oil decent and changed the glow plugs regularly it’d never give you any trouble and the rest of the motor would be guaranteed to die before the engine. I speak from experience with an Astra 1.7 (Isuzu lump) and the engine was still going strong at the 250k mark when the rest of the car had fallen apart and went to the big scrapyard in the sky. You could put just about anything in the fuel tank too and it’d run without any fuss.
Compare that to modern diesels and well, there is simply no comparison. To pander to the desires of the customers wanting mega mpg but quiet engines, they kit now kit them all out with DMFs (dual-mass flywheels) to dampen the natural tractor-ness of a diesel engine and get rid of the vibrations to make the engine smoother. This is all well and good for engines with a lowish output, but even many small cars now are putting out 150hp+ from a 1.9 lump and the DMFs just aren’t strong enough to handle the immense torque and they are failing on a very regular basis costing min £500 to replace, plus labour.
Then there’s the poor quality injectors they stick in them these days. Put anything other than Shell Optimax (or equivalent) in the tank and a few years down the line you’ll be getting a bill for ££££s to replace gunged up injectors from filling up on cheapo supermarket fuel.
Then we come to the biggest failure of them all, the EGR valve.
All these problems can be evidenced on a near-daily basis if you take a look at any of the car manufacturer enthusiast forums - pages and pages and pages of them… DMF, injectors, EGR, DMF, injectors, EGR etc etc. Modern diesels are a pile of [zb]. The lure of fast, torquey engines and mega mpg is what attracts people to them (like it did me at one time
Big supercharged old pushrod yank petrol engine V8 for cars and a big supercharged old V12 Meteor/Merlin for trucks both running on LPG should sort it.
Rob K:
“The pinnacle of modern vehicle reliability”.What a load of bollox, especially when it comes to diesel cars/vans. Back in the old days, a diesel motor would sound like a tractor, vibrate like one and choke you to death on the fumes, but as long as you kept the oil decent and changed the glow plugs regularly it’d never give you any trouble and the rest of the motor would be guaranteed to die before the engine. I speak from experience with an Astra 1.7 (Isuzu lump) and the engine was still going strong at the 250k mark when the rest of the car had fallen apart and went to the big scrapyard in the sky. You could put just about anything in the fuel tank too and it’d run without any fuss.
Compare that to modern diesels and well, there is simply no comparison. To pander to the desires of the customers wanting mega mpg but quiet engines, they kit now kit them all out with DMFs (dual-mass flywheels) to dampen the natural tractor-ness of a diesel engine and get rid of the vibrations to make the engine smoother. This is all well and good for engines with a lowish output, but even many small cars now are putting out 150hp+ from a 1.9 lump and the DMFs just aren’t strong enough to handle the immense torque and they are failing on a very regular basis costing min £500 to replace, plus labour.
Then there’s the poor quality injectors they stick in them these days. Put anything other than Shell Optimax (or equivalent) in the tank and a few years down the line you’ll be getting a bill for ££££s to replace gunged up injectors from filling up on cheapo supermarket fuel.
Then we come to the biggest failure of them all, the EGR valve.
All these problems can be evidenced on a near-daily basis if you take a look at any of the car manufacturer enthusiast forums - pages and pages and pages of them… DMF, injectors, EGR, DMF, injectors, EGR etc etc. Modern diesels are a pile of [zb]. The lure of fast, torquey engines and mega mpg is what attracts people to them (like it did me at one time
I know what you mean about modern car diesels we have an 04 plate audi a3 2.0tdi cith close on 100.000 miles and the turbo needs replacin which is a common fault on this vw group engine. it is avalible with 140 or 170 bhp and uses a variable geomertry turbo to extract more power we also have a ford ranger with a 2.5 110 bhp enging which sounds likee a tractor and isnt very nippy but im sure it will clock up a fair mileage aslong as the oil and filters are changed.
Rob K… your right about the Dual Mass Flywheel, I’ve just changed mine on my transit 115 back to a solid much better now. if you looked in the skip where Warwick County council have their’s repaired, it’s full of them.
Rob K:
“The pinnacle of modern vehicle reliability”.What a load of bollox, especially when it comes to diesel cars/vans. Back in the old days, a diesel motor would sound like a tractor, vibrate like one and choke you to death on the fumes, but as long as you kept the oil decent and changed the glow plugs regularly it’d never give you any trouble and the rest of the motor would be guaranteed to die before the engine. I speak from experience with an Astra 1.7 (Isuzu lump) and the engine was still going strong at the 250k mark when the rest of the car had fallen apart and went to the big scrapyard in the sky. You could put just about anything in the fuel tank too and it’d run without any fuss.
Compare that to modern diesels and well, there is simply no comparison. To pander to the desires of the customers wanting mega mpg but quiet engines, they kit now kit them all out with DMFs (dual-mass flywheels) to dampen the natural tractor-ness of a diesel engine and get rid of the vibrations to make the engine smoother. This is all well and good for engines with a lowish output, but even many small cars now are putting out 150hp+ from a 1.9 lump and the DMFs just aren’t strong enough to handle the immense torque and they are failing on a very regular basis costing min £500 to replace, plus labour.
Then there’s the poor quality injectors they stick in them these days. Put anything other than Shell Optimax (or equivalent) in the tank and a few years down the line you’ll be getting a bill for ££££s to replace gunged up injectors from filling up on cheapo supermarket fuel.
Then we come to the biggest failure of them all, the EGR valve.
All these problems can be evidenced on a near-daily basis if you take a look at any of the car manufacturer enthusiast forums - pages and pages and pages of them… DMF, injectors, EGR, DMF, injectors, EGR etc etc. Modern diesels are a pile of [zb]. The lure of fast, torquey engines and mega mpg is what attracts people to them (like it did me at one time
I think after the start of the post you actually agreed with me
Dieseldogsix:
Rob K… your right about the Dual Mass Flywheel, I’ve just changed mine on my transit 115 back to a solid much better now. if you looked in the skip where Warwick County council have their’s repaired, it’s full of them.
Hope you put a Valeo conversion kit in it, if not expect a snapped crank next.
I was under the impression that most of the Scania 112 engines snapped cranks too, it seemed to get a bad press around my own area.
Wheel Nut:
I was under the impression that most of the Scania 112 engines snapped cranks too, it seemed to get a bad press around my own area.
As a non Scania fan to be fair it might have been caused by some drivers using the let it lug philosophy of the old Gardners they graduated from.
Carryfast:
Wheel Nut:
I was under the impression that most of the Scania 112 engines snapped cranks too, it seemed to get a bad press around my own area.As a non Scania fan to be fair it might have been caused by some drivers using the let it lug philosophy of the old Gardners they graduated from.
Quite possibly, but it didn’t seem to affect the 110/111 or 92/93 or 113
Carryfast:
Until the East European stuff meets some decent yank powered opposition.youtube.com/watch?v=AmOsj38I9EE
3.51-4.40
Yeah, after collapse of Soviet Union, not much happened to Kamaz developement.
Tatra also barely survived system transformation, many other Eastern European competitors went bust - there is no more Jelcz trucks, Star last time when I checked was just the assembly plant for outdated MAN lorries, Skoda don’t do trucks anymore…
But also Dakar rally is no longer what it used to be…
Yet, I am in Wrocław now, there is plenty of road construction going on and amount of old Kamaz tippers driving arround of town is enourmous. I think I might do some pics for you if you (plural you - as a forum members) are interested.
orys:
Carryfast:
Until the East European stuff meets some decent yank powered opposition.youtube.com/watch?v=AmOsj38I9EE
3.51-4.40
Yeah, after collapse of Soviet Union, not much happened to Kamaz developement.
Tatra also barely survived system transformation, many other Eastern European competitors went bust - there is no more Jelcz trucks, Star last time when I checked was just the assembly plant for outdated MAN lorries, Skoda don’t do trucks anymore…
But also Dakar rally is no longer what it used to be…
Yet, I am in Wrocław now, there is plenty of road construction going on and amount of old Kamaz tippers driving arround of town is enourmous. I think I might do some pics for you if you (plural you - as a forum members) are interested.
We as a plural is interested innit
That would be great Orys. I have also got great recollections of the old Czech lorry parc