thegarageblog.co.uk : Sometimes it’s kinder to put it out of its misery.

Although new cars are getting ever more reliable and owners are enjoying longer intervals between servicing, there’s still plenty of older cars on the road that are more frequent visitors to our workshop. I’ve mentioned before in a previous post about the well-known problem of the Rover K Series engine and its habit of overheating and blowing the cylinder head gasket. Whilst obviously not much fun for the owner when they do break down, they’re relatively easy (if not cheap) to fix, and once repaired properly are generally good for another 3 years or so.

Because many owners wouldn’t bother to keep an ageing Rover too long for fear of the same problem happening again, it’s quite rare for us to see one back for another head gasket. Last week though, one of our regular customers came in with a severe water leak from the front of the engine. A quick pressure test of the cooling system revealed that the steady stream of water was coming from the cylinder head, where it joined the block – an obvious sign that the head gasket was leaking. Now, I vaguely recall having had that same car in for a head gasket some time ago, so a look at the service history revealed that it was almost 4 years ago. At the time when we originally changed it, the car was still worth something and there was no question as to whether the £500 or so that the job cost was worth doing or not. The actual car is a 1994 model and although it’s only covered around 80,000 miles, it’s now 14 years old and is practically worthless. Allowing for inflation and increase in labour charges since 2004, the job now would cost around £550, yet the car will only be worth £350 maximum, if someone was even prepared to buy it.

I thought I’d have a quick look back through our computer records to see how much the owner had spent on keeping this old Rover going over the years, and I have to admit I was rather surprised. It turned out that they’d spent over £3000 in the last 6 years or so. Now, that might not be a great deal compared to a big BMW or Mercedes, where things like tyres are very expensive, but this is a basic 1.4 litre Rover 400.

Despite me explaining the total cost of the job, plus the fact that ideally it’ll also need a new radiator soon as the old one is riddled with rust and is therefore going to cost much more that the car is worth, they still asked us to go ahead and repair it. My opinion was that it wasn’t worth repairing, as even if the car was working properly, they’d never even be able to recover half of the cost of the repairs. So, why would someone want to spend so much money on something that’s just not worth it?

Personally, I don’t get too sentimental about m cars. Don’t get me wrong, I’m far more passionate than most people about them and have fond memories of many of the 50+ cars I’ve owned over the years, but a car is after all just a lump of metal and doesn’t have a soul (as such). I’ve never understood people that keep the same mundane hatchback for 15 years, announcing proudly that they’re going to ‘run it into the ground’. I mean, some people can’t even keep the same spouse for more than a year and they’re usually a lot more hassle to change! The problem is that many people have an irrational fear of change and so become so comfortable with their old car, that they never imagine a future with a newer (and usually more reliable) model.

Just as an elderly lady with an injured 15 year old cat might easily spend £700 or her life savings at the veterinary hospital having ‘Tiddles’s’ leg fixed after an accident, only for the poor creature to be run over again fatally the next week, the owner of an M reg. Rover or Escort might spend £700 having the head gasket replaced, only for the gearbox to pack-up the following month. In either case, if you used your head raher than your heart, you’d save a fortune! Tiddles may have had a wonderful life but instead of having him limp around for another few months, any caring veterinary surgeon would surely offer the opinion that it might be better to have the animal ‘put down’. Vets use a lovely acroynm amongst themselves for this procedure. It’s known as ‘PTS’ (Put to Sleep)

As a caring garage proprietor, I will often (over a coffee) discuss with the owner of a sickly early 1990’s car that needs a fortune spending, as to why it might be the better option to simply STS (that’s my own acronym for Send to Scrapyard). Although many owners are reluctant to let go of their ageing vehicle, many often see sense and start to talk about a possible replacement. It’s not uncommon that the owner may not have driven any other car for the last 15 years, and may even imagine that new cars are harder to drive. The fact is that car technology and refinement has progressed so much in the last 15 years that even the lowliest of models will feel far better to drive and be far safer than its teenage equivalent.

Sometimes, I’ll offer the customer a courtesy car while we diagnose their car’s faults and this is often all it takes to change their mind. If you’ve driven an old Rover for 10 years, even a 1.0 litre, 2007 Toyota Aygo is going to be a revelation in terms of ease of driving and may make you feel like you’ve been ‘missing out’ all these years.

The fact is that used cars have never been cheaper than now, and even a modest budget of £2000 can get you into something that’s only 5 years old and has plenty of life left in it. Better still, if you buy a used car with a full service history that’s already had a fortune spent, you should be able to enjoy a few years of relatively cheap motoring – unless you choose to buy a 5 year old Rover or MG! They’ll still need their cylinder head gaskets changing every 3 years or so until the last one left is in the scrapyard!