Sheeeit!!! I long for the days when a tune up involved a spark plug change, air filter, new condenser and points. We have some old vehicles …1979 Chevy van, 1976 one ton pickup, 1976 Chevy Blazer and they all run great. My 08 2500 is parked all summer and fall now with 305,000 km and no serious problems yet and I run it around winter and spring when the van is parked. Met a guy with a old Pontiac and he told me he was happy to get back to the days of cheap tune ups, no computer sheeit, no off shore manufacturing of vital components for autos and a driving experience that neither bankrupted you purchasing or maintaining a vehicle. The guy was smart. Van was my father's and mother and brother just gave it to me. Mechanics were shocked at the absence of rust and it sailed through the safety without breaking my wallet. He oiled it all the time twice a year and never drove it in the winter. I require the 2500 08 for winter driving as a work truck and to haul a truck camper to and up the Colorado Rockies but it will be reduced in mileage about twenty grand a year and maybe more. Van is driven from early spring when salt is not needed on roads to late fall until first snow. I see more and more guys with brains doing this. I learned from observation and am doing the same thing. BTW, insurance on the van is three hundred and change for basic with the best insurer ever, Wawanesa. Do not have to break the bank for insurance either on older vehicles. It is in process of being restored aka new paint, rear springs and shocks, replacement on the 305 with a 4 barrel which will increase mileage from the current 18.6 mpg and rear locker. (I use it for getaways to forestry access roads 90 minutes from here and take my TE300i in it and use it as a base to explore the many miles of trails that can take me to cities like Renfrew, Arnprior, Calabogie, Ottawa, Pembroke etc but I stay mainly in the solitude of the backwoods areas with pristine lakes and rivers, NO NOISE, and few people. It is a short wheelbase model outfitted to camp in.
I have my eye on an old Dodge half ton early eighties vintage and am seriously considering and restoring and I do not mean me, I mean professional body work people and mechanics, one who lives right next door to me with his own shop and we swap services.
For sure modern/new is not always true and the old vehicles were made simple and stronger with better materials. I am not telling anything you old timers here do not already know.
Used to be able to buy any brand of the Big 3 and drive the wheels off it with NO SERIOUS PROBLEMS the life of the vehicle. Today we see the blaring of high tech but with a serious price tag attached and damned CYSTem taxes that are criminal in scope imposed by cadleswerps who have the IQ of a dry sponge.
