A throw away society..

[StaffsMoggie]

I saw something yesterday that really showed how wasteful some have become. I needed a part for a mates van and was looking around a breakers yard for one. Now its been a while since I used a tat yard but what a surprise this one was! There were cars in there that were barely ten years old. Rover ZRs, ZSs were sitting on top of Saxos and Corsas..

Then I saw it, a Rover 75, on an 04 plate, dumped in a pool of mud with an escort on top. I opened the door, it still smelled new inside!

What a waste.

[C6Dave]

Doesn't take much of a 'shunt' to make a car 'beyond economic repair' these days for Insurance purposes. Outwardly a plastic bumper may look scratched, but they spring back leaving deformed floor pans etc. etc.

An 04 plate is 6/7 years old and if an engine blows it's often cheaper just to buy another car, than attempt repair for the average motorist given the complexity of modern vehicles with their electronic systems.

It's one of the reasons why there are so many 'Moggies' still out there on the road, only basic skills are required to fix most mechanical issues, the rust though is a bit different

[morris van]

I had a 2000 x reg VW Golf which I had to scrap when it was 5 1/2 years old as it had so many faults and it went rusty and I had it main dealer maintained.

[chrisd87]

I suspect the problem is a mixture of expensive, complicated mechanical parts, plus today's high garage labour costs. A friend when I was at uni scrapped an otherwise perfectly good Omega because the head gasket went, and would have cost £750 for a garage to replace it (including skimming the head). The gasket and head skim were relatively cheap, the problem was that on an OHC engine taking the head off and refitting was a very time consuming job. Obviously on a Minor a head gasket swap is a £10, 2-hour easy DIY job. Likewise I've seen a car get scrapped because of a dodgy clutch - the parts involved would have cost about £150 but the labour to actually replace it would have cost several times that. I would be interested to see how long the current batch of common-rail turbo diesel cars last, given that if anything goes wrong with the fuel pump, injectors, turbo or DPF it's big bills time.

One thing I will say about modern cars is that when manufacturers apply themselves, the problem of rust is very well solved by modern techniques. We have a 19-year-old car that's led a hard life as a family hack and general abuse-taker, and there's hardly any rust on it and has never required any welding. Imagine how many more Minors would still be around if they all had that level of rust-resistance from the factory!

[Matt]

We have a 19-year-old car that's led a hard life as a family hack and general abuse-taker, and there's hardly any rust on it

Its not a ford then

On the latest transit TDCi engines (~2003 onwards) injectors are around £200 each (+ VAT) and the tend to fail at around 80-100,000 miles - AND they need coding in!

[morris van]

Only 3 weeks ago I saw a nice Minor Pickup on it's way to a scrap yard on the back of breakers lorry.The yard is only a mile from my house.At the scrap yard near me there was lots of classic cars there.There was a MK 2 Jag,Lotus Cortina,MGBs and Morris Minors all end up going banger racing.

[StaffsMoggie]

Yards seem less inclined to keep classics to one side for possible sale as projects than they used to. Possibly due to the vast increase in the value of scrap metal now.

[StaffsMoggie]

We have a 19-year-old car that's led a hard life as a family hack and general abuse-taker, and there's hardly any rust on it

Its not a ford then

On the latest transit TDCi engines (~2003 onwards) injectors are around £200 each (+ VAT) and the tend to fail at around 80-100,000 miles - AND they need coding in!

Presumably the same applies to Landrovers with those engines. From a simple vehicle to an over complicated one.....